466 CALIFORNIA FRUIT SOCIETIES. 



party. In 1888, however, the commission packers themselves, 

 who, of course, were, as a class, just as good citizens as the 

 members of other classes, and of whom some had always 

 favored efforts of the growers to organize themselves, were as 

 strongly convinced as others of the necessity of united action, 

 and were ready to put the acreage which they influenced or 

 controlled into any combination which did not endanger their 

 large investments in buildings and packing machinery, or take 

 from them the mercantile business which they had been years 

 in building up. Wliat they desired was that they should be 

 permitted to continue to do the packing for the growers at the 

 prices which had been usually paid, and to continue to do the 

 selling at the customary commission. With these essentials 

 granted, they were willing that an organization of growers 

 should control pretty much everything else, including the 

 fixing of the prices, and were ready to enter into such con- 

 tracts with the growers' organization as should assure to the 

 latter complete control of tlie business. They were also will- 

 ing to continue to employ their capital and credit in advances 

 to growers, and generally to accept the situation of agents of 

 the growers, employed to pack and sell goods, and subject, in 

 these matters, to the control of their employers, who, in turn, 

 must accept full responsibility for results, and, in the main, 

 for the financing of the enterprise. The packers, of course, 

 could not and did not object to growers packing their own 

 raisins, or to the employment of such cooperative packing 

 plants as were in existence, but did object to systematic and 

 aggressive action on the part of the organization to increase 

 the number of such plants. Upon this point there was no 

 explicit agreement, but it was doubtless tacitly understood 

 upon both sides. 



It is unnecessary to detail the conventions and meetings 

 and consultations, public and private, by which organization 

 was effected substantially upon these lines. The packers 

 formed an organization of tlieir own, and the public move- 

 ments were, doubtless, largely based u})on private understand- 

 ings, more or less informal and indefinite, between the leaders 

 of the two parties. In several mass-meetings of the growers 



