February 1974
Sold American!
George Morse looks like he belongs in an ad that says, "This man just borrowed 85 million dollars from our bank."
HIS SIX-FEET-TWO-INCHES and two hundred well-distributed pounds, the perfectly-tailored brown hound's-tooth-check suit in a classically subtle western cut, the $250 ostrich boots, the Resistol Century hat with its band of pheasant feathers, the custom-made shirts with the tiny GRM monogram, and the gold lion's-head cufflinks, the large rectangular belt buckle with a silver dollar flanked by Morse's brand and initials, the gold glasses, the razor-cut black hair with wisps of grey, even the slightly bent nose that offers the only relief in an otherwise flawless picture—these constitute precisely what God, Frederic Remington, and Hollywood, California, would have come up with if they had been asked to collaborate in the creation of the archetypal urban cattleman. Morse does own a ranch and considers the possibility that he may one day give full time to raising Hereford and Charolais cattle. For the present, however, his primary concern is to help others develop their herds of purebred stock at the highest possible cost. George Morse is an extraordinarily talented and successful cattle auctioneer. Some say he is the best in the business.
Unlike commercial cattle, which are sold by the pound at prices that reflect supply and demand and rise or fall only a few cents at a time, purebred cattle sold for breeding purposes bring whatever people will pay for them, which may be anywhere from $250 to over $100,000. One major factor in the price purebreds bring, of course, is the intrinsic quality of the animals themselves, but the importance of a second factor, the cattle auctioneer, can scarcely be overdrawn. A good bull sold by "private treaty" might bring $25,000. An average auctioneer might push his price up to $32,000. A top auctioneer might sell the same bull for, say, $41,500. In turn, the price the bull brings affects the subsequent worth of his progeny, his full- and half-siblings, the other cattle in the seller's herd, and perhaps even the price structure for the entire breed.
The price brought by one animal in Houston may thus figure importantly in the price of an animal sold several months later in Florida or Colorado or Canada. Because this is the case, breeders choose auctioneers with great care. They do not want to entrust the work of a lifetime or even a year to a beginner, any more than a heart patient requests an intern to perform his surgery. They want a man who knows their cattle and what they should bring, a man who knows the people who will gather to buy them, and what they might be willing to pay. For a great many people who raise Charolais and Herefords, the man they think of first is George Morse.
Morse has been associated with livestock all his life. As a boy in Missouri during the Thirties, he helped his father break mules to sell to cotton farmers. In 1950, after a hitch in the Navy, he graduated from the University of Missouri with a major in agriculture and a strong minor in business, then went to work for the American Hereford Association. For the next eight years, Morse attended auctions and breeding-association meetings and visited with cattlemen in 40 states. When he decided to enter the auction business in 1958, he had the double advantage of a thorough knowledge of the cattle industry and a vast network of people who knew and trusted him.
Morse explains the lure auctioning held for him: "I have always loved the inward feeling present in anything connected to show business, or in things like the flight of planes in formation, or flag-waving in ceremonies. In the service, I loved drill-team work. I liked the effect these things have on people. The spirit of it, I guess you might say. I get goose bumps just talking about it right now. Really. Well, at the first purebred cattle auction I ever attended, right after I got out of college, I got that same feeling. I liked the challenge and the speed, and I wondered to myself if I could ever learn to do that. A few years later at a sale in Iowa, Art Thompson, the auctioneer, called me aside and asked me if I had ever thought about this business. I guess that is what I wanted to hear. Driving home that night in an ice storm, I tried my luck with the chant. I decided that if he could learn it, so could I.
"A lot of what an auctioneer says during the chant, of course, is just filler. All you really have to listen for is the price. The rest is mainly for show, to create excitement. The ideal auction chant is clear, rhythmic, and continuous. When it's done right, it has the same effect on people as pretty music. It helps them feel that this moment is especially for them. For five years I practiced—taking a bath, driving, wherever most folk sing, I practiced the chant. I was driving about 60,000 miles a year for the Hereford Association at the time, and I sold every sign and fencepost I passed. I got constructive criticism from other auctioneers. I never will forget when it first really came to me. I was driving down in Louisiana one night and I got to where it just kind of rolled along. It felt so good I was sorry to get to where I was going."
Not long after his "call" came in Louisiana, Morse decided to turn professional. A two-week stint in auction school, run by speech teachers and veteran auctioneers, taught him to breathe from his diaphragm and to speak for five or six hours at a crack without damaging his throat and vocal cords. With the encouragement of his wife Dixie—"That's her real name. She's been a great sidekick"—Morse and a friend, Max Cox, began to manage sales for breeders, employing seasoned auctioneers as well as Morse himself. George quickly proved his mettle. "The first sale I worked was for a sick man who was dispersing his entire herd. He told me he would be happy to get $250 or $300 thousand. They brought $460 thousand. That is still one of the highlights of my career."
A more recent highlight occurred in 1972 when the American Hereford Association bestowed on Morse and fellow auctioneer Ham Hamilton the title of "Master Salesman." Morse acknowledges the honor meant a great deal to him. "I'm pretty emotional. I laugh, I cry, I do it all. I pretty much did it all that day," The distinction that seems to please him most, however, is the annual invitation from John Wayne to preside over his production sale (the sale of breeding stock produced during a given period, usually a year) at the Duke's 26 Bar Ranch in Arizona. Morse, who likes Wayne's political views, likes show business, and likes "being on the inside," admits he gets a thrill out of the fact that he and the Duke are now good personal friends. Hell, who wouldn't?
I HAVE WATCHED MORSE AT several auctions over the last couple of years, including the prestigious Sale of Sales at the Houston Livestock Show, but the one that sticks with me best took place deep in the Rio Grande Valley, when Mr. Ralph Hutchins dispersed his relatively small but exceptionally fine herd of Charolais breeding stock. Charolais folk claim, with considerable justification, to be part of "the all-time success story" of the cattle industry. The big, white, long-bodied French cattle have caused a revolution in the industry because of what livestock men call "gainability" and "cutability." They weigh significantly more at weaning time and reach their full growth from three to seven months faster than the major British breeds—Hereford, Angus, and Shorthorn—and they do it on less feed and with less care. When slaughtered, their carcasses yield more lean meat and more high-priced cuts than other breeds. The combination has proved highly attractive to commercial cattlemen and has enabled Charolais to grow from an exotic novelty breed into the fourth most numerous breed in America, with no signs of slacking off. As the "Silver Cattle" and their crossbred progeny have walked away with top honors in dozens of major livestock shows in the last seven or eight years, and as the greater profit potential of Charolais crossbreeds has become apparent, commercial cattlemen have begun to clamor for Charolais breeding stock.
Strict quarantine regulations have made it extremely difficult for American breeders to obtain animals from France. This, in turn, has enhanced the value of the herds of those breeders who did own full French cattle and who had built up the bloodlines of their herds with care. Few men in the Charolais industry have made a greater contribution to improvement of American herds than Ralph Hutchins. His decision to retire from the livestock industry for reasons of age and fragile health and to sell his herd at public auction was a major event and drew prospective buyers from all over the nation.
