i'iiOL'EEDlNCJS OF TiiK SUM.MEil MEKTiXG oU 



expect wlieu you have sixty car-loads of Michigan berries in one day, 

 hcsidcs about iive car-loads of rasi)b('ri'ies, and as 'many b]ackl)erries, 

 ihuupcd on the (Chicago market on llie an rong day, as we had on Tuesday. 

 We had one of the worst storms, lasting until about eight o'clock, that 

 you ever heard of. It just fairly shook things — we were drenched. What 

 can you do under such circumst;uiees? Of course the market went down. 

 I have seen returns at 85 cents, and I have known of sales at 25, and 1 

 question whether the entire receipts from the state of Michigan last Tues- 

 day averaged forty cents for a case of sixteen quarts. Ruinous'? Of 

 course it was ruinous. We did not pay expenses on it, not even for the 

 current day. What could we do? TJie next day, with ten thousand cases 

 less, the market showed firmness, scarcely any appreciable rise in values, 

 but still there was a little rise. I have no question but there will be still 

 a future for strawberries — not very big, because the country is not in 

 condition to command big jirices for strawberries, with an enormous 

 crop, the largest I believe that was ever known in the state of Michigan. 

 Be honest with your commission man, Ihe man that you pick out. Sell all 

 the goods you can at home — I have no fault to find with that, and I have 

 no fault to find, as a commission man, with this resolution. We can 

 stand it, but 1 will tell you this, you will not get any more honest returns 

 after you have it than before. Good moral character! W^hy, in the state 

 of Illinois, a saloonkeeper can not get a license unless he has a good moral 

 character. It does not make him an honest man. 



Mr. Walsh: I happened to be on the committee that framed this 

 resolution, and would simply state to the meeting that the intention 

 was not to give offense to honest men nor to injure honest men, nor to do 

 aught but what was honest and upright. Now, the thought occurs 

 to me, from Mr. Barnett's statement (which, of course, I do not recognize 

 as speaking to the resolution), he simply shows you what he himself 

 did toward promoting honesty and toward getting money back of wiiich 

 people were robbed. If he can accomplish that, how^ much more can 

 Uncle Sam accomplish? , I would like to have that question answered. 

 If there are men in that business who are robbing the people, is it right 

 and just that they should not be turned out of it? Can he offer any 

 argument why they should exist? Can he offer any argument why they 

 should not be turned out? He can talk that commission men are not to 

 blame for anything. A poor man has ten cases of berries, and he expects 

 on the avails of them to buy a pair of shoes for his child or a dress for 

 his wife, or something of that kind; he sends them to a commission 

 man he does not know (he gets a flaming advertisement through the 

 mails, and he sends those ten cases of berries), and he returns him ten 

 cents or nothing. Where is his redress? Certainly there is a law, but 

 can that poor man avail himself of it? Now% what this resolution pro- 

 poses is to just get around such cases — tura that class of men out who 

 are perpetrating these crimes, and let honest men do the business. We 

 are hand in hand with Mr. Barnett; that is what we w^ant, honest men 

 to do the business. We w^ant to turn the rascals out, and the best way 

 we can conceive of doing it is to license them and have a government 

 officer look after them. W^lien Mr. Barnett puts his money into the 

 bank, the avails of his day's or week's work, there is somebody to 

 look after it and see to it that that money is not thrown away. Why 

 should not the poor man's interests be looked after by this government 



