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of that division, and asked him, why it was $6 a car, and he said, " That 

 is the rate on green fruit." But I said, " I can land that fruit with 

 my teams in Fresno for less money." He said, "I don't think you 

 can." I then kept a carefully made detailed statement of the loading 

 and shipping of two cars to Fresno, and getting the empties back, 

 and compared this with the cost of hauling two carloads by team to 

 Fresno — made out a detailed statement and put down every item of 

 cost, and took it to Mr. Fraser and showed him that I could haul the 

 fruit at a less rate by team. He said, " I can't question these figures, 

 and it is a pretty hard showing, but I will send it to Mr. Smurr and see 

 if I can't get the rate reduced." It was so sent. In a few days word 

 came back that they would like to make a concession of $1 a car, 

 but it would interfere with their rates in other places, and they could 

 not do this. I said, " Very well, we will try to keep the mules 

 alive." That was last year. This year when we have finished the 

 season we will have hauled to town with those mules — because they 

 have been kept healthy — about 300 tons of fruit, and not one pound 

 has gone by rail from our place. [Applause.] Now, I think when the 

 railroad cannot do that business in the matter of time, and in the 

 matter of cost, and compete fairly with the mules, it is about time for 

 us to ask the reason why. When we come to consider this question a 

 little further, when we ask whether the railroad business is a profitable 

 business or not, because this element of cost enters into the question, 

 they tell us they cannot reduce our rate for fruit, and they cannot 

 reduce the rate on fares. But to-day, as you have seen by the 

 papers, we have made the experiment, and made it successfully, 

 of hauling our fruits from Fresno all the way to San Francisco 

 by mule team. And when we come to study the census of the 

 United States, when we refer to what Henry Clews and Governor 

 Larrabee have said on the railroad question, we come to the con- 

 clusion that the way railroads have managed their affairs in this nation 

 and in this State, that they have been managed to the detriment of 

 the people, but to the full benefit of the owners of the roads. I do not 

 mean to say that the railroads have not been the means of great good, 

 but I do say it is by reason of the special privileges which the people 

 have given the roads, that they are enabled to impose these burdens 

 upon the fruit-raisers. The other day we sent some fruit to Chicago, 

 and it was good fruit, and sold at a fair price, yet when we came to sum 

 up our returns, we found that 82 per cent of the returns was the cost of 

 placing the fruit on the market, and the largest portion went to the rail- 

 road, leaving 18 per cent for growing the fruit and assuming all the 

 risks. There is something unjust in this condition of affairs. This 

 great industry is languishing in this State, because of these conditions, 

 and we are here to consider them. And when we come to study them 

 carefully, we find something like this: In the production of the wealth 

 of the nation the different industries should have somewhere near their 

 equal share in the division of the profits. But when we come to examine 

 the census of 1890, we find these facts, that the railroads are capitalized 

 at four billions of dollars; that the railroads have absorbed more than 

 their just share of all the wealth gained from 1880 to 1890, as shown by 

 the census of the United States. The industries of this nation under the 

 census are capitalized at forty-eight billion dollars, outside of banking and 

 manufacturing. The four billions has absorbed more wealth of the nation 



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