Report of Annual Meeting 
of the 
Percheron Society of America 
Held in the Florentine Room of the Congress Hotel on Monday, Dec. 1, 1919 
Beginning at 8:00 O'Glock P. M. 
President White : Gentlemen, the meeting will now 
come to order. 
Assistant Secretary McFarland will pass the roll-call 
cards and I will ask each one of you to sign a card. 
Please give also your postoffice address so that we will 
have a roll of all members present. 
(Whereupon the cards were collected and passed to 
the committee.) 
President White: The first order of business is the President's 
address. Just before coming into this room I said to a close 
friend of mine, a member of this Society, that I believed I would 
just get up and state to you gentlemen that I would not make 
any address, but would have it printed in the Percheron Eeview 
and request all of you to read it. He said: "I think that would 
satisfy me all right and will probably satisfy anyone who has 
ever heard you make an address, but there might be some who 
never heard you and might be disappointed. ' ' I think he is abso- 
lutely correct in that, but I had another disappointment in my 
life as a public speaker. I have told you many times that I have 
never had any practice in making speeches, but I thought I was 
getting along pretty well and was beginning to pat myself on the 
shoulder (no one else ever patted me); but I was down to New 
York about four weeks ago; was called on very unexpectedly to 
make an address, and did so. Another member of the Percheron 
Society was there. After the meeting was over, I went to my 
hotel and went to bed. About 1 o 'clock there came a gentle tap- 
ping on my door. I was asleep, but the tapping continued until I 
awakened. I got up, opened the door, and there was my friend, 
a fellow-member of the Percheron Society, and I said: "What 
are you doing? What are you doing here at this time of the 
night?" He replied: "Oh, tonight, I believe, I am in a condition 
to tell the truth ; tomorrow, I might not be. So, before going to 
bed, I thought I would come around and tell you that I think you 
made a damned poor speech." (Applause and laughter.) With 
those two setbacks in mind, gentlemen, I have prepared a written 
statement bearing on tlie Percheron horse and on the affairs of our 
Society which I will ask your indulgence to read. 
Another year has passed and we are compelled to admit that 
there has been no improvement in the horse market which so 
vitally concerns every member of your Society. For the last 
there years, in my annual address, I have stated it to be my 
opinion that the worst has passed and that the future was bright. 
I am almost afraid to make any further predictions; not because 
I have no opinion on this subject, but because my opinions as 
expressed at so many of our annual meetings have proved of no 
value. It seems to me that everything that could happen to injure 
the horse market has happened. I felt sure when the armistice 
was signed we would have from Europe a big demand for draft- 
ers. Prom other sources that seem reliable came the information 
that these people were in great need for horse power. 
I believe Secretary Dinsniore told me that there are twenty-one 
million horses in this country. Isn't that correct? 
Secretary Dinsmore : Yes, twenty-one million on farms in this 
country. 
President White : Yes, about twenty-one million on farms. 
Just think, gentlemen, more than ten million of these horses the 
advocates of mechanical power propose to displace. If this were 
true, it would merely cut our demand for hay and grains to that 
extent. It is the surplus of any product that makes the price. 
If we raise six hundred million bushels of wheat in this coun- 
try and require but five hundred million bushels for human food, 
it is not the five hundred million bushels that sets the market 
price, but the one hundred million bushels surplus wheat that sets 
the market price for the five hundred million. If we farmers are 
led into the purchase and use of tractors and trucks, we are 
being persuaded to use a two-edged sword which will curtail o"^ur 
market for horses, reduce the price for same, and which will also 
curtail the demand for hays and grains, and reduce the price 
of these farm products. I do not believe that farm products are 
high, considering the cost of labor and the buying power of the 
dollar which the farmer gets for his crops. I do not believe he 
is making money enough, even now, to turn his head or to make 
him silly. 
I am still firmly convinced that our future for the draft horse 
is bright and that there is a great demand for horses abroad. 
Unfortunately, shipments made early this past spring by enter- 
prising American firms suflPered heavy losses on account of being 
crowded on the steamers. The ocean freight rate was, and still is, 
out of all proportion to the value of the animals being trans- 
ported. Furthermore, after our exporters have gone to great 
expense in purchasing and assembling animals, have taken the 
risk of loss in shipment, have paid abnormally high ocean trans- 
portation rates, they encounter a still greater obstacle in the rate 
of exchange, for they are paid in French francs prices which 
would leave an ample profit under normal exchange conditions, 
but which now represent an actual loss on account of the great 
depreciation in value of European money. These difficulties have 
stopped exportations, but I believe this is only temporary. It, to 
me, cannot seem possible that with all the countries of Central 
Europe at war for five years there are left there horses in 
sufficient numbers to produce the maximum amount of human 
food. Food was scarce in Europe to the extent that human 
beings suffered. The grains a horse eats a human can eat, and 
besides this, the human being can eat a horse; therefore, in their 
distressing situation, I cannot believe other than that every horse 
that could possibly be spared was killed and eaten. It has often 
been said that the darkest hour of the night is just before the 
day breaks. I believe that this applies to our horse situation. 
