596 AGRICULTURAL RELIEF 
to potatoes or other perishable products; that is, the mechanics of it 
have got to be different, because it is a different commodity and must 
be handled under a different operating arrangement. 
To be effective, the marketing boards of control should be charged 
with the responsibility of establishing rules for grading, classification, 
and packing; and to establish and maintain fair prices based on cost 
of production plus a reasonable profit, and given authority to direct 
shipments. Directing shipments is the vital element above all 
others in maintaining a stabilized marketing system, just the same 
as it is with the corporations handling the products. 
These boards of control should be given authority to direct ship- 
ments, both interstate and foreign. They can regulate the supply to 
meet the demand in an orderly manner, preventing scarcity in one 
market and a glut in another. The conditions that break prices or 
raise them leave the farmer at the mercy of the speculators. I have 
known that to be done; I have known personally where it has been 
done in many cases. I will not relate it, but we have many records 
of where it is done for that purpose. 
Here is something that is interesting, I think, in a way. Other 
countries are organizing for the purpose of controlling both foreign 
and interstate shipments. The boards would be in position to deal 
more. effectively in disposing of surpluses that must be marketed 
abroad. Other countries are organizing to control both production 
and marketing. Witness the Cuban sugar control. I just had a 
letter—I did not bring it with me—from that controlling power of 
the surplus of sugar. They name seven different foreign export 
sugar countries that have now joined their organization; and they 
say in their statements published from Paris, where this organization 
was largely put together, that this organization is for the purpose of 
controlling the surplus sugar of the world, and they are going to do it. 
As you all probably know, there was a “meat war” between the 
packers of London and the packers of Chicago in the matter of beef. 
They spent a large sum of money before they reached a conclusion, 
but their division was about 50-50 between England and America. 
They used the name beef brokers to distribute and market the cattle 
business of the Argentine. Now, that is going on all the time; 
I mean it is growing. Food products are becoming the great staple 
business of the world, from a money standpoint. 
If the American farmers can not combine or do not act with their 
united strength, they will in a very few years find themselves in even 
a less favorable position to control their prices in the markets of the 
world than they are to-day. This can not be regarded as entirely 
of the United States, because the other countries are coming under 
the same conditions. . 
Mr. ANDRESEN. Mr. Yoakum, will ‘you permit a question right 
there? How will you finance these corporations and what respon- 
sibility would the Government have outside of issuing the charters? 
Mr. Yoakum. I will come to that, if you will permit me. This is 
by suggested ideas and plans. don’t you understand? This is not a 
Organization is a necessity. We all admit it. How can it be 
brought about? Let us take wheat as a concrete example. Surplus 
wheat is our greatest trouble, you all know. I now come to my 
subject of marketing wheat under Federal charters. I think this