PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-SIXTH FRUIT-GROWERS ' CONVENTION. 119 



locality — some even claim that the cost is higher than that, but we consider the 

 amounts given above about the general run this year in the heavy producing districts. 



Concluding, we wish your committee all success in your undertaking, and we have 

 no doubt from the able manner in which the question is being presented that some- 

 thing should be done, if the powers that be have any respect at all for the persons 

 who are furnishing them the tonnage from which they are earning their transpor- 

 tation charges. 



Respectfully yours, 



W. C. Walker, General Manager. 



MR. STEPHENS. I wish to state that we state in conclusion that 

 We realize that the only power existing that could give the relief was 

 the railroad companies, and we relied on their honesty and integrity 

 and ability to do so. The object in publishing these two communications 

 from other railroads is a fair sample of about forty others we received, 

 showing that the whole responsibility rests upon the initial lines of 

 adjusting these rates which will be satisfactory to the growers and will 

 permit them to make a reasonable profit. 



Now, there is one peculiar thing about this. I don't know. The 

 railroad companies may have a representative here, they may have 

 somebody here that will assume to deny the correctness of the state- 

 ments contained in this report. We would be very glad to have such 

 the case. If we are wrong, we want to be shown where we are Avrong, 

 and we have tried to get a meeting with the railroad company, but have 

 not been able to do so. In other words, they have closed up like a 

 clam and have not said a word in the last six months except to acknowl- 

 edge communications. They have not denied it, and therefore this 

 must stand as positively correct, and why they have not some official here 

 to officially represent them I can not understand. If their action is 

 right, it ought to be easy for the railroads to show that. I would be 

 pleased to have any railroad official, any other man representing them, 

 come and attack the statements made in this report. 



Well, gentlemen, here are the reports. I hope you will take them 

 home and read them, because there is much more in them than has 

 been read here, and upon giving the contents careful consideration 

 you will see that our committee has proceeded in the most quiet man- 

 ner. We have said to the railroad companies that we were not making 

 a newspaper fight, that we were not appealing to the public for sym- 

 pathy and support, that we were depending upon their judgment to 

 right a wrong, to act in a manner that would permit the deciduous 

 fruit grower to make a reasonable profit on the capital he has invested. 

 We did not wish to come out in public one year ago and state the facts, 

 the true conditions existing, because we believed that we would con- 

 summate our purpose in that quiet manner. We did not believe that 

 the railroad officials understood the real situation, and we therefore 

 had faith that upon the presentation of the facts in the case to the 

 railroad officials they would accede to our demands and would grant 

 them. 



As Mr. McKevitt says, as Mr. Walker says, right now if they would 

 grant this $1.15 rate which they have been giving for years to the citrus 

 shippers, it would not be sufficient alone to bring a profit to many 

 deciduous growers. We have asked for nothing but what they have 

 been giving. We explain to them, in other portions of our letters, that 

 we are not even asking for the rate which they had been giving for 



