Number of food animals slaughtered under Government inspection during calendar year 1909, by cities-Continued.

Number of food animals slaughtered under Government inspection during calendar year 1909, by cities-Continued.

Mr. COWAN. Now, who are the consumers in behalf of whom this proposition is made? The answer may be "everybody." Everybody is engaged in doing something, either in producing something or selling his time, his effort, and his labor for a price. Everybody is interested in securing the best returns that he can get for what he does. And the consumer is vitally interested in what he gets for what he does, to the same extent, precisely, as he is in what he pays for what he buys. I can not conceive it to be the fact that the laboring element of the people of this country, who have been most adverted to as beneficiaries under this free listing of meats, can demand that anything should be done which would result in destroying the purchasing power of the farmer or the stock raiser. I have yet to see where they have taken any action of that sort. We all concede, of course, that good wages are the salvation of the country, but the farmer is a laborer; he converts his labor into what he sells, and I undertake to lay it down as a proposition which can not be gainsaid that if you will take the present actual fair value of the farm in the State of Missouri, in the State of Iowa, in the State of Mississippi, or in the State of Texas, or any State, and allow the man the current rate of interest on his investment, and if you allow him for every hand's turn, for every labor, and for every service, and for everything he and his children do, as the other manufacturing establishments compute their expenses, as the railroads compute their expenses, and then you put on the one side his gross earnings from what he sells, and deduct his expenses and the interest on the money that is current in his neighborhood, he is working under a deficit in every State to-day. The farmer's product represents his labor, and he is as much entitled to be protected in his labor as other laboring men, and they know that and accept that, and I do not believe that the laboring men of this country will demand or do demand or wish that meat should be placed on the free list, if to do so forces the farmers to produce it without a profit; and if they do, they are advocating a proposition which they can not sustain, for the farmer has exactly the same right to say: "We will take the tariff off of your manufactured article, so that you will produce it without a profit, in order that we may buy it and thus reduce your wages as you have compelled us to reduce ours."

I can not see the philosophy that underlies the proposition to put farm products and meats on the free list; neither can I see the justifi

cation in any system of tariff, of saying that you will put anything on the free list for the purpose of benefiting a certain class that is class legislation-because it applies the system of tariff to the benefit of one class and to the detriment of another. Here it is proposed to pass a certain free list on the theory that we are going to want tariff for revenue, but it is known that we are going to leave the balance of the list untouched, and it is admitted that that is very high, so there is one element of the country where I live and people are engaged in producing cattle, hogs, and sheep, and working and tilling the soil, raising feed and corn, hay, and the like, and you are going to put us on a free-list basis when it is claimed that neither party advocates free trade. That is the worst class of free trade to put one element of the country on a protected basis and put the other on a free-trade basis. My proposition does not come to the point of asking what a tariff ought to be; it comes to the point of demanding that you do not discriminate by the system that you provide.

I believe that the people in this country will understand it. I do not know a single man engaged in the live-stock business in Texas or anywhere else who is in favor of the free-list proposition with regard to meats, and I do not know a single one who is tempted by the fact that you are offering him cheap bagging and ties, or rather free bagging and ties, and free agricultural implements, and taking away from him the rights which he believes he ought to have to produce in this country what the people eat in this country.

Senator MCCUMBER. What possible gain could he receive from free agricultural implements? Where would he get them from? Who manufactures them to bring into this country?

Mr. COWAN. I am not acquainted with that subject, but I am under the impression that we will continue to buy Oliver chilled plows, although you might buy some other from Germany somewhat cheaper, or from some other place; but, however that may be, he can not be compensated-take a man for example with a section of land in western Texas, coming from Iowa, who bought it, and put 20 acres under cultivation, and he raises 20 bales of cotton, and on the balance of it he has 50 head of cattle. You put him on the free-trade basis with cattle, reducing his cattle 2 cents a pound, or $20 a head, if they weigh a thousand pounds each. Reduce the price of cotton seed, because it can not be fed to cheap cattle, by $3 a ton-if he raises 20 bales of cotton he will have 10 tons of seed. He has lost $30 on that. The difference in the tariff on the agricultural implements and wire and windmills will not amount to even the $30 on the cotton seed. People are aware of those things, and the assumption is that if you take the tariff off of agricultural implements and things of that kind, you will compensate him for the loss of putting him on a free-trade basis for his products, which involves the assumption that he spends everything he makes for agricultural implements and these other things that are on the tariff list.

Senator MCCUMBER. Does not that involve another proposition, that he must buy his agricultural implements every year, when as a matter of fact, the plow should last him 8 or 10 years, his wire fence should last him 10 years, and his wagon should last him 10 or 15 years, while the things which he is selling he turns off annually?

Mr. COWAN. I think that is quite correct. Now, the argument in support of the proposition to sell live stock and its products on the free-trade basis, if that is what it means, if there is any merit to it, it is based on the proposition that the cost of living should be reduced.

Senator HEYBURN. Right there I would call your attention to the fact that the census of 1900 shows that those engaged in agricultural pursuits were 10,381,765; that is, more than one-third of the people engaged in all kinds of labor in the United States.

Mr. CowAN. I did not have those figures in my mind, but I thank you for putting them in for me at this place.

Senator HEYBURN. It shows that of stock raisers and herders there are 34,898, and of butchers, 113,193.

Mr. COWAN. We must understand, of course, as all gentlemen engaged in the live-stock business do, that the complex conditions and situations in the farm districts where live stock is produced are such that every part of the community is interested in live stock and in the production of feed stuffs for live stock, as it affects the value of the land, the prosperity of the merchant, the ability of the banker to do business, the doctor to collect his fees, the lawyer to get anything, and even the preacher to be paid.

I lay it down as a proposition that it is not possible for the farmer and the stock raiser to have an average market for their products above a reasonable profit, certainly in all those things of which we can produce enough to supply our own consumption. The reason for this lies in the fact that our country is capable of producing grain, hay, hogs, cattle, horses, and mules sufficient to supply the demand of double the population that we have in this country to-day, and whenever the profits of business are such that those engaged in it can have a reasonable assurance in the undertaking of a profitable business for any long period of time, the production will increase because nearly every farmer can increase his production and everyone can go into the business, and we have moved the people into the cities because heretofore we have not made profit enough to attract people to agriculture compared to what they can get by moving to the cities. Senator STONE. I would like to ask you if there is any other member of your delegation, if you have a delegation here, who desires to be heard?

Mr. CowAN. Only two gentlemen-Mr. Lasater, the president of the Cattle Raisers' Association, who sits here, and Mr. Burke, of Nebraska. They are the only two, and their testimony will not be long.

The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed, Mr. Cowan.

Mr. CowAN. I desire, in order to save time, to submit the following details and conclusions. In the figures there given I have undertaken to demonstrate the proposition that we have now in this country, according to the estimate of the Agricultural Department, of the total number of beef animals, using the percentages which have been used in Bulletin 55, of the meat supply, a surplus of cattle in this country now of considerably more than 1,000,000 head above the surplus that we had in 1900 of beef cattle, exclusive of calves.

I have already pointed out about what our exports were as I went along, but the figures are contained there, as are contained also the figures of the slaughtering at the different points, and it will not be useful to take up your time with that now.

(The statement above referred to is as follows:)

Occasionally prices may fluctuate below a reasonable profit, but when that happens for any period of time it will reduce the production and then they will come back again as the lessened production shall tend to increase the prices. The great law of supply and demand will automatically control it, so far as the farmer is concerned, in the absence of trusts and combinations which may fix prices.

Trusts and combinations should be prohibited and the law of supply and demand permitted to operate naturally, but trusts can not be prohibited and the law of supply and demand brought into active operation by the destruction of the producer himself.

It is claimed that the object of this free-list bill is to destroy the hold which the great packers of the United States have upon the meat industry. That claim ignores the important fact that they have already acquired the same character of interest in the meat production and supply in the countries where the surplus must, for the present, come from, which they have in this country.

They already have their storage houses, agencies, representatives, and large investments at our best ports and centers of consumption and can therefore more cheaply handle the business out of the packing houses which they already have in Argentina, or those which they may establish elsewhere, than can independent concerns not supplied with the facilities for doing business in this country.

MARKET COMPETITION IN SALE OF CATTLE.

The number of food animals slaughtered under Government inspection during the calendar year 1909, this being the last year for which figures are obtainable. as stated in the table taken from pages 319 and 320, Annual Report of the Bureau of Animal Industry for 1909, was 7,703,714 head, of which the slaughter at the principal markets was as follows:

The slaughter at all other markets where inspection is maintained was 2,312,912 head. It thus appears that practically one-third of the cattle slaughtered, exclusive of calves, were slaughtered at cities other than those named. Armour, Swift, Morris, the National Packing Co., Schwarzschild & Sulzberger, and Cudahy are the main operators at the cities named.

The receipts of cattle at those markets, as shown by the Monthly Summary of Internal Commerce for the month of December, 1910, at page 537, published by the Bureau of Statistics of the Department of Commerce and Labor, were as follows: