The following contains excerpts from inaugural address by John W. Springer, first president of the National Livestock Association, at the first ever cattlemen’s convention in Denver, January 1898. As reported in the National Cattlemen Winter 2005 edition.

The organizer’s objectives do not seem out of line with today’s.

Because they were “confronted by new conditions and new problems” 1,500 stockgrower delegates met and formed the National Livestock Association. Springer said, “Old ideas and methods of transacting the livestock business of our country are passing away and giving place to the modern ideas and methods of the present time.

Springer suggested for stockmen to first, “Take care of your livestock and your livestock will take care of you.” Second, “Breed the best in every class and you will own better farms, better barns, better homes and have better wives and better children.” And third, “Be a reader of one or more of the excellent stock journals and daily papers now published...in every part of this great country. They are the stock educators of this day and generation.”

He went on to say it was time to develop an organization with the stockmen’s goals in mind.

“We want just laws on the subject of quarantine regulations; on the stamping out of contagious diseases, and the least amount of governmental interference compatible with the general public good. We need to be largely let alone, from a legislative stand point, if we would work out our business salvation.”

They wanted equitable freight rates and more consideration from the stockyards. At that time (in 1897), “the balance of trade was in favor of the United States of over $287 million, the largest up to that time, of which livestock furnished $43.5 million.”

That is a positive $287 million as opposed to a $164.7 billion deficit in only the third quarter of 2004. In 2003 the United States had a beef trade surplus of $3.86 billion of beef and variety meats which resulted in a United States beef trade surplus of $933 million.

Another particular fitting statement in his inaugural address by John W. Springer was, “We need, finally, a broader reciprocity, a more equitable give-and-take policy with our neighbors, dealing with them as our friends, our customers, not as our enemies. We must attend to our own business and let the governments of the world alone to fight it out among themselves if we would be the universal arbiter of disputes, of whom we trust it may be truly said: “Equity and justice in America prevail from the mountains, even down to the seas.

“I trust this meeting may mark the beginning of a more progressive era in every department of the livestock industry in our wonderful country.” ©