48 



TWENTY-NINTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



to them all documents bearing upon the subject, and two weeks after- 

 wards I received a communication from them stating that they had 

 concluded not to take up the question. One day, as I was passing by 

 the Chamber of Commerce of Sacramento, I looked in at the door and 

 saw a lot of gentlemen there, directors of the Sacramento Chamber of 

 Commerce, and I asked them to take up the question. They didn't 

 understand it, but they said they would. I dropped in two or three 

 times and they were very busy, but they promised to take it up. I said to 

 them: "Gentlemen, I want you to invite any railroad official, or as 

 many as you deem proper. I want you to invite Mr. Robert Graham 

 and Mr. C. B. Dewees and Mr. Buck and Colonel Weinstock — every- 

 body connected with this matter; bring them here and we will discuss 

 the matter and we will see whether the statement will hold water or 

 will not." After a lapse of four months the Sacramento Chamber of 

 Commerce had communicated with these parties, and they would not 

 respond; they said they did not want to meet Mr. Stephens, they didn't 

 care to be insulted! I don't believe I ever insulted a man or woman in 

 my life, and I assured them that no one would be insulted; that all we 

 wanted were the plain, simple facts in the matter. The Chamber of 

 Commerce made a report of this kind: They took all the documents 

 submitted through the Transportation Committee by the fruit-growers 

 of the State and figured on them, all these interested parties, for four 

 months, and they denied to you gentlemen and ladies the right of 

 having an insight or look at their figures and passed judgment upon 

 what was filed with them by the railroad, the Armour Company, 

 and the Distributors, but would not give you an opportunity to see 

 what they were. I knew when the directors of the Chamber of Com- 

 merce were going to meet, and I was there and rose to speak, and the 

 President said to me: " Mr. Stephens, you can't talk before this Chamber 

 of Commerce. I ain't going to let you." I said: "That is all right, 

 Mr. Seymour, you will have the nicest time in the world keeping me 

 down. I am going to try to talk." He said: "I'll not let you" : but 

 there was a member of the directorate who moved that I be given a 

 hearing of ten minutes. I occupied that ten minutes. I have here a 

 booklet — a pamphlet issued by the Sacramento Chamber of Commerce. 

 I listened to their report first, and they verified every charge made in 

 the report of the Committee on Transportation. They admitted that 

 refrigeration was less in the territory in Oregon north of Portland and 

 in the whole State of Washington, because the railroads there furnished 

 their own refrigerator cars; but when it came within the territory 

 which the Southern Pacific dominated, then the rates went up. They 

 virtually admitted everything charged in the report, but denied one 

 thing, which I hoped they would, that the estimate of cost to the grower 

 was too high, and they quoted from Colonel AVeinstock's statement, for 



