90 PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-SIXTH FRUIT-GROWERS ' CONVENTION. 



we can pass resolutions and go home and come back next year and 

 pass resolutions again. As Mr. Berwick has told you, for five or six 

 years we have been doing that. We have made progress in the enlight- 

 enment of the people ; we are more solid with the people, the producing 

 . classes of this country, because of the agitation, but we are not making 

 much progress toward the establishment of a parcels post. The plan 

 I have in view is this. A few years ago I met with the National Orange 

 at Eochester, and this motion for the first time was adopted by that 

 conservative producers' association, numbering over 800,000. and from 

 that day to this the parcels post has occupied a conspicuous place in the 

 national meeting of that great organization. Every state grange and 

 all of the local granges and every paper of that organization — and there 

 are many of them — have pushed it vigorously for the past five or six 

 years. As I said before, it is a conservative organization, but after 

 it has once planted its standard along that line it takes no backward 

 step. The work for the rural delivery and for many other national move- 

 ments has been pushed, and persistently, by that organization. As a 

 result we have marched forward. The Farmers' Union, which has 

 between two and three million people, largely in the Southern States, 

 has adopted the same idea, and California, perhaps, was as vigorous 

 as any in that line. During the sessions of congress the National 

 Grange for many years has maintained a legislative committee, and a 

 good share of the time it is in session in Washington ; they have met 

 with the President and the members of the cabinet, and before com- 

 mittees of congress they have not had a respectful hearing when they 

 have asked to be heard. What I propose to do is this. I propose to 

 meet, if I go to Washington, with the committees* of the Grange and 

 the Farmers' Union. I am personally acquainted with the men. or 

 most of them — all of them on the Grange and most of them in the 

 Farmers' Union. We will agree that we can push the parcels post 

 along intelligent lines. And what are those lines ? First, we will have 

 compiled from the Congressional Record at the present session of con- 

 gress, both senate and house of representatives, the action of every 

 member upon every question relating to the parcels post, and publish 

 that information in every congressional district in the Union. Aren't 

 we making progress when we do this? I think so. And there is no 

 combination of capital, no combination of interests that are antagonistic 

 to this parcels post that can hinder our doing this, and we will place 

 within the reach of the people of this nation exactly what we want, 

 and we will show who are favoring the things that the farmers are 

 calling for. I have yet to find any state or national grange, any state 

 or national farmers' union, a single man or woman, to raise a hand 

 or voice against this great convenience and great necessity of our 

 civilization, as it has been in other countries, and, therefore, I say 

 that when we have a concrete plan of operation that shall mean some- 

 thing and that shall tell our people who are their friends and who are 

 careless or antagonistic or indifferent, we will have made progress. The 

 question is as to doing it. It is with some degree of hesitancy or deli- 

 cacy that I stated to my friend Berwick the situation. The Farmers' 

 Union appropriated $250 for my expenses, but they did not have the 

 amount in the treasury. There was a misunderstanding and it has 

 come back to the National Convention, and then the question came up 



