20 PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-THIRD FRUIT-GROWERS ' CONVENTION. 



California just held a convention, and called upon us to take this action, 

 and we '11 do it. ' ' 



Well, it seems to me irresistibly comical that retail dealers should 

 oppose a cheaper method of getting goods delivered at their doors. 

 From that time on inspired editorials have appeared continually in the 

 press, telling the storekeeper that with a parcels post in vogue he would 

 be ruined. Who inspired such editorials it would be easy to guess. 

 The stuff was even published in San Francisco as telegraphed from 

 New York. And under the guise of opposing the Eastern mail-order 

 houses, it gave them a splendid free advertisement. It was alleged that 

 a parcels post would throw all business into the hands of the mail-order 

 houses, who could, would, and did easily undersell the local trader. On 

 this account merchants, as individuals and in their various associations, 

 were vehemently urged to oppose its institution tooth and nail. Certain 

 jobbers in San Francisco even formed an Anti-Parcels Post League. 

 Their organ was the Pacific Coast Merchant. They feared that the 

 retailer would avail himself of the parcels post to buy his goods direct 

 from the various factories, and so benefit himself and his customers. 

 One such jobber with whom I conversed, after trying the mail-order 

 house talk, frankly admitted that the parcels post would prove a per- 

 manent benefit to the local merchant ; but, he claimed, would injure the 

 jobber. 



As to why the local dealer should be hurt by a parcels post no one 

 has yet found out. That the persistent calamity-howling of the ex- 

 press companies is already becoming ridiculous and ineffective, the 

 recent indorsement of parcels post by the Society of Retail Merchants 

 of New England loudly attests. 



On the face of it, the contention as to injury being worked to the 

 local dealer bore its own refutation. 



The parcels rate asked of the postomce was 25 cents for 11 pounds. 

 Now, it is safe to say, that five sixths of the population of the United 

 States live within such distance of some large mail-order house as to 

 get their goods delivered by freight at a rate much less than this 2 

 cents per pound. It is also well known that department stores, even 

 in California, already deliver goods from their bargain counters free 

 of all charge for transportation. In spite of this, I am sure you will all 

 acknowledge that in Stockton, Oakland, Berkeley, Sacramento, and 

 even in Marysville, there were never better stores with finer stocks of 

 goods than there are to-day. This absolutely free delivery has had 

 no such ruinous effects as have been predicted. Moreover, were the 

 mail-order business so exceedingly profitable, it would be easily within 

 the bounds of imagination to conceive of branches of these large mail- 

 order houses established at San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Sacramento 



