160 THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 



the commercial shipping companies, organized into a shipping associa- ' 

 tion, and then we have several independent shippers. Now. the general 

 feeling, as a rule is thai in order to gel the best results I must hide 

 my movements from my competitors and I must get all the under- 

 ground information concerning their movements that I can, so that I 

 can take advantage of any ignorance on their part and get my fruit 

 to the best possible places before the other fellow gets his fruit to the 

 best possible places. That is the theory, but practically it results 

 more or less in market feasts and market famines. As a consequence 

 there are many serious hisses. 



The question arose, what can be done to remedy this? It seemed to 

 me that the remedy is simple and inexpensive. The remedy as I see it 

 is to establish a clearing house of information, a clearing house of 

 distribution, where all the information concerning shipments can be 

 concentrated — a clearing house to disseminate information and turn on 

 the light so that every factor would ship with the highest degree of 

 intelligence, instead of shipping in the dark. 



I found, however, on further investigation, that I had been antici- 

 pated in that idea— thai already the slate bad an object lesson along 

 these lines. The anticipators were the cantaloupe distributors down in 

 the Imperial Valley. I do not know whether you men and women are 

 familiar with the story of the Imperial Valley cantaloupe industry. 

 For the information of those of you who may not be familiar with it, 

 let me brief it. Imperial Valley, as yen doubtless know, has the 

 reputation of raising the largest and the finest crops of cantaloupes 

 that can be raise,] anywhere in the world. I see a gentleman over here 

 shaking his la-ad. 



Gentleman referred to: I am from the Turlock district. 



Mr. Weinstock: All right. The Imperial Valley ships the finest 

 cantaloupes in the world barring Turlock. The Imperial Valley has 

 this further advantage, that it ships its cantaloupes at an earlier lime 

 than do mosl other localities, giving it the advantage of an early market. 

 In spite of those advantages, the cantaloupe industry in the Imperial 

 Valley was in a very bad way. year after year, due to blind shipping 

 and to the fact that competing shippers were frying to hide their move- 

 ments from each other and trying to put "one over" on each other. 

 The result was chaos, gluts. The situation had become so desperate 

 that by the year L914 the distributors finally came together and said, 

 "This" thing' won't do. Let us organize a distributing association and 

 let's put our cards on the table and let's ship with, intelligence in place 

 of shipping blindly." They had not been organized very long before 

 Uncle Sam pounced en them ami indicted them for violating the Sher- 

 man Anti-Trust Act in restraint of trade. The next year they were in 

 great distress ami finally tiny went to Uncle Sam at Washington and 

 said. "What shall we do.' Up to 1914 our industry was practically a 

 failure because of unenlightened distribution. In 1915 we organized 

 and you indicted us for alleged violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust 

 Act. We are evidently damned if we do and damned if we don't." 

 And so Uncle Sam in bis wisdom through the .Marketing Bureau at 

 Washington sent oni a representative at once to Brawley, the chief 

 shipping point of the Imperial Valley, and this Federal representative 

 got the distributors together and they organized what Uncle Sam would 



