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bread; on wheat and meat.

you

You can not do that. The country will not stand for it. The farmer would not raise wheat and meat if assessed him a tax and took it out of his pocket when you undertake to kill his hogs or mill his wheat.

The CHAIRMAN. What do you provide in your corporation for the handling of the surplus products? Do you provide anything? Mr. WELLS. The money to do it with.

The CHAIRMAN. What are you going to do with the surplus when you get the money?

Mr. WELLS. Why, we will sell it to the consumers.

The CHAIRMAN. Here in this country?

Mr. WELLS. Part here and part in Europe. Sell it to the world; to the fellow that needs it. The fellow that needs it gets it anyway, Senator.

Now, then, if you want to stop me, all right, but I had a few words I would like to say in my general talk and then I will be pleased to be questioned, if satisfactory.

Senator FERRIS. We want to be sure to get the remedy. We have been hunting for weeks and weeks for a remedy.

I will be

Mr. WELLS. You will get it while I am standing here. able to have my talk finished so that Governor Yoakum can tell you what he has got. His plan is a good deal like mine. have plenty of time to get my plan and his too.

You will

I wanted to say to you that I am a grain buyer. If you undertake to assess a tax against wheat and collect it from the mills of this country, I will go and buy wheat and export it to Europe, and I will not pay any taxes on it. All the wheat will go to Europe and be milled over there. You can not do that. You might just as well look the thing right in the face. We might just as well take the bull by the horns and get hold of the thing and do it.

You are a committee representing the Senate of the United States, the greatest country under the sun, with the greatest agricultural industry in the world. You have got it in your power at this Congress to report a bill out of here that the Congress of the United States will pass into a law and the President will sign, because if you pass the right sort of a bill, a bill that will do the thing, you have done the greatest thing that has been done since the Declaration of Independence, in my judgment.

Now then, if you will permit me in a brief manner, I will read here so that it can go into the record, my plan, and then I will be glad to have you ask me any questions you want to ask me.

Before I read this I will say to you that this can be done. I know what I am talking about:

A BILL For the purpose of placing the agricultural industry of the United States on a sound commercial and financial basis, and to assist in marketing farm products, and for regulating exchange price of food products from producers to the consumer on a fair basis to both producer and consumer of all food products, on wheat, flour, corn, broom-corn, seeds, rice, fruits, vegetables, dairying, cotton, tobacco, wool, cattle, sheep, and swine, and food products processed from cattle, sheep, or swine, and all of the food products produced by the American farmer in the United States.

SECTION 1. There is hereby created a body corporate in law by the name, style, and title of American Farmers' Cooperative Marketing Corporation," hereinafter called "the corporation," to be composed of 101 persons who shall be the first board of directors of the corporation, to be appointed as hereinafter provided. Sec. 2. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That this act may be cited as "American Farmers' Cooperative Marketing Corporation act.”

SEC. 3. The American Farmers' Cooperative Marketing Corporation is hereby authorized under Federal act with a capital stock of $400,000,000, with the privilege of increasing its capital stock, when necessary, to $1,000,000,000, with 8,000,000 shares, at $50 per share, to be owned by the farmer, his friends and the public, with a board of directors of 101 having direction of the corporation, to be elected annually by the stockholders of the corporation; also a president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, and attorney general, who shall also be the executive board of the corporation, to be elected by the directors on the principle of a national bank, with its main office in Chicago, Ill., and branch offices in every State in the Union, if so desired by the board of directors.

SEC. 4. All funds of the corporation shall be paid into the treasury and shall be accounted for by the treasurer to the board of directors. The secretary of the corporation shall keep a record of all funds collected and paid out and all monies expended by the treasurer shall be paid out only upon vouchers or checks signed by the president and secretary of the corporation.

SEC. 5. For the temporary organization of this corporation a board of 101 persons, as directors, shall be appointed for the first year, to serve until the annual election of the board of directors by the stockholders, with at least one member of the board to be appointed from each State in the Union, to be approved by the Secretary of Agriculture and the President of the United States, or by a majority of the senatorial and congressional Committees on Agriculture. The Secretary of Agriculture shall be ex officio a member of the board of directors of the corporation.

The members of the board of directors from each state will act as vice presidents and managers of the corporation in their respective States, and shall have charge of the funds of the corporation in each State, whose acts shall be subject to the rules, regulations, and by-laws of the board of directors of the corporation. SEC. 7. For the temporary and immediate relief of agriculture and for the financing of this corporation pending the completion of its organization, there is hereby appropriated by the Congress of the United States a temporary loan in the sum of $200,000,000, payable on or before five years from the date this act becomes a law, to be used for the purpose hereinabove set forth, to be immediately made available for these purposes.

We will not need to take that money out of the Treasury, I do not think.

The CHAIRMAN. That is the complete bill, is it?

Mr. WELLS. That is what I want to see done.

The CHAIRMAN. How are these to be selected? You ought to provide in your bill how you are going to select them.

We can put that I have Let us get the

Mr. WELLS. I will tell you how we will select them. that into the real bill, you know. This is a picture drawn to present to you and write into the record. two committees together

The CHAIRMAN. That is a difficult thing to do. Mr. WELLS. Well, we will sit down, Senator, when we come to appoint these 101 men, take the Congressional committee and this committee you know the men in your State that are competent.

The CHAIRMAN. But your bill does not provide for that."

Mr. WELLS. Well, we will make a provision in the general bill. We will provide for these 101 directors. In the tobacco States, Senator Sackett, you and Mr. Kincheloe over in the House will tell us who to put on down there. In the cotton States we will put on cotton men. Down in Kansas, Senator Capper and Mr. Tincher, if you please, can name the directors from your State.

The CHAIRMAN. You ought to put that in the bill then.

Mr. WELLS. I am going to put that in the bill if there is any use of it. I came here to give you a plan how to do it. I will put it in the bill if there is any sense in doing it.

Now, then, boiled down and fried down into the grass roots of the thing, the proposition that I propose is that we will let the farmer

do it himself. "Let George do it." He is the farmer. Let us organize a corporation with $400,000,000 to start on, with the privilege of making it a billion. Just turn that stock over to me and a few men in Chicago and let us sell it before you hardly get the pen dry signing the bill. Then we will have at our command $400,000,000 in cash. This little temporary appropriation from the Government is not given to us. We will give you back the money in a minute. You will have 101 men on there that you will name. This committee will name them. The President and the Secretary of Agriculture will have to approve them. How much fairer can you get that? That temporary treasurer could be Secretary Mellon, if you please. I don't care who it is. I am not here with a crooked game. I am here to talk about letting us do it. If you will help me, we will do it. Really what I want is a charter. In Illinois we can incorporate under the Illinois law, but it is for one State. can not incorporate a national business except under national laws. We will let the cotton men handle the cotton business down South, and the tobacco men in Kentucky and Tennessee handle the tobacco. Over in Senator Capper's State, let Senator Capper and Mr. Kincheloe handle it. They are the big fellows. In Iowa, let Mr. Haugen and whoever else he has up there handle the matter. Put them on that board of directors. Put on men who have got some sense; men that can do things.

We

I told you awhile ago that in my State, in Cook County, we have got 8 or 10 little corporations there with this much money in one county; so, you know we can do it.

The CHAIRMAN. All right.

Mr. WELLS. All right. So much for that.

Now then, if this committee is trying to pass an act authorizing a corporation to be owned by the farmer and his friends, we will draw up a bill here; we will get the biggest lawyer in the United States if we have to have him, and draw up a bill that will do it. You have got plenty of lawyers to do it. Every one of you is a lawyer. You all know how. Now, I am no expert. You all know how to to do it. Let us do it, and then I will go on the board of trade, if you please put me on your board of directors and give me authority, and I will go down to Chicago in the morning and after this becomes a law I will step into the board of trade and I will commence hammering, pushing up instead of bearing down, and I will begin to bull the market on corn, and I will put her to a dollar a bushel in 30 days. I will take that cotton off these boys that they are having so much trouble with down there, and I will raise the price of cotton. I know how to do it. I have been doing it for 25 years.

Senator SACKETT. Suppose you would die, who would we get to do this?

Mr. WELLS. There are a million men in the United States. I am the smallest bird of the whole gang. I am just a sample, but I can do it. Lord, we have got in Chicago hundreds of men, as good men as live on this earth; as good men as ever were born in the United States, who are doing it now.

Senator GOODING. Putting it up and putting it down?

Mr. WELLS. Yes. Pushing her up and pushing her down. Senator GOODING. What is this bunch doing now on wheat? Are they pushing it down?

Mr. WELLS. Yes.

Senator GOODING. What are they pushing it down for? I am talking about the wheat market.

Mr. WELLS. Senator, the Board of Trade is a gambling proposition in the city of Chicago and in other States. These gamblers there there are two sets of them. There are the bears and the bulls. When they want to make some money, the bears go on and push it down and then they all buy. When it gets to the bottom of the market, then they all step over here and bull it up and sell.

Mr. GOODING. They work together, do they?

Mr. WELLS. Of course, they do. You bet they do. Now, we will wipe them out if you put this law into effect. We will clean those boys out. I am not for them. I have got all the bread and butter I can eat while I live and I have got great big, husky boys, as big as I am that can make money as fast as I ever made it in my life or as fast my grandad did. We do not have to do anything crooked to make a living. We can make it with our hands and our brains.

I am here in the interests of the agricultural interests of this country, at my own expense. I am a volunteer; the kind of men that won the war and kept Germany from ruling this earth. They were volunteers. They paid their money and their boys-my boys were in it. We paid our money and our boys and we won that war and we can knock out this board of trade-make them lie down and quit that stealing.

The CHAIRMAN. All right now.
Mr. WELLS. All right. Come on.

We want to get along.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, we have another witness here who wants to be heard. If you are through we will call on him. We have to hurry.

Mr. WELLS. Well, what do you suggest about writing a bill? Would you write a bill and present it here?

The CHAIRMAN. I think it would be better.

Mr. WELLS. Well, I would like to do that. What do you all think, gentlemen? Shall I write a bill?

Senator FERRIS. Oh, yes.

Senator SACKETT. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. We will hear from Mr. Yoakum now.

STATEMENT OF B. F. YOAKUM, OF NEW YORK CITY

The CHAIRMAN. Just give your name to the reporter.
Mr. YOAKUM. B. F. Yoakum, New York.

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Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I am very glad again to have the honor of appearing before you. Since I last appeared there has been a great deal happening in the agricultural world, and I am going to take up as little of your time as possible. I do not want you to feel because I am looking over some papers here that I am going to tax your time to listen to all of it.

Consistency, however, has something to do with economic questions and with men, and I will take up but just a few minutes of your time to tell you my position, not to-day but 11 years ago, before the association of agricultural students and breeding association of Nebraska, at Lincoln, Nebr. This is just a paragraph of that speech:

At present, needless profits and unnecessary expenses are enormous. The farmers of the country to make the greatest success must do so through their

Their organizations must deal with the most important
They will have to deal broadly and in a spirit
They must be composed of men who look into

own business methods.
economic questions of the day.
of fairness to all, to be successful.
things for themselves, etc.

I appeared before the Agricultural College of Texas in 1910, and I said this to the farmers.

The farmers of this country to receive better prices do not have to experiment with untried theories. They must only organize in a manner to handle their own business.

I further said this, briefly:

In connection with the wealth-producing business it is certainly conservative, figured from any standpoint, to say that on the $9,000,000,000 farm value the crop-producer should receive $2,000,000,000 more money than he is now receiving. This $2,000,000,000 would save the farmer $2,000,000,000 more out of the present $9,000,000,000 crop if organized in a way to properly and commercially carry on their business.

I only mention that to call the attention of the committee to the fact that for 20 years I have given this question personal and close attention-attention of study, to find out just where the troubles with agricluture are.

I have quoted several times Senator Capper who said in Congress, "The farmer is only receiving 35 cents out of the dollar that the consumer pays," and I am going to try to find out where the 65 cents is going. I take that somewhat as a text. I use that a great deal. I am sure, without taking up your time-after communication with Secretary Wallace at that time, I asked him by letter to tell me where the difference between the price that the farmer received and the consumer paid, went. The Secretary's letter, which I have, says that he could not, but the only way that he could recommend to get the facts was to follow from the farmer to the consumer. I know that I have done that over a hundred times. I have had shipments from all over the country. I have followed them myself. I have stood at the wagon. I am not a novice in farming. I produce on my place 10,000 bushels of potatoes, tomatoes, and all these things. We are absolutely broke from a farmer's standpoint. We gentlemen do our business within 30 miles of the biggest consuming city in the world, a city of six and a half milion people. That city consumes more food products than any other three places in the United States, and it is a cutthroat business from start to finish. No farmer in the State of New York can make money to-day.

This is interesting because it is new in this line of thought connected with agriculture. I sent a representative to the different counties, to the county clerks, with letters and offers to compensate the county clerks, as it did not come under their business, to go back three years and give me the records of foreclosures. I will tell you that the record of foreclosures is absolutely unreliable. It is the peaceful surrender in this country by which more farmers are losing their homes than by foreclosures. A creditor will carry a farmer naturally up to a certain point. The farmer makes his last desperate struggle. He reaches the point where he sees that he can not go through. What is the result? He throws up his hands and he surrenders to his creditor to save any further trouble with mortgage foreclosure, and the wealth of this country is taking the farming business. If this continues as it is now going this farming industry will be corporationized. The farmer will be put out of business and

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