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



in this non-competitive work relieves us of the strain upon our racial and national 

 standards which threatens their subversion in the task of assimilating the millions 

 of European immigrants. 



Your memorialists urge the immediate attention of the Government to our needs. 



I will leave these here and call your attention to them, and I wish 

 that they would be numerously signed, sent to me in San Francisco 

 and I will forward them to Congress. If anything is to be done on this 

 question in California it is time we move. It is true, the people say 

 the national election is coming and nothing will be done now. Very 

 good. You can lift your voices now, and when you have publicly lifted 

 your voices you will find yourselves more able to lift your voices and 

 declare this question. Step out and relieve yourselves of that bondage 

 of fear which the State has been under to the adverse organizations in 

 the great cities of the State and declare what your needs are and let your 

 representatives know what they are. There is always a time to start 

 reform, and having submitted to wrong and injustice and a policy 

 adverse to your interests, now is the time to stand up and speak and to 

 keep speaking until the remedy comes. I thank you. (Great applause.) 



MR. KING. Mr. Chairman, I thoroughly indorse what Mr. Irish 

 has presented to us at this time. I am but a newcomer in California, 

 and I want to say now, had I as a business man investigated the labor 

 conditions in California, I never in the world would have invested a dol- 

 lar here. And I want to say more than that. If no protest goes out 

 from this rural community you will put a stop to the future immigra- 

 tion of desirable people who will bring money into California, as so many 

 thousands have been doing in the past. You have a manifest duty before 

 you right now, and if you don't wake up to this occasion you will find 

 that California is not going to take the lead in prosperity which she 

 ought to. And I want to go further, and I believe we ought to do this 

 for its influence upon the rural districts, that this Convention should, by 

 resolution, indorse the memorial which it is proposed to send to Con- 

 gress. It will give courage to the people to whom you send it and will 

 do a vast amount of good in expediting this measure. I make a motion 

 to the effect that this Convention do indorse the proposed memorial 

 to Congress which is to be circulated. 



The motion was duly seconded and carried, there being one oppos- 

 ing voice. 



THE CHAIRMAN. We can hear Mr. Hecke's paper, and then it 

 will be permissible to discuss the whole question after that. 



