Arizona republican., 1917-09-23
COUNTRIES CALL TO STOCKMEN
 FOR SERVICE

fContinund from Page One)
 MT. Hoover showed his appreciation of the steadily increasing cost in prOduc- ing livestock. He stated to us very frankly that he had no direct power under the fool control bill to fix the price on live stock, but owing to the arrangements that had been made for the live stock purchases of the allies, all of which purchases In North Amer ica are now made through one agency which acts in complete cooperation with MT. Hoover and on his advice, the food administration in having the di- rection of these immense purchases of meat products, were in position to greatly assist in stabilizing prices and that through the licensing power granted in the food control bill were in a position to provide such regulations in the licensing of business as would assure to the consumer prices free from speculation and extortionate prof. it's or based on wasteful practices.
 MT. Hoover as well as many of his staff, are as 1 understand, serving en- tirely without compensation. and many of the men with him, some of the highest business training, others with splendid records of public service, are also at this time of national need giv- ing their services free. In fact this feature of patriotic service shown in the food administration is tremendous lv inspiring and very readily it con- vinces the men in the various trades who confer with the food administra- tion that it is up to them to do their share of service and not attempt to bubble about maintaining high profits.
 MT. Hoover, who is absolutely frank and direct in his methods, and who has no use for generalities, but who gets down to essential facts with mar
 velous rapidity. told us candidly that we might as well realize that the facts showed that famine was threatening our allies unless we were able to speed up the production of our concentrated
 food stuffs, such as grain beef, pork. dairy products and sugar. He advised
 us that confidential figures furnished him by the allies showed that the world
 is short over normal supply of food
 producing animals 114,000, 900 head in-
 cluding 2S,000,000 head of cattle, 32,-
 100000 head of hogs and 54,O00, 900 head of sheep; that in America the accurat te
 figures furnished by the government
 departments showed that our supply
 of cattle, sheep and hogs had decreased
 from 195,000.000 head in 1900 to 1S6,-
 100000 in 1917, or a total decrease of 9,O00,000 head of live stock, while in
 the same period our population had in- creased 26,000.000. He called our atten-
 tion to the fact that with these con- ditions confronting us the producer and
 feeder of live stock could rest assured of good conditions in the industry, not only during the war, but after its
 close. He stated that he expected all of the various clements in the live stock industry, from the man whc raises the stock to the retailer who
 markets the meat over the counter tc cooperate with the government in a spirit Of real patriotic service and with a Willingness to accept reasonable and | not extortionate profits
 MT. Hoover realizes. that to win this l war. the country's industries must be maintained on a healthy, prosperous l basis. that all legitimate business must 1 be encouraged, but that the speculator 1 hoarder and price manipuIator must be 1 promptly checked. He made it cleal ! that he wanted to encourage all le- Sitimate industry and not in any wa, hamper it, and that in his work he i proposed to eliminate red tape and il 1 a business like way get at the facts and establish practical constructive l plan upon the ascertdined facts.
 He suggested that we were con- fronted with the fact that the world
 was short on fats and that probably i the quickest way of increasing these fats was through increased hog pro-
 duction and during our conference, rep
 resentatives of the Ames. Iowa Agri- cultural college and many practical hos 1 feeders discussed the desirability Of en. deavoring. under the food administra l tion, to establish a ratio between hog.
 and corn, and figures were presented 1 from the Ames Agricultural college l covering period of l2 years showing 1 a proven ratio, which would make ont 1 hundred pounds of pork worth II 6-1( ] times a bushei of corn, as if for in 1 stance a price of s1.20 per bushel was i established for corn, the price of porl | on such a ratio would be $1392 pei hundred pounds, and at a conference
 which a number of us held with MT i Hoover. at his request. after the ad 1 journment of the general conference l it was decided to make a careful in
 vestigation of this question to see if il was possible in a practical way to es- | tablish such a ratio
 Tt was generally admitted at tht 1 conference that the prices on live stocl
 which had maintained at the centra markets during the previous sixty day.
 were abnormally high, but experienced | feeders from the corn belt showed tha l even at these abnormally high prices l in view of the eXtOrtiOnate prices the, | had been paying for corn they haC
 made an actual loss on cattle fed.
 There was considerable discussion 1 during the conference of government supervision of the packing industry an, it is highly probable that in compliance ] with unanimous resolution passed ol 1 this subject. the food administration will work out some just and practica