FORTY-SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. 125 



it about right that these people who haven't the fear of the decalogue 

 before them ought to be made to do the right thing by law. The gentle- 

 man from Canada says that over there it is unlawful for a man to 

 market an apple that is wormy. What would happen if we had such 

 a law here? There certainly would be a very different state of things 

 than now exists. 



Mr. Parker — I think that in this proposition something is touched 

 more than appears on the surface at first thought. The high cost of 

 living is determining the cost of the production of apples. It is also 

 determining the law of consumption of apples, and when the percentage 

 of the cost of living is 20% higher than the increase of the wage laborers, 

 they cannot consume the apples. Now then, if this organization can 

 tell us how the fruit growers of the state of Michigan can go to work 

 and form a corporation with a stock company by which it can put one 

 dollar in stock to six dollars of water, and then demand dividends upon 

 that six dollars of watered stock, that is equal to the legitimate profit 

 on six dollars actually invested then you will have the actual condition 

 as expressed in reports of Dun and Bradstreet on financiers at Wall 

 Street. When vou can get at the conditions by which you can demand as 

 they do, and increase equal to the high cost of living, and proportionate 

 to the amount that they now ask on their watered stock, then you will 

 have the problem solved. There are two thousand million dollars of 

 dividends taken out of us by these people who do not actually have one 

 dollar invested. When you can form such a corporation and with such 

 laws that for each dollar invested you can demand that our people pay 

 an amount that will bring the dividend on six dollars of watered stock, 

 equal to what it would be if it was really invested stock, 3-011 can solve 

 the question. 



A Voice — What happens when the bubble bursts? 



Mr. Parker. I would say it would be a case of glass apples. There 

 are thousands of - people going without apples for this very reason, 

 but the thing that we want to do as a people is to go out of this bubble 

 business. 



The fact is, the middlemen that handle our fruit are the ones thai 

 are in control of that bubble to a large extent. I do not want to seem 

 to be out of place nor to take this question into politics, but I would 

 like to tell you of an incident in my life when the Homestead strike was 

 on. I poured bushel after bushel of corn into the stove. There were 

 three cars of coal loaded that was held up by the Homestead people un- 

 til after the strike was declared off. They went to the Supreme Court 

 to get these cars moved, but they did not succeed. It aroused my 

 thought, to think that I should pour that corn into that stove in the place 

 of coal, while they were starving to death for want of food. I tried 

 to unravel the matter, and I found the same men owned the railroad that 

 hauled the coal, also sat in the Senate, so until we can reach that Senate, 

 we can never burst the bubble. 



A Member — Should winter apples be put on racks, or shelves, or bar- 

 rels, head up to keep best? 



Mr. Wiles — I do not know as I have any more information on this 

 subject than anybody else here, but before answering it I would like 

 to say just a word — I don't see the need of planting apple orchards — 



