FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
87 
that there are ten or a dozen rich men 
who are putting up the money to run 
the Exchange. Let me tell you right 
now that the Exchange has no way of 
raising money except through the 
fruit which we handle. The amount of 
money that we get depends upon the 
volume of fruit that is handled by the 
Exchange. It depends upon the num¬ 
ber who come in and co-operate with 
us, whether we succeed or fail. 
I don’t know how many people here 
are not in the Exchange, and I don’t 
care. That is your business; but I 
want to tell you this: If you think you 
can pull another organization together 
you are at perfect liberty to do it; 
there is the field, try it. When the 
effort has been made that has been 
made to pull together an organization 
such as the Florida Citrus Exchange, 
which handled only 25 per cent, of the 
fruit of this State this season, how far 
do you think you will get it? Think that 
over; it is a pertinent question. You 
will never even so much as get into the 
vestibule which leads into the building. 
“It is only the smart men who are not 
in the Exchange; the fellows who can 
do so much better are outside of the 
Exchange. It is only the weaklings 
who are in the Association; fellows 
who cannot take care of themselves, 
but need a guardian.” Did you ever 
hear that? I have heard it, and let me 
tell you, the fellows who made the 
statement had far greater need for 
guardians. 
One of the valuable assets of the 
Florida Citrus Exchange is the confi¬ 
dence of the trade which has been in¬ 
spired all over the country. The Ex¬ 
change has demonstrated that it can¬ 
not only put up oranges so that they 
will keep, but that it is equipped to 
distribute the oranges it can handle in 
an intelligent way, and protect the man 
who buys from it, by distribution. If 
I were to undertake to tell you all 
about the phases of this subject I would 
be here until tomorrow night. 
There are two or three points I am 
going to touch on, though, on this “in¬ 
dependent” question. You know the 
first thing the other fellow does when 
he starts out in opposition to the Ex¬ 
change is to pat you on the back and 
tell you how “independent” you are; 
free-born, white and twenty-one, and 
don’t give a hang. “You don’t need no 
guardian.” No, surely, you don’t. 
Plenty able to take care of yourself. It 
sounds mighty good. You know the 
independent man in this State. If he 
is independent, he is in the Florida Cit¬ 
rus Exchange, and nowhere else. If 
he is out of it, you may rest assured 
that he is dependent. 
Let me tell you about one “independ¬ 
ent.” He was in the organization, but 
he could not stay because he did not 
like the secretary. So he went into the 
secretary’s store and picked a row with 
him, got licked, and then he decided to 
spite the secretary by getting out of 
the organization. Along towards fall 
he came around and felt pretty lone¬ 
some, and the nearer the shipping sea¬ 
son came, the more miserable he was. 
I felt really sorry for Mr. Temple. This 
