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edge of the American continent; and you have met here in this conven- 

 tion to advance and defend your right to profitably sell this fruit in 

 markets 2,400 to 3,000 miles away, in competition with similar fruit 

 grown almost within eyesight distance of those markets. 



The railroads, which must carry your goods, are naturally prime 

 factors in many of the problems confronting you, and when the condi- 

 tions of production and consumption, of supply and demand, have tem- 

 porarily cut off your profits, it is one of your most natural and proper 

 rights to inquire as to the profits of the railroads; to represent to them 

 that your industries and their fruit traffic must stand or fall together; 

 that if California orchardists and vineyardists cannot find a living 

 market, they must necessarily cease to raise fruit, and if trees and vines 

 are rooted up the railroads will suffer the total loss of fruit tonnage; 

 and therefore you are well entitled to demand of the carriers that if 

 their rates are not already at bedrock, their interests, in common with 

 yours (and no one interest can be more benefited by conditions of gen- 

 eral prosperity than the railroad interest) require that they cut them 

 down to the same hard level that your business has reached. The 

 change in rates in United States customs duties on commodities marketed 

 in the Eastern States, which come into competition with California pro- 

 ductions, has injuriously affected a great many fruit growers, but there 

 is no use to complain; it is done and is behind us. 



It is plain to be seen that at the present time fruit growing in Califor- 

 nia is not profitable. What can the railroads do to meet the situation? 

 The Southern Pacific roads afford transportation along the border land 

 between this country and Mexico. The more perishable fruit, how- 

 ever, the Southern Pacific carries only from one quarter to one third of 

 the way over to the Eastern market, and it has no control over the roads 

 east of Ogden; then we find that the railroad people are something as 

 some of you gentlemen say fruit growers are: when times are good 

 they get along peaceably, and do not get in each other's way, but when 

 times are bad all the available wisdom of their fellow- sufferers seems 

 hardly more than adequate to prevent some of them, quite without any 

 intent to do it, from destroying not only their own business but that of 

 their friends as well. While the freight traffic of California is not so 

 important to our Eastern connecting roads as it is to us; while they are 

 not in close contact with the growers and do not understand the necessi- 

 ties of the fruit shippers so clearly and forcibly as we of the Southern 

 Pacific do, still we have found no great difficulty in arranging with them 

 to do whatever the California producers demand shall be done. 



The question of time (five days in ventilated fruit cars to Chicago), 

 as Mr. Smurr has told you, was arranged last year, but the labor troubles 

 and their unfortunate consequences seem to have completely upset 

 everybody, and the arrangement was not carried out. 



As to the adequacy of present rates to support the railroads, our con- 

 necting lines to the East and competing lines to the North and South are 

 going through bankruptcy and are passing into the hands of receivers. 

 The causes of their distress are many; just how much their participation 

 in the low rates on California commodities has contributed to their 

 troubles, I am unable to say, but speaking for the Southern Pacific, it 

 seems to me that the company cannot do business at rates low enough to 

 make a difference to you of more than a drop in the bucket and continue 

 to sustain itself. Your plans to CQntrol and extend the markets seem to 



