]41 



were sales of bananas and other fruit that were not pub- 

 lished, that ran the sales up to $40,000,000 at the public 

 auction. 



It is a large business conducted in a business-like man- 

 ner, just the same as a bank. You cannot get credit there 

 imless you are worthy of it, but any man or woman can buy 

 there if she or he has money, or if they are worthy of credit 

 they can obtain it there, so Ave were able to pay these ship- 

 I'crs the day following the sale their cash with the Fruit 

 Auction Company's check and were able to give them 10, 

 20 or 30 days' credit, through the Fruit Auction Company. 



Now that Avas not very bad for the growers of our State, 

 <^nd any other State in the Union, to be able to ship to a 

 >^tate department that could not if they Avould, and Avould 

 iiot if they could, take a single cent, except Avhat Avas ac- 

 tually coming to them. They could not do it because the 

 i'uction compauA- Avould not let them, if they Avanted to, and 

 they could not stand up there and openly sell the goods and 

 then steal for us people, Avhen they could not cA-en steal for 

 themselves. Well, these sales Aveut on and these people, 

 Avho are buying there, are 80 brokers, aa'Iio buy on a very 

 small commission. There are buyers there for stores like 

 the Providence Public Market, Avhich is a priA^ate enterprise 

 and a very excellent one, I understand, Avhich is a large 

 user of those products and is ahvays represented by a brok- 

 er in these auction sale^. AVhy do these buyers come here? 

 ] am going to tell you: 



In the beginning, about 1890, all the California fruit 

 Avas sold on commission at private sale. The auction sys- 

 tem Avas started up; little l)y little, this fruit came to the 

 «iUction and a large part of it to the commission men at pri- 

 ^ate sale. Gradually the auction grcAv, and gradually the 

 tiommission men shrunk. Finally the commission men turned 

 their Avares over to be sold by the auction company, and to- 

 day 98 per cent, of aU the California fruit sold in the Ncav 

 York City market is sold at auction, either for direct ac- 

 count of the co-operative exchanges of California, or the 



