62 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



people are foolish euougli to send me their fruit kuowiug ihe^^ have no 

 redress, without looking me up in any way, are you going to stop it by 

 an enactment of law? You can not do it, gentlemen; do not try it, do not 

 do it. lu regard to this little matter we were discussing this forenoon, 

 this nursery inspection bill, I had letters by the hundred asking me 

 to incorporate in that some provision that would make some severe pen- 

 alty upon a person for selling stock that was not truly named. iS'ow, 

 can you do it? We can not do everything by legislation. In fact, 

 there is comparatively little that you can do. We must depend upon 

 our own business ability and business judgment in order to do it. We 

 have in all the states laws similar to this one spoken of by our friend 

 from Chicago, in relation to commission men. Twenty years ago I 

 shipped a dozen carloads of fruit to Minneapolis, consigned it; I left 

 it there to be stored during the winter, in the hands of a commission 

 man. Along toward spring he sent me an account of sales, and he owed 

 me something like eleven hundred dollars, but he said: "My partner* 

 has run aAvaj' and I have not got a dollar — flat on my back, don't believe 

 I can pay you." It was not twenty-four hours until that man was 

 locked behind the bars for embezzlement, and you can do it in any state 

 of the Union, but you can not compel him to send you accounts of sales 

 that are honest. You can appoint just as many commissioners as you 

 see fit, but you can not do it. When there are ten thousand, twenty 

 thousand, or fifty thousand people sending little consignments of fruit or 

 farm products to the great markets, you can not keep track of these 

 individual consignments; the}' will send you what they please. If the 

 commission men are nof doing business right, that is, as a body, let 

 us select those who are doing it right; and above all things, let us drop 

 the commission man just as soon as we can, and sell direct. If they 

 desire our goods let them come to our markets and buy them. They Avill 

 do it, they come to Grand Rapids and buy our products. We do not 

 ship them to any commission men. The}' come there and buy them 

 and pay us cash for them right there on the spot, and 30U can all do 

 the same thing. Take that banking commission, it is imperfect. How 

 much comj)laint do we hear about the banking commissioner? Take 

 your state banks. Last winter there was a delegation of building and 

 loan association people who asked to have their association put under 

 state ins})ection, under the banking commissioner, and I asked them 

 how many building and loan associations have failed in the state of 

 Michigan in the past ten years and how much has been lost to the 

 people, and their answer was, ''Not any." "Plnve you had any inspection, 

 an.y government inspection?" "Not at all, but we need to have and*^"e 

 ought to have." "How many state banks have failed in Michigan in 

 the last ten years?" "About forty." Under a banking commissioner 

 all the time, right along all the time, about forty. Take the city of 

 Lansing, with the worst bank failures Michigan has ever had, right under 

 the eye of the banking commissioner and acting under his authority and 

 advice. These commissioners are not perfect. Not that they are dis- 

 honest. l)ut they are only human: they do not know any more about 

 business methods than other people do. Select your bank, know that 

 it is right, and select your commission house and know that that is light. 

 Mr. Barnett: Now foi" a suggestion. Organize every localitv into 

 an associntion. have a bonid of directors as outlined bv '^\r. Thnver 



