AMERICANS AT WORK: STOCKYARDS

[Music] Mary had a little lamb but there's one for everybody these days pastoral scene of the centuries could be any time or anywhere in the world that Grass Grows today in America an important part of our food supply is helped on its way to the family dinner table by Americans at work Union livestock handlers playing an indispensable part in providing the meat of our daily existence the story starts on the land 13 million sheep a year enough to put a lot of people to sleep trying to count them 32 million Hogs the most unjustly slandered Beasts of the animal kingdom not dirty not piggish at all when given a fair choice of the freely growing food of the earth over 21 million head of cattle hamburgers on the hoof and much more the well-being of every civilization has depended on the care of livestock by Shepherds swine herds Cattleman and handlers this aspect of the food cycle begins on the farm or the ramp getting a cow this little pig or that little sheep to Market has been the subject of fables in every language the present day method of getting the meat Supply from the pasture in the range to your neighborhood shopping center is by way of the stockyard these animals are the really important characters of the western story it was the increase in their numbers that led the railroads to push on ever further Westward now with the development of hard surfaced roads most of these animals come to Market by truck from nearly every state and from Canada they come to 59 major public Stockyards the amount of stock varies according to season most in fall and early winter the public Terminal Market acts as a livestock Hotel Furnishing the animals with food bed and care this may be the end of the line for some others will be fed and watered on their way through to other destinations a multitude of stock handlers is required to take care of the cloven hoofed guests in a complex pattern of movement cleanup men are constantly on the job between arrivals and departures the strictest sanitary measures are observed and any sick animals are promptly isolated by government veterinarians Stockyard workers are are carpenters too as quarters are repaired or expanded one of these yards will cover many acres of pens and alleys holding up to 5 million head of stock a year valued at over $500 million the first of these markets was operating in Boston before the Revolution and a century later the Stockyards made Chicago the meat capital of the United States a celebrated writer once said pigs is pigs but to Hungry Americans these are so many hams and pork chops and so much bacon on the move everything will be used but the squeal about 200 lb of a 250 lb hog will be edible each of us will eat a little more than a pound of pork a week hey hey hey hey the animals to be sold usually arrive in the night or early morning Stockyards employees receive them from the trucker and deliver them to pens assigned to the firm which will handle their sale for the owner a large truck may bring 30 or more cattle in the load although some of these cattle immediately go to the butcher many will be sold for further fattening they will live high on corn concentrates and balance feed for various periods until they reach the weight desired by the feeder a good fat steer weighs well over th000 lbs but cattle are not all beef and beef is not all steak a little more than half of a th000 lb steer may become meat as we know it the rest will be turned into byproducts such as hides fats hair animal feeds fertilizer and life-giving drugs as well hey he hey [Music] heyy hey hey hey hey [Music] a yard of this size May consume 6 to 7 million gallons of water a day almost as much as the human population of the city in which it is [Music] located since what goes into them will determine what goes into you in that steak roast or stew what the animals are fed is extremely important in a year the living food factories that pass through this yard will devour 700,000 bales of hay 200,000 bushels of corn and 100,000 bushels of Oats animals for food have been domesticated since prehistoric times cattle were a form of wealth long before money was invented the word pecuniary means value in terms of cattle in one ancient language war was described as a battle for cattle the feed man is a chef building both weight and flavor into his hamburgers on the hoof he alone can answer the child's question how can a brown cow eat green grass and give white milk or red meat grown-ups don't have to know the answer to enjoy the Porter House the T-bone the club [Music] steaks sheep that are going back to the country for fattening must be dipped they get an involuntary swim in a trough of antiseptic that kills ticks and mites of All Sorts while temporarily irritating this increases the long range comfort of the sheep as well as his economic value the work of the sheep herder could go for nothing unless Stockyard workers far from the range attended to such details [Music] M the business of buying and selling affects the money exchanges of the world the very words stock market come from trading in this commodity generally it is not economically feasible for the seller to be present at the terminal when his livestock arrives to arrange for yardage feeding and to locate an eventual buyer commission firms act as agents for these livestock producers and represent them in the handling and sale of their stock the stock must be in proper condition before the Market opens this involves sorting feeding and watering as well as providing an experience salesman capable of bargaining effectively with [Music] Buyers the commission man uses walkie-talkie radio to keep in touch with his office on the transaction both buyer and seller must be able to judge within 1/ half of 1% how much an animal will weigh when dressed and hung in the Packers cooler [Music] when a saale is made the commission agent drives the stock to a scale maintained by The Yards [Music] company the sale is consummated and title to the animals changes hands based upon the accurate weights and descriptions attested to by the yard's employees at the scale the foreman opens the gates and yards company drivers deliver each draft to the assigned holding pen until it is called for by a driver for the new owner since sales are made in cents per 100 weight and each deal involves many hundreds or thousands of pounds the accuracy of the scale and the Integrity of the weight master and scale Foreman must be absolute the scales are tested periodically for accuracy up to 30,000 [Music] lb these little pigs go to market under the care of men who truly bring home the bacon they may have come from nearly any one of our states and beond their way to any other state so varied are the factors affecting their growth and consumption together with cattle and sheep they constitute a basic form of wealth in our economy as basic as in the Eskimo country where an Explorer once asked his native guide what are you thinking his guide replied I do not have to think I have meat there is constant movement of stock in and out of these markets to keep Pace with a growing number of mouths to be fed and with our increasing appetites to satisfy this demand farmers are using more scientific methods to raise more animals faster and on less feed than never before and Packers have found ways to shorten processing time until now we are producing 66 million pounds a day enough to fill a train 18 M long this means 15 54 lb a year for each of us civilization indeed rests upon its food supply with meat a primary item in our diet giving real meaning to the phrase Three Square meals a [Music] day incidentally the idea of regular meals is a highly Advanced and recent institution impossible until the meat Supply could be controlled a nation of meat eaters we take it in all its variety whether dining at the luxury restaurant the drive-in the alln night quick lunch or at home in the dining room or at The Backyard Barbecue if all the hot dogs Americans eat in a year were laid end to end they would reach the moon and back with enough left over to encircle the world five times today the average pound of meat travels a th000 miles from the Open Range to the kitchen range behind every stake between the farmer and you extends a long line of livestock handlers and packing house workers producers and consumers themselves to keep the meat Supply moving members of the United Packing House workers of America AFL CIO Americans at work for [Music] you Americans at work presented as a public service by the AFL CIO next week another story of Americans at work Americans who SC skill and effort help keep our country great and strong [Applause]