72 PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-THIRD FRUIT-GROWERS CONVENTIOX. 



It is not a theory, but a condition that confronts us. It can not be 

 evaded. We can not temporize with it. We must meet it fairly and 

 honestly and with an earnest desire to do that which will be for the 

 best interest of all concerned and will best encourage the development of 

 the resources of the Pacific Coast and the expansion of our commercial 

 and industrial activities. 



DISCUSSION OF LABOR QUESTION. 



MR. MILLS. If you have a few moments and you will hear me, I 

 would like to discuss one feature of this question. I am an employer 

 of labor — of white labor and of Oriental labor. The statement was made 

 here, and it is all too true, that the white laborer when he receives his 

 pay on Saturday night goes and dumps it into the saloon. What is the 

 cause? Now, I don't want to tread on your toes, but I think I can tell 

 you some of the causes. Recently I was at a large grain ranch where 

 horses were cared for better than the men. Where was there a place 

 for the man to go but in the loft over the horses' mangers, under the 

 shake roof that rattled in every breeze that blew from the north or the 

 south or the east or the west? There was not a stove to dry his wet 

 garments before he went to bed on a stormy night when he came in 

 from the field where he was working for the inhuman man who paid 

 him his wages. I tell you, gentlemen, we have, as employers of labor, 

 a duty as well as the laborers, and that is to house them as Colonel 

 Irish says he houses his. How many ranchers house their men as he 

 says he does? How many ranchers are there who will sit down with 

 their men and give them the inspiration they need? I myself have 

 been a laborer. I myself have been offered the side of a rail fence and 

 a five-gallon coal-oil can to cook my meals on, laboring in California. 

 We must provide comfortable quarters, lectures for the men, music for 

 the men, if you will, if you expect to get, for the money that you pay, 

 the labor that you need. You must make it possible for the man to be 

 comfortable in the quarters that you give him, so that he will not have 

 to go to the saloon and dump his money over the counter and the 

 damnable stuff down his throat. You want to make it impossible for 

 him to find so many saloons, to give him comfort, warmth, entertain- 

 ment, music, and everything which the social being needs. Give com- 

 fort, give encouragement and inspiration, and the men who are laboring 

 for you, the white men, will remember, and I venture the assertion that 

 half of your trouble will have ended. We are not fulfilling the law of 

 Christ to-day in the treatment of the white labor or the Japanese or 

 the Chinese or the southeastern European, and I say, with Colonel Irish, 

 God save us from southeastern Europe and give us any other labor than 

 that. But let us first act right with the white labor that we have, our own 

 brothers from the western prairies, our own brothers from the limits of 



