24 PROCEEDINGS OF NINETEENTH FRUIT GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



have cost the growers from 10 to 25 per cent on their New York sales. 

 It would seem to me that if the West Shore was giving rebates, it would 

 not be likely to refuse a rebate to the Armour Packing Company, and 

 thus sacrifice the great volume of the Armour Company's business. It 

 is for the reason that the plan of having a consolidated outside sales- 

 room in New York leaves the field open to all shippers, growers, and 

 railroads, that no room for fraud or for monopoly is left anywhere. 



Mr. Motheral: It was said that Earl and Porter, and those interested 

 in the consolidated auction in Chicago, had a closed auction, where 

 hucksters and retailers were kept out, and that the sales were made 

 wholly to jobbers, and that only a certain class of retailers were allowed 

 to go to this auction. 



Mr. Weinstock: That is a mistake. The very fact that the Union 

 Auction Room, supported largely by Earl and Porter, insists on selling 

 to everybody, is an answer to that. The jobbers and wholesalers in 

 Chicago are averse to open, level competition, and, consequently, they 

 demand that the hucksters and peddlers be excluded from the auction 

 room. The wholesale dealers say: "If we can keep the small people 

 out, we will have a chance to sell them their supplies." In past seasons 

 the principal auction room in Chicago has been what is called a closed 

 auction. This season the Chicago wholesalers came together, and said, 

 " See here, Mr. Auctioneer, you can't sell to such and such people." And 

 he said, "I am simply carrying out my instructions." "Well," they 

 said, "we want you to drive those hucksters out." He refused; then 

 they telegraphed to our association, demanding that the auction room 

 be again made a closed auction. On our refusal to comply with their 

 request, they established an opposition auction room, in which they 

 proposed doing as they liked. When it was made plain, however, that 

 the opposition auction room was started for the purpose of destroying 

 the California Fruit Growers and Shippers' Association, it raised such a 

 howl at this end that the opposition company realized they had gone too 

 far, as they clearly understood that the closed auction was exceedingly 

 unpopular in California. They then claimed that theirs was not a closed 

 auction. When I was in Chicago I made it my business to take this 

 matter up with the dealers on the street. I talked with one of them, an 

 Italian. He did not know who I was. He said, however, " You come 

 from California, don't you? I can always tell a Calif ornian. He always 

 looks at the brand." I said, "Where did you buy this fruit? " He said, 

 " Why, at the Merchants' Auction House." I said, " Do they not also 

 sell to retailers and peddlers in that auction house?" He said, "Not 

 much; of course the peddlers cannot be kept out, but the auctioneer 

 takes mighty good care not to see them when they bid." I think, how- 

 ever, this season's experience has not been a very satisfactory one to the 

 Chicago wholesale houses. I think that many of the wholesalers in 

 Chicago have simply cultivated a new opposition by building up many 

 hucksters into formidable rivals, who probably would not have existed 

 if the wholesalers had not acted in the manner in which they have, -and 

 I think the wholesalers have also found the attempt to establish a closed 

 auction futile. 



Mr. Adams: How is it proposed to arrange the order of selling between 

 the various auctioneers? 



Mr. Weinstock: It will be done exactly as it is in the City of Phila- 

 delphia. There they have one railway terminal where all the fruit is- 



