TWENTY-NINTH FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



97 



or two, you must not think that, in politics any more than in business, 

 sentimental questions will be allowed to interfere. Reciprocity is not 

 dead; it is only sleeping. Do not sleep, also, but by being watchful 

 and combining the Avhole Pacific Coast, and any other section or State 

 on such questions, get the votes and the influence which California 

 alone can not muster. Your own Senators naturally prefer to be on 

 the winning side, and if you do not keep up a clamor and vociferously 

 assert your claims and rights they are more likely to see their interests 

 through administration eyes than through those of their constituents. 



Cuban reciprocity, which your last Legislature refused to instruct 

 your Senators to vigorously oppose, and which has been allowed to pass 

 Congress practically without a protest, will cause you to rub your eyes 

 and wonder how it all came about when, in five years from now, agri- 

 cultural products, citrus and other fruits are pouring into your own 

 country's great consuming markets and elbowing out the products of 

 California. And it Avill, unless you take more interest in such matters, 

 be followed by other treaties or legislation favoring some other section 

 of the country or some other interest at your expense. 



A late inquiry, referred to the proper department in Washington, 

 which, being unable to answer it, suggested referring it to the Consul- 

 General of Cuba in New York, developed the fact that the small pref- 

 erence which we imagined we had under the Cuban reciprocity treaty 

 is rendered, by a trick of words, inapplicable to dry red wines, and 

 therefore California is practically excluded from all benefits of that 

 treaty, while yielding on citrus and other fruits extraordinary benefits 

 to Cuba. 



Few of you probably understand that while the French, German, 

 Portuguese, Italian, and other tentative I'eciprocity treaties have never 

 been ratified by Congress, wines from these countries are being admitted 

 into the United States, through presidential proclamation, at from 12-1 

 to 30 per cent less than the full duties prescribed by the Dingley tariff 

 law. 



In other words, it will be California, always California, that will get 

 the shells while other sections get the kernels of administration favors. 



By such methods, unless you are much more wide-awake than you 

 have been in the past, you may one day find that, instead of invading 

 foreign markets with California wines, you will have to fight to keep 

 your home consumption from being ruinously invaded by some foreign 

 product. 



Therefore, I say, do not peacefully slumber, depending entirely on 

 nature's bounteous favors for your prosperity, but demand of your 

 Senators and Representatives — who should be your watchmen, and not 

 you theirs — that they investigate and keep you fully posted on all 

 matters affecting your interests, instead of waiting for you to respect- 



7 F-GC 



