President Hendershot: All in favor of the motion signify by saying "Aye;" contrary, "No." The ayes have it. It is unanimously voted.

What is your further wish, gentlemen? If there is no other business, we will adjourn.

1

A member: Move we adjourn until tomorrow-at what hour? Secretary Mellor: 9:30; at Room 105, State Farm, same old room we have always met in.

Mr. Rudge: There was nothing done with reference to what Mr. Mellor had read there, in regard to the bill that has been prepared, and it seems to me we ought to have expression from the body here, if they have the time tonight, in regard to that bill. Let us see what the feeling is. I am very much in accord with having that bill presented, and I believe that the right persons to present that bill would be the committee on agriculture up at the house to present that bill; have it come as a committee bill from the committee on agriculture, if they will do that. The committee can be appointed, if you see fit to have that committee present the bill as a committee bill. We ought to appoint a committee here to fix this bill, and have a meeting with the committee on agriculture, and have it presented by them.

President Hendershot: Do you make that as a motion, Mr. Rudge? Mr. Rudge: I make a motion that the chair appoint a committee of three to present the bill that has been drafted there to the commitee on agriculture, to be presented to the House, asking them to put that bill in as a committee bill. (Motion seconded.)

President Hendershot: You have heard the motion. It has been moved and seconded that the chair appoint a committee of three to present this bill to the committee on agriculture of the legislature for this appropriation. Are you ready for the question? ("Question.") All in favor of the motion signify by saying "Aye;" contrary, "No." Carried. We will announce the committee tomorrow.

If there is no other business before the house, a motion to adjourn to 9:30 tomorrow morning, at Room 105, State Farm, will be in order.

Mr. Rudge: Before we adjourn I wish to say that the meeting tonight, you remember, will be at the Commercial Club rooms, right over on the corner here, on the second floor, in the Fraternity Building; and the supper will be ready at 6:30.

Secretary Mellor: Now, everybody come.

Members: Sure!

President Hendershot: It has been moved and seconded we adjourn. All in favor of the motion signify by saying "Aye;" contrary, "No." Adjourned to 9:30 tomorrow morning.

EVENING SESSION.

TUESDAY EVENING, January 17, 1911.

About 120 guests partook of the supper at the Commercial Club rooms and enjoyed the substantial refreshment.

At about 8:00 P. M. Toastmaster G. W. Hervey called the attention of those present to the progam for the evening.

RAILROADS AND COST OF LIVING.

Address of B. F. Yoakum, chairman St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad Co., at The Temple, Lincoln, Nebraska, January 17, 1911.

None of the investigations which have been made by Congress, by commissions, by any department of the Government, by any economic institution or society, or by private inquiry has shown that the cost of railroad transportation has anything to do with the increased cost of living.

The railroads have to pay their share of the increased cost of labor and supplies, but these increased expenses have not been met by adding to the cost of transporting food and clothing or other articles used by the people. I know that the retailer often replies in answer to complaints of high prices that old prices are impossible on account of higher freight rates. Such replies are misleading. All investigations show that the railroad charge for carrying products from the producer to the user is small compared with the profits and expenses paid to the merchant.

Let us get down to the bottom of this subject. Broad unsupported statements made either by politicians or railroad officials mean but little unless facts are given and the subject is analyzed.

Twelve years ago $10 would pay for the same house furnishing goods that it now requires $13.20 to buy in Nebraska and other western states. Ten dollars would then purchase the same amount of wire nails as cost $12.30 today. It then only required $10 to buy the same amount of agricultural implements and lumber as $16.40 buys now.

Conditions are just the reverse when it comes to paying freight bills, as $9 will purchase the same amount of transportation as $10 were required to pay for twelve years ago, although the railroads have to stand the same high cost of living as yourselves. To illustrate how rapidly the cost of living has advanced to the railroads within the last twelve years: Labor has advanced.

Coal

Steel rails and ties.

Taxes

.35%

.40%

.60%

.85%

and so it runs through every article required in the maintenance and operation of railroads.

If the price of the things generally used by the farmers and by the consumers had decreased as have the railroad rates, notwithstanding that it is costing the railroads approximately 40 per cent. more to do business, the cost of living to the public would have been 10 per cent, lower instead of from 30 to 65 per cent. higher than it was twelve years ago.

It has been a problem of no small importance to keep sufficient people on farms to feed those in towns. According to the census reports 33 persons out of every 100 in the United States are farmers.

In France, the most prosperous country of Europe, in many ways the most thrifty nation in the world, 60 out of every 100 are farm workers. In England, directly across the Channel, about 25 out of every 100 are farmers.

Lloyd George, chancellor of the exchequer of England, showed the effect of England's condition in a recent speech in which he said that 7 per cent. of the people of England are in helpless poverty and 30 per cent. are part of the time on the verge of starvation.

The statistics of other countries are not necessary to show that we are confronted by rural problems of our own which are pressing for immediate solution, and which are of greater importance than any other question.

Our government and our lawmakers can better afford to increase their efforts and devote more of their time and energy to aiding the farmer than to give so much time to other less important public questions. It is the business side of country life that interests me more than the social or sentimental side.

I am a believer in good business methods. The bee, the most intelligent of all insects, and by many naturalists placed next to man, is shown by observations covering a period of more than a century, to be making a businesslike effort to reduce the number of drones in each hive. The drones are non-workers and the bees have had sense enough to see that it is economy to get along with fewer of that class of insects which produce nothing and are only in the way.

It will do the country good if farmers will patiently study the business policy of bees towards their drones. In the past farmers have given too little consideration to the economical handling of their products and to the expenses and profits paid to those who do not produce. Farmers have listened to political agitators who denounce railroads and trusts but have nothing to offer in the way of lower costs in handling farm products and larger returns to farmers.

We can now discuss this matter frankly as farmers are commencing to take advantage of trust methods. They no longer have any false notions about using good business sense in getting good prices. The Farmers' Grain Co-operative Association, The California Fruit Growers' Association, the Texas Southwestern Truck Growers' Association, and many others that are organized to handle the products of the farm, depend for success upon the application of business methods which it was

formerly the fashion to condemn as trust methods. The trusts were pioneers in reducing the cost of manufacture and distribution, thereby increasing profits. In the elimination of competition individual hardships resulted, but this could not be helped, any more than in the introduction of labor saving machinery, men are thrown out of work. The principle of the farmers' co-operative societies is to adopt the same methods in reducing for mutual profit the expense of trading between the producers and users.

The farmers' co-operative society adopts as its first and basic principle, the proposition of giving to the members a pro rata share in the increased returns resulting from a decreased cost of marketing or selling.

The growth of the organizations of farmers will be the next important step in the development of the country. We will then have commercialized farming. There are now in this country several thousand farmers' organizations which have been created for the purpose of getting greater returns to farmers and to make reductions of selling cost of their products in the markets. Too many retail middlemen are to the farmers what the drones are to the bees. The bee said the fewer of these nonworkers the better, and he reduced the number. The farmer is saying the fewer of these non-working profit takers along the line, the better, and he is reducing the number, selling through established agencies of his own selection, taking part of the returns himself, and willing to divide the savings with the consumers. This movement has made much greater progress in the United Kingdom and continental countries than in the United States, but we are learning rapidly and adopting the methods slowly.

The organization of co-operative societies in England commenced in 1844 with twenty-eight members. In 1908, the last statistics we have, the members are given as 2,516,000 and the profits $55,665,000. They show over 33 per cent. advance to the producers without hurting the co

sumers.

The farmers' business organizations of Ireland, France and Germany all show rapid growth, with large profits to their numbers.

In Denmark in 1881, when co-operation was first taken up, the producers received for butter, eggs and bacon twelve million dollars. In 1906, the last statistics we have, through co-operative organizations that business had increased to the farmer to seventy-eight million dollars. Their co-operative dairies number 162,000, and the egg export societies of Denmark have 22,000 members. This industry is now bringing them ten million dollars a year.

Denmark is a low country with an area of 15,000 square miles. Ne braska is five times as large as that country, yet for the past twenty-five years Denmark's history is unparalleled for prosperity among its farmers, principally due to the business way in which the producers handle their products.

As in older countries, co-operation among our farmers is of the greatest

importance. A man has only performed half his duty to himself and his family when he produces a crop. The other half is to market it to the best advantage.

This is a day of co-operation. The success attained through organization with our timber lands, coal lands, minerals and manufacturing industries, and by our merchants and organizations of commerce could not have been realized by individual effort. These industries have their agents for buying, for selling, and have forces working together to make every dollar in profit by saving every dollar in expense.

It would be unreasonable to expect the farmers of the country to advance their interests through individual effort. It can only be done through organization.

To illustrate, if a community of farmers owns a milion bushels of wheat which is worth 90 cents in the market, and it costs say 12 cents a bushel for elevator charges and transportation, a purchaser must furnish over a million dollars in cash to pay the farmers and hold the wheat for a favorable market to sell. The farmers are the owners of this million bushels of grain, and the cash required by them, if they are organized to hold their grain for a favorable market in which to sell, would only be $120,000. Therefore, they can carry and ship their own grain to market with a small cash requirement, as against the present method where they haul their grain to town and sell it at the best price they can get.

The same applies to other agricultural products, and the instrument that can be of the greatest service in facilitating the establishment of warehouses and aid in marketing your products is the railroad which you have heard condemned and preached against by those engaged in the well established political industry of the country.

Secretary Wilson, in his recent report, estimates the cost of distribution of farm products between the producer and the consumer at over 50 per cent. of their value.

This is a nine billion dollar crop country. Therefore, the distributing cost, according to the Agricultural Department's estimate, is four and one-half billion dollars a year. If one-half of this, through proper business methods, could be saved to the farmers, it would mean a saving of over two billion dollars annually. There could be no better or bigger reason given why the farmers should apply business methods to the handling of their products. At present, needless profits and unnecessary expenses are enormous; and they will continue to be big and will keep the cost of living high until the farmer advances through organization to a point where he can use the best business methods in marketing his crops.

You can depend upon the co-operation of the railroads in working out. your problems if you will take them up in a business like way, but we should deal direct. Politicians are not needed as go-betweens. I have attended business conferences between representative farmers and railroad