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Show g-jXMNAUGHreig ' A Los Angeles Union Stock Yards, April 2 The railroad situation some years back may well be compared com-pared tc the situation surrounding central livestock markets today. Anyone with a mule team, Fresno and enough money to buy some secondhand rails and ties, could build a railr. ad a great field for promotors at ('be expense of the people because in many cases there wasn't sufficient traffic to sustain the road. In some cases these projects were taken over by truck lines and where expansions of this kind were made the cwners found it necessary neces-sary to get authority from the Interstate Commerce commission to take up the rails and abandon these unprofitable and burdensome lines. Finally, the people, through our legislature, brought about the passage of a metisure requiring (before adding to the railroad mileage of the nation) a showing of public convenience and necessity; neces-sity; thus indiscriminate building of railroads was harnessed and the people's money invested in railroads rail-roads was safeguarded. Central livestock markets, which have been the very backbone of production ,are responsible for the development of the greatest industry in-dustry we have, namely: the processing pro-cessing and distribution of meat food under the most economical ' plan yet devised. This industry ' is .being undermined by privtate 'sales places (auction and otherwise) other-wise) mostly unregulated and lacking in supervision. Also without with-out knwn financial responsibility J of the operators and spreading in-1 in-1 stead of centralizing livestock sup-j sup-j plies and buying power; impairing! j the value of central markets in the j establishment of market values as i a trade base, and ignoring the protection pro-tection financially and trading regulations set out by the federal government in what is known as the packers and stockyards act designed and administered to pro-j tect the growers financially and to J ' keep these central markets on a j ' strict competitive basis; safeguarding safe-guarding the growers against j wrong practices and avoiding ((by federal and state supervision) the spreading of infectious and con- j ! tagkus diseases. The growers must understand ! that these central markets are in reality their -markets and until some better means is found of establishing market values the greatest support should be given to these institutions which have been set up for their benefit, and I without which ohacs would prevail. I There are some 68 central mar- kets under federal supervision, handling a substantial part of the livestock marketed and establishing establish-ing values for all kinds of livestock, live-stock, which cannot be set aside without some better ' me:hod of creating values and regulated marketing. mar-keting. These facilities represent a very large investment on the part of the public, whose interests should likewise be safeguarded. ' |