THE SUMMER MEETING. 45 



make them too large, so large that the retailers found it profltable to repack 

 them by taking two bunches and packing them into three bunches. Now isn't 

 this a case that demands the attention of the legislature? If you make a law to 

 fix and establish the dimensions of a basket of peaches or grapes that sells for 

 twenty-five cents, ought it not to fix and establish the dimensions of a bunch of 

 asparagus that sells for twenty-five cents? or a string of onions? or a head of 

 lettuce? If that is not logic won't you tell me why it isn't logic? And if 

 your law fixes and establishes the size and dimensions of a basket of peaches 

 and a basket of grapes, and a bunch of asparagus, and a string of onions, and 

 a head of lettuce, why must it not fix and establish the size and dimensions of 

 a twenty-five cent cigar? If that is not logic won't you please tell me why it 

 isn't logic? And if you are going to fix the size of a box of strawberries that 

 sells for a nickel, won't you tell me why you should not fix the size of a drink 

 of whisky which sells for a dime? And so much the more as there are ten 

 drinks of whisky sold for one box of strawberries. And so on, as I said before, 

 to every namable thing or substance or privilege which it is possible for one 

 party to convey by sale to another party. You can't do it, gentlemen; your 

 law is incapable of completion. Law ! Why, Mr. President, law is not for 

 us; it is not for independent farmers. Law is for renters and horse jockeys 

 and for men that want to get divorced from their wives. Examine our court 

 records and see if this is not true that I tell you ! No, no, it is not for us ! 



But I think I had a third reason for believing the proposed remedy to be the 

 wrong way. Yes, it was this, that the law is not needed ; and I am quite sure, 

 Mr. President, that you will agree with me that tlie law is not needed when the 

 method I propose is adopted. What method do I propose? It is honesty ! 



''Ah!" you say, "is that all?" "That is the saint's ideal as he muses 

 upon prophecy and peers through the darkness to catch the first gleam of the 

 millennial dawn. It is not adapted to the latitude of Michigan and Chicago, 

 nor to this striving, struggling last quarter of the nineteenth century." Is it 

 a vision? I hold it to be eminently practical. It is a well-founded axiom that 

 ''what one man has done another may do." A member of this society last 

 year put twenty pounds of Concord grapes, sixteen ounces to the pound, guar- 

 anteed weight, into an attractive package, forty or fifty a day, six days in the 

 week, week in and week out, and shipped them to the Chicago market. They 

 sold for a dollar and forty cents ; while the rest of us put thirteen or fourteen 

 scant pounds in a fifteen pound box and they sold for thirty-five to eighty cents, 

 just as the buyer was "posted" or was not posted. Do you suppose, sir, that 

 that man cares what kind of a package you, or Mr. Tate, or Mr. Comings, or 

 anybody else ship your fruit in? No, sir, he does not give a — Mr. President, I 

 was going to say he does not give a "continental," but I stopped just in time. 

 And you never hear him whining about commission men or " scalpers," or 

 "repackers." Eepackers ! You don't suppose any of that fruit was repacked 

 on South Water street ! I suppose only a small portion of it ever went there — 

 sold before they could haul it there, and I would almost venture the assertion 

 that his tliis year's crop is sold while the little starry blossoms are opening on 

 the vines. 



And there is no royalty on honesty; no patent; there is no exclusiveness 

 about it. The way is open to all of us, but you cannot legislate a man honest; 

 you cannot legislate grace into a man's heart; men are not saved that way. 

 I said the law was not needed, but, Mr. President, there is sore need of hon- 

 esty, and on the east shore, too. Of whom did the secretary of our local society, 



