PARAGRAPH 225-CATTLE. Mr. COWAN. You say they are, because you say it is going to deplete production. Mr. KITCHIN. I do not say the people are going out of the industry, because up to five or six years ago we were the great export nation. Certainly up to 10 years ago we were the greatest exporter of beef in the world. But with all that stimulus our supply is gradually diminishing while our demand is gradually increasing. It is increasing all over the world. You have a world price which is higher by 50 per cent than it was 12 or 15 years ago. Beef cattle are getting scarce here. What I want to know is what you would do-continue to keep this tariff up for the protection of the cattlemen and thereby in the future we ask larger and larger tribute each year from the millions of our people who must have meat? Mr. COWAN. It is not going to continue if you give good enough prices for them to continue in the business. Mr. KITCHIN. You have had the best prices for the last 5 or 6 years. Mr. COWAN. Oh, no. Mr. KITCHIN. When did you get the best prices? Mr. COWAN. We have had the best prices now for about a year and a half. Mr. KITCHIN. Haven't you had better prices the last 10 years than you had the 10 years preceding that? Mr. COWAN. Including the year 1910 and up to this time; yes. Mr. KITCHIN. And yet prices have been gradually going up, and our supply has decreased 8,000,000 head of cattle, while the population has increased. Mr. CowAN. Mr. Kitchin, did you ever have anybody in your State go out into the West and go into the cattle business? Mr. KITCHIN. I do not believe I can recall anybody just now. Mr. JAMES. Lots of our people. Mr. CowAN. I want to know if the cattle people that you knew that went into Texas and the West did not lose money in the business? Mr. JAMES. I am not familiar with the facts. Mr. COWAN. I am. I know several of them that had to sell out. The trouble, Mr. Kitchin, with your argument is this Mr. KITCHIN. I am simply stating the conditions. Mr. COWAN. You are mistaken in the facts, if you are stating the facts. Mr. KITCHIN. I certainly am not mistaken in the decrease in that supply here and the increase of the demand. Mr. COWAN. Oh, yes, you are. The Census Bulletin shows that the decrease in the total number of cattle in the United States in 1910 compared with 1909 was five million and some odd hundred thousand head. But if you look a little further you will find that the decrease, exclusive of calves, was one million and some hundred thousand head. Look at it and find out whether I am right. I have given it a great deal more study, I believe, than any member of the committee has possibly had time to do-not that I have given as intelligent consideration to it. The census of 1900 was taken as of June 1. I suppose that every gentleman on this committee knows that all or nearly all of the calves in this country are calved between March and June. PARAGRAPH 225-CATTLE. Being a sworn witness here I will state that in my country that is a fact. I believe it to be so in most of the United States so far as beef herds are concerned, and also so, I believe, in the case of dairy herds. Your census of 1910 enumerated cattle. Your census of 1900 enumerated cattle. But 1910 was taken as of April 15, so you will see that the shortage exclusive of calves was a million and some odd hundred thousand. Mr. KITCHIN. The Statistical Abstract for 1911 shows that in 1901 of beef and other cattle than cows we had 45,500,000; in 1902, 44,727,000; in 1904, 43,629,000; in 1910, 41,173,000; in 1911, 39,679,000; in 1912, 37,260,000. So you see it does appear that while the prices have gone up, a stimulus to production, and while the population has increased, the demand had increased, this supply has gradually decreased. And in the face of that we are asked to maintain a high prohibitive tariff. Mr. COWAN. Why, it has not. Every head of cattle that could have come in from Mexico at all comes in here and pays you revenue of more than a million dollars a year, and yet you want a tariff for revenue and you want to take it off the cattle. Mr. KITCHIN. Still, with all the cattle that come in, it is much less than 1 per cent of the total consumption of beef in this country? Mr. CowAN. Absolutely. Mr. KITCHIN. That is, with all this immense amount of cattle. that you say are coming in, out of every $100 worth sold the American cattle producer sells over $99 worth. So you see you have not very much competition, have you? Mr. CowAN. No; but would there be enough to reduce the price of beef a dollar without the million dollars revenue that you get for cattle moving across the Rio Grande? If you want revenue why don't you go for it? Mr. JAMES. The price of cattle in the United States, is that dictated by the Beef Trust? Mr. CowAN. You are asking me a very big question. Here is what I think about that. I am just speaking from my personal opinion; I am not trying to give you anybody else's opinion. I have answered that question a good many times, if there is a surplus of cattle on the markets whether the Beef Trust or anybody else dominates the price. If there is a shortage of cattle the price gets away from them, and they have no more control over the price of steers to-day when they are paying 10 cents a pound on the hoof for the best finished cattle than I have. It is because we have just reached the point of producing what we consume. But when we produced a million and a half more cattle than we consumed, the buyers, not only the packers, but everybody else, do control the market. That is my opinion. Mr. JAMES. What is the total amount that a steer in Texas brings that weighs 1,400 pounds? Mr. COWAN. Of course, we do not produce very many that weigh that. Some that are fed on cottonseed meal weigh that. I am not quite certain about the market quotations to-day. It depends a good deal on the age of the steer and whether he is a rough steer or whether he is smooth. There is a vast difference. I should say that PARAGRAPH 225-CATTLE. a 1,400-pound steer, finished thoroughly on cotton seed and fat, would bring on the Chicago market about 8 or 9 cents. A corn-fed steer of the same character and class would bring about 10 cents. That is the way it has been running for some little time. At Fort Worth I think 8 cents is the top bid that has been paid. But, mind you, the most of our cattle in Texas are either sold as feeders or as partially fat cattle. Some of them would be called fat grass cattle. They have sold as high as 7 cents, but that would be an unusual thing for grass cattle marketed in Fort Worth. Many grass cattle taken to Kansas and elsewhere in the North have sold this year as high as 7 cents at Kansas City. It is hard to tell offhand without looking at the market reports. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Cowan, your time is up. Mr. CowAN. Permit me to use enough time-about two minutesto say that I have given this matter perfectly careful consideration. I will put into this brief nothing that can not be thoroughly substantiated. If you make us a purchasing Nation you will find that you will deplete the soil and hurt the farmer as you do the stock raiser. Permit me to say one thing to Mr. Kitchin. You will find on examination that the Agricultural Department, in making those estimates year after year, coming up to 1909, made a great mistake in the number of cattle as compared with the estimate of the next year. You can not depend on that estimate. I think you will find we have had a decrease of a million and a half cattle in 10 years, but I doubt if we have had a decrease in the quantity of beef, because of the increase in the quality of the cattle. I thank the committee for its consideration, and I trust that in the vigor of my statement I have said nothing that will offend any of you gentlemen. If you will treat me as well as I know Mr. James and the rest of the committee wanted to treat me about my length of time, you will not take the tariff off either cattle or meat and furnish the packers the opportunity of knocking us over the head, leaving them the sole importers, and thus destroy all your other independent packing concerns in this country. That is what will result. Study it out and see if I am not right. I thank you, gentlemen, for your consideration. I will ask permission to have the brief which I prepared filed and printed. Mr. JAMES. Mr. Chairman, I asked the witness who just left the stand about the price of sugar. My friend, Mr. Fordney, denounced my statement as preposterous that sugar was 100 per cent higher in the United States than in Hamburg. I have here a statement from 1900 to 1911, showing the export price of sugar in Hamburg and the price in New York and the difference between the two prices, and I want to make that a part of the record. It shows that my statement is true. PARAGRAPH 225-CATTLE. The statement referred to is as follows: Comparison of export price of sugar at Hamburg, and wholesale price of same at New York: Mr. FORDNEY. The gentleman is filing the records on raw sugar, and I asked about granulated. Mr. JAMES. I am filing the records on granulated sugar. Mr. FORDNEY. There is no granulated sugar imported from Germany into the United States or any other country. Mr. JAMES. I have the statement for both raw and granulated. It was made a part of the report of this Committee on Ways and Means in this Congress. Mr. FORDNEY. Let us understand one another. Do you claim you are filing figures of the value of granulated sugar imported from Europe into the United States? Mr. JAMES. I say that I am filing here the export price of granulated sugar in Hamburg and the wholesale price in New York, and the difference between the export price at Hamburg and the wholesale price at New York, which shows that it is 100 per cent greater in New York than it is at Hamburg. That is what I am filing exactly. Mr. CowAN. If I am to be the witness between these gentlemen, I want to relate what the deceased Senator Taylor said. Mr. FORDNEY. There is a mistake somewhere. Mr. COWAN. In a story which he told at Fort Worth, Senator Taylor said there were two men in an argument early in the morning as to whether it was the sun rising or the moon setting. They could not decide the matter, so they called on a bystander and asked him to decide. He said, "Gentlemen, I am a stranger in this community, and I do not want to decide it." That is about the way I am on this controversy. I do not know anything about sugar. Mr. FORDNEY. I would not dispute the gentleman's candid word; I am not disputing him; I am disputing the figures he has. Mr. JAMES. I am merely filing the figures taken from a report referred to the committee-made up in the report of the Ways and Means Committee. PARAGRAPH 225-CATTLE. BRIEF OF THE AMERICAN NATIONAL LIVE STOCK ASSOCIATION AND THE CATTLE RAISERS' ASSOCIATION OF TEXAS IN OPPOSITION TO PLACING MEATS AND CATTLE ON THE FREE LIST. [Presented by S. H. Cowan, attorney for the association.] The time allotted for oral arguments forbids more than a mere reference to the data and compilations herewith filed bearing upon the subject under discussion. The subject is of vast importance, equally to the agricultural interests as to the live-stock-producing interests, and equally to every industrial interest in that part of the United States engaged largely in live-stock raising and in the production of grain, hay, cotton seed, and other food products for animals. These associations are not demanding a high tariff. They are not arguing for a tariff to be levied solely for protection. They argue that a revenue duty necessarily carries with it the incident of giving them a preference over imports upon which any duty is levied. They do not attempt to argue the theories of tariff making, but believe that inasmuch as the Government must levy import duties on a very large part of the imports into this country, and a resultant preference in the markets of this country will thereby flow to these industries, the live-stock raiser and feeder is entitled to share substantially the equality with the other industries of the country, and that it would be a discrimination to place them in open competition with the other countries of the world and would be seriously injurious to the live-stock and agricultural interests in this country. As expressive of the view of the live-stock raisers of the western half of the United States, I file herewith a certified copy of a resolution adopted by the American National Live Stock Association at Phoenix, Ariz., at its annual convention held there January 14-15, 1913. "RESOLUTION DEMANDING THE RETENTION OF DUTIES ON LIVE STOCK AND ITS PRODUCTS. "Whereas this association recognizes that it has always been and must continue to be the settled policy of the Government of the United States to raise a very large proportion of the funds necessary for its support from import duties, which will in a large measure affect the production, the consumption, the markets and prices of such imports and similar products of this country, the benefits and burdens of which should be fairly distributed as between the people, communities, and industries of this country; and "Whereas we believe that it has been plainly manifested by what has been said and done in Congress, and elsewhere, in connection with recent tariff legislation and attempted legislation, that it is the intention of many of our public men to open the door to the free importation of the products of the farm and ranch, including live stock, meats, and other products of live stock, grains and feeds and other food products produced in that part of the United States mainly engaged in such business, thereby shifting the burdens of the tariff system to the agricultural and stock-raising portions of the country, and depriving those industries of such benefits as would accrue were the tariff duties retained on those products. It appears to us that it is the avowed and deliberate intention to take the tariff off of the products of agriculture, including live stock and its products, for the purpose of reducing the price which the producer may receive, to the great injury of our business and for the supposed benefit of others; and "Whereas live stock and the products of live stock, including wool, hides, meat, and meat food products, and all the products of the farm and ranch, should in justice receive the same measure of benefit or protection as is accorded to the products of other industries of the United States, including manufactures, without regard to whether it is called a protective tariff or a revenue tariff; and "Whereas we believe it to be to the interest of the people of the United States that the country should be self-supporting in meat production; and "Whereas the reduction that has taken place in the output of beef animals in this country is largely due to the unremunerative prices that have prevailed for 20 years; and "Whereas the growing and feeding of live stock affords the best and most economical means of conserving the fertility of the soil; and "Whereas the production and feeding of live stock would be further threatened and curtailed by a settling back of values to the level that prevailed in the 20 years prior to 1910, and remunerative prices are an essential condition to the continuance of this important industry; and 78959°-VOL. 3-13-29 |