afterwards. I have never known any of these regulations, tentative regulations, to be sent out to the parties in interest alone. If it is anything relating to the stockyards, the commission men and everybody on the other side of the fence gets a copy, so I am sure it is done by the department in order that the men on either side of the question may know in advance what is being considered and have a chance to make any protest before the rules are finally promulgated. Mr. JOHNSON. Do the packers own the stockyards in Sioux City? Mr. EATON. The packers at Sioux City and the members of the packers' families own stock in the stockyards; they do not own it all. Mr. JOHNSON. What proportion do they own?

Mr. EATON. I do not know, exactly.

Mr. JOHNSON. Could you put that in the record?

Mr. EATON. No; I could not, because I do not know all of the families. I think probably they own more than half the stock. Mr. JOHNSON. That is what I want to get; they own control. Mr. EATON. I think so; yes.

Mr. WATTS. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask Mr. Eaton a question.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you yield to a question, Mr. Eaton?

Mr. EATON. Yes.

Mr. WATTS. You are president and general manager of the Sioux City stockyards?

Mr. EATON. Yes, sir.

Mr. WATTS. You belong to the livestock exchange?

Mr. EATON. I have a membership in the livestock exchange. It was a sort of complimentary membership issued when the exchange first started, and has been transferred from one general manager to another as they have come along.

Mr. WATTS. Then the livestock exchange and the stockyards at Sioux City are interlocked in that way?

Mr. EATON. In that way they are interlocked.

Mr. VEEDER. Do you ever make use of that membership by attending the meetings or taking any active part in the activities of the exchange, any of its official activities?

Mr. EATON. No; I am very careful to avoid that, except that I attend their meetings occasionally when matters are coming up that we might be interested in.

Mr. VEEDER. Have you that certificate of membership in your possession?

Mr. EATON. Yes, sir.

Mr. VEEDER. Are you sure it is not locked up in the vault of the exchange? Isn't that right?

Mr. EATON. You are correct. They made a rule later that the membership is turned back to the exchange.

Mr. WATTS. May I ask why the membership was turned back to the exchange?

The CHAIRMAN. Do you yield to a question?

Mr. EATON. Yes; but I can not answer the question. It was a rule made; I do not know why it was made.

STATEMENT OF MR. GEORGE R. COLLETT, KANSAS CITY, MO.

Mr. COLLETT. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I am president of the Kansas City Stockyards Co. Mr. Eaton has covered the immediate changes that are desired from the stockyards standpoint in H. R. 6424, and I have nothing further to say in that connection unless there are any questions that any one wishes to ask me, which I will be glad to answer.

I do want to say something about bill No. 7110, which is the weighing bill. The Kansas City stockyards has, since the beginning of its operations, about 51 years ago, done the weighing of livestock in Kansas City. I have been with the company for the past 11 years and there has never been, in that period, any question or any complaint issued by anyone with reference to the Kansas City stockyards weighing the livestock. There are a great many advantages in having the operation of the stockyards carried on under one organization. It is a big machine and if you were to take out the weighmaster from the organization which controls the stockyards you would be letting slip a cog in a good working machine. It is necessary, in my opinion, to have all the parts of that machine operated by one head. That is true with reference to what Mr. Eaton said concerning the hours of labor, of our men as against Government employees. It also often happens that in a slow market, or in bad weather, when trains are late in arriving, that you can not begin weighing at 8 o'clock in the morning, that you are necessarily delayed until possibly 10 or 11 o'clock, before weighing can be made, and in that event it is necessary for the weighmasters of the stockyards company to remain on the job pretty continuously until the weighing for the day is finished. The noon hour is not observed by the stockyard employees. They carry their lunch and interchange, one weighmaster with another, and the scales are allowed to continue through the entire weighing period.

To put anybody in the Government employ who, as I understand, would be required to observe certain hours of work, would not fit in with the machinery of the stockyards company that has been in operation for these many years.

I do not know that there is anything further that I want to say in that connection, except that I will be glad to answer any questions that may arise in the minds of the committee.

The CHAIRMAN. What have you to say as to the dockage or shrinkage?

Mr. COLLETT. That is handled in Kansas City by a committee appointed by the Livestock Exchange of Kansas City. Those dockers are appointed by them and paid by them. In Kansas City, so far as the cooperative are concerned, I believe that they are a party to the dockage arrangement.

The CHAIRMAN. Probably the same arrangement as in Chicago? Mr. COLLETT. I imagine much the same.

Mr. JOHNSON. But they are not a party to the arrangement at Chicago.

Mr. SYKES. They are not a party at Kansas City.

Mr. JOHNSON. They are established by the commission men and the packers jointly?

Mr. COLLETT. That is an exchange problem and I am not prepared to answer that, as to just what the arrangement is. Mr. VEEDER. Mr. Chairman, our time is getting short. The CHAIRMAN. You have control of the time, Mr. Veeder.

Mr. DOYLE. Do you ever have any complaints about your weighing, or about your scales ever being off any number of pounds, 5, 10, or 50, or whatever it might be?

Mr. COLLETT. We have not. We have much the same arrangement that Mr. Eaton referred to. We balance the scales every morning. We have inspection by the Fairbanks- Morse people, and recently, within the past 30 days, we have had a visit from a representative of the Secretary of Agriculture under the packers and stockyards administration. He inspected all of our scales and made certain rules and regulations that he proposes to adopt at the markets. That matter has been discussed by us and by the department, but I do not think any definite steps have been taken along that line up to date.

The CHAIRMAN. Could you state briefly what those rules and regulations are?

Mr. COLLETT. They are very detailed regulations as to the operation of the scale itself. When I first read them I judged that they were worked out on the basis that these scale masters were not experienced scale men. They started in with the details as to every feature connected with the weighmaster's operations in the balancing of his scales in the weighing of livestock.

The CHAIRMAN. Does it contemplate any change in the scales?

Mr. COLLETT. I think there was one suggestion offered, that we reduce the size of one scale. We had a 100,000-pound scale, and I think the suggestion was made that we reduce that in size and make it a 50,000-pound scale.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the smallest denomination-1, 5, 10 pounds, or what?

Mr. COLLETT. Ten pounds.

The CHAIRMAN. I believe that changes have been made to make them 24 pounds.

Mr. CLAGUE. Five pounds, Mr. Chairman.

Who owns and controls the Kansas City stockyards, Mr. Collett? Mr. COLLETT. There are some 739 stockholders.

Mr. CLAGUE. Do the packers, or say, Armour and Swift, have a controlling interest in it?"

Mr. COLLETT. No, sir; they do not.

STATEMENT OF MR. F. G. BAREIS, ST. LOUIS, MO.

Mr. BAREIS. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I am general manager of the National Stockyards at St. Louis. I want to say a few words with reference to the weighing bill. I have been with the National Stockyards for 33 years. I was weighmaster for a few years, and anything that you may wish to ask from the weighmaster's standpoint I will be glad to answer. We have had Government men, two of them at our yards, who examined our scales. They stayed a day and said nothing to the weighmasters about being there. They watched our weighmasters perform in handling the scales, and after one Government man had been there he visited me and said that he had

no complaint to make, that the men were doing the weighing as well as any of the men he had found in the circuit. He also tested our scales.

We have 18 scales that run from 40,000 pounds to 80,000 pounds. We have five small scales. He was very much impressed with the way they broke, but we only have the 10-pound notches.

I have a letter here from the Order Buyers Association. Fifty per cent of our hogs are bought and shipped to eastern slaughterers. The local packers at our yards bought last year and killed 38 per cent of our hog receipts. The rest of them we shipped to eastern slaughterers. We have 25 of these order buyers that buy hogs on order for the eastern slaughterers. They have heard of this bill and have heard that I was coming to Washington, and the president sent me this letter which he asked me to read into these records.

Referring to proposed changes in packers and stockyard rules, placing weighing in the hands of Government employees.

It is our opinion that this proposed change will work a hardship in all interests doing business on the public stockyards without benefiting anyone.

We have always found the weighing done by the St. Louis National Stockyards to be accurate, and proper records have always been kept, and in experience covering 20 years, have never had cause for complaint.

If the Government puts in weighmasters, as we understand they propose to do under the new rule, we do not feel that we will get near the service we are getting at present, as Government employees would want to take time off for lunch, in the middle of the day, which would stop all work in the yards and be a serious handicap in getting stock weighed and to get shipped out the day purchased, besides, we find in our experience Government employees do not furnish the same service as the same class of employees of a private corporation. We most earnestly protest against this proposed change and would at least like to have a chance to have the committee have us send a representative to be heard before any action is taken.

Mr. CLARKE. Who signed that letter?

Mr. BAREIS. W. E. Hilton, president of the Order Buyers Association. The Order Buyers Association buys these hogs. Eighty per cent of the hogs are received between 6 a. m. and 10 a. m., and it is necessary for the order buyers to start the market at 8 o'clock. They start buying at 8, the hogs are weighed, and they are sent to their alley within the stockyards. They are sorted into grades and weights and weighed again. The first train east is the B. & O., which leaves at 2 o'clock. It runs on passenger time, and if the hogs are not ready to be loaded at 2 p. m., the train leaves.

The next train east is the Pennsylvania, which leaves at 3 o'clock. If the loading is not completed at 3 o'clock, the train simply leaves the loading chute. That would mean, if the scales would close at noon for 30 minutes or an hour, that the order buyers would have quit buying and there will be a carry-over every day in the week, and you can not carry hogs over for less than 15 cents a hundred pounds, and if the market goes off it will be more.

The CHAIRMAN. I am sorry, Mr. Bareis; I do not want to stop time is up. you, but your

Mr. CLARKE. I suggest that if he has other letters he be permitted to put them in the record.

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. BAREIS. I have here a letter from the livestock exchange which I would like to have go in the record, and which is as follows: THE ST. LOUIS LIVESTOCK EXCHANGE, NATIONAL STOCKYARDS, ILL.,

Mr. F. G. BAREIS,

March 6, 1924.

General Manager National Stockyards. DEAR MR. BAREIS: In answer to your query regarding the service performed by the stockyard company in the matter of weighing stock on this market, I am very glad to be able to say that it is entirely satisfactory, there being practically no complaint of inaccurate weighing at any time and the practice of keeping the weighmaster on the job from the opening of business until the closing, including the noon hour, has proven not only beneficial but absolutely necessary from the fact that a very large volume of our business here is shipped out to points in the East, and a very large volume of this business is necessarily weighed during the noon hour. As you are aware, in most instances this stock for shipment must be weighed up, delivered to the buyers' pens, re-sorted, and reweighed in time to deliver to the loading chutes to leave here in the early afternoon, and any interference with the present method would prove detrimental to the trade in general.

Yours very truly,

H. B. CARSON, President.

The CHAIRMAN. As I understand it, you are in favor of rigid inspection and supervision?

Mr. BAREIS. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. But you are opposed to Government weighing? Mr. BAREIS. I am opposed to taking the main cog of the machine away from the stockyards company.

The CHAIRMAN. But you do not object to rigid inspection and supervision?

Mr. BAREIS. We do not.

Mr. VEEDER. Mr. Chairman, if the time allotted to the stockyards companies is up, I would like to have the record show that Mr. J. O. Barclay, president of the St Joseph (Mo.) Stock Yards Co., and Mr. T. B. Good, president of the St. Paul Stockyards Co., are both here and prepared to testify before the committee, and that their testimony would, in a general way, be along the same lines as the testimony of these gentlemen who have just testified.

Mr. RUBEY. If they desire, Mr. Chairman, I would suggest that they be permitted to place their statements in the record. The CHAIRMAN, Without objection, it is so ordered.

Is that all, Mr. Veeder?

Mr. VEEDER. Yes, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Then we will be glad to hear you, Mr. Secretary.

STATEMENT OF HON. HENRY C. WALLACE, SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE

Secretary WALLACE. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I came over to speak to you with regard to the amendments carried in H. R. 6424, which are the amendments suggested by the department to the packers and stockyards act. But before speaking on those amendments, I want to make a brief statement with regard to a few other matters in connection with the administration of the act, just to report progress for your information.

The first has reference to the Armour-Morris merger. That, as you know, came up more than a year ago. When it became manifest