TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



31 



was introduced and left to take its chances, because there was no money to pay the 

 expenses of any one to go to Sacramento, and' no one would go and pay his own 

 expenses. Milton S. Green, then representing G-oodall, Perkins & Co. at Sacramento, 

 as he himself told me, got the bill amended in committee so as to make it a little 

 obscure and, as he thought, to keep his people from being moved off the blocks which 

 they were occupying. He did not succeed in killing the bill, nor did he, in fact, mate- 

 rially injure it, for it cannot be put into execution at all except by taking the blocks in 

 question. 



I have no reason to suppose that Senator Perkins has ever taken part in the contest; 

 in fact, I am of the opinion that if I had the least confidence in my backing, or if he had 

 reason to have any such confidence, I could sit down with him and in an hour, by a fair 

 method of give and take, remove the opposition of that firm; but so long as neither he 

 nor I have any confidence that the people who asked the members of our committee to 

 represent them in this matter, would take the least trouble in the world to sustain us, 

 such a conference would be a roaring farce, in which neither the Senator nor myself 

 would engage. It is essential to a trade that both parties have something to deliver. 

 The fighting has been done by the Senator's wicked partners. Captain Goodall, who 

 directed the fight, is dead, and my lips are sealed as to the methods employed. The 

 most influential agents employed, as I was informed by members of the Legislature, 

 and believe, were the chairman and secretary of the Republican State Central Com- 

 mitttee, who were maintaining party headquarters in Sacramento. The last fight took 

 place over a bill introduced in the last Legislature to compel the Board of State Harbor 

 Commissioners to carry out the law of 1897. The bill was introduced in the House of 

 Representatives by Hon. George G. Radcliffe, of Santa Cruz County, a Republican, and 

 passed with but two dissenting votes. In the Senate it was introduced by Hon. P>. F. 

 Langford, of San Joaquin County, a Democrat, but failed in that house on final passage, 

 although at one stage or another it received the votes of more than enough Senators to 

 enact it into law. Had that bill passed it would have been impossible for the Board 

 of State Harbor Commissioners to avoid doing what it is equally their duty to do 

 now, and before any law was enacted. Before the law was enacted, however, it was 

 wholly within the discretion of the Harbor Commissioners. Now it is not. When 

 they delay to execute a plain law they violate their oath of office. 



The bill before the last Legislature had promotion as follows : "W. L. Overheiser, of 

 Stockton, a Past Master of the State Grange, spent two or three weeks in Sacramento in 

 the interest of the bill. His expenses, amounting to not quite $50, were paid by the 

 State Grange of California. I visited Sacramento three times to appear before 

 committees. My expenses, except transportation, which I procured from the railroad 

 company, were paid by myself. I presume the bill had promotion from the represent- 

 atives of the Southern Pacific Company, but I know nothing about it, for I never saw a 

 political manager or agent of that company to know him as such in my life. 



The records of the committee of producers show the vote of every member of the 

 Legislature on the bill at all times when the roll was called. The same, of course, can 

 be found in the journals of the houses. 



The shippers of perishable products by rail, and also, I should add, those who ship 

 by the Pacific Coast Steamship Company, and who now pay $80,000 a year for unneces- 

 sary drayage, can have the Free Market established beyond perad venture by simply 

 pledging the candidates for the Legislature, of all parties— for it is of course not a party 

 question— when they come up for nomination next summer. The proper education of 

 the people, including, especially, new members of the Legislature, requires a small 

 expenditure for printing and postage ; and another small sum, probably $200 or $250, is 

 required to pay the expenses of an open and avowed agent of the producers during the 

 session of the Legislature to expose lies. I will undertake to find a good man for $5 a 

 day, and he pay his own expenses. No, I don't mean myself. I won't go at any price. 

 I suppose $500 judiciously expended would assure the market. There simply needs the 

 evidence which such an expenditure, with the interrogation of candidates, would give, 

 that the producers of perishable products demand justice for themselves and the equal 

 execution of the laws. If the producers prefer to pay $80,000 a year for ever and ever 

 rather than to pay once for all a few hundred dollars to explain their case to the general 

 public and so get relief, it is a curious social fact, but otherwise of no interest to me. 



