The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-11-29
FAVOR A PUBLIC MARKET,
The Merchants Association Max.
ing Efforts to Establish
One.
W.. II. Mills Convincing Answer to an
Argument Made to Discourage
the Project.

AT its last meeting the Merchants Asso-
citation took up the project of establishing
public market in this City, whereby the
producer and consumer can meet and do
business without the Intervention of the
mlddleman. The advantages of a public
market were set forth recently in THE
CALL in an interview with w. H. Mills. 1t
was argued by the merchants that free
markets are success in the East, and
there is no reason why one or two should
not be success in this City.
The Merchants Association took up the
matter in earnest, but there seemed to be
two or three obstacles in the way. The
first was that the commission merchants
would fight the project and bring strong
influences to bear upon the Supervisors,
who would have to establish such a mar
ket. 1t was feared that the argument that
the commission merchants cause thousands
of tons of produce to be dumped into the
bay while hundreds of people in this City
are almost starving to death because of
the high prices of the necessares of life
would be of no avail. A second obstacle
was the belief that there are not enough
small farmers in the vicinity of San Fran
cisco to supply large public market with
NSSStdoics, dLu tudt Tie SdIutileTS near ny
who peddle around the City, would prove
a dangerous rival to such q market
In order to secure further information
committee was instructed to make inquiry,
and a letter was addressed to Mr.. Mills.
His reply, which is given below, is a COM
plete answer to the second objection. He
wrote:
In reply to yours of November % I inclose
herewith a copy of an interview pub
lished in THE CALL of recent date. l have re-
Gently made an inspection of the Sacramento
Valley and my observations convince me that
San Francisco should have q free market; that
large number OF persons who have planted
lands in garden stuffs or who are raising poul-
try and dairy products would get q reasonable
price for their products if there was one place
in San Francisco where they could sell by their
own agents; that in their locality a number of
producers could join together and employ
agents to sell their products.
have taken some pains to ascertain what
the people OF San Francisco pay for garden
stuff, for dairy products, for breadStuffs, ETC.,
and discover that while the producer is pro-
duclng these things at a loss, so far as the
prices paid for them by the commission men
go, the consumers of San Francisco and the
rest of the State are paying very large price.
The interview discloses some instances.
found on the sacramento River, upon certain
reclaimed lands and other lands reclaimed
from Aforesaid condition, capacity for the
production of 90, 600 pounds OF potatoes to the
acre. 1t is not unusual to have potatoes sell
Tor cent pound. which would be 5000 per
acre, and yet farmer informed me that the
prices at which he was enabled to sell potatoes
dld not pay tor their cultivation.
L should be much pleased in a private inter
view to meet YOUR committee and give it the
benefit OF any information l possess on the
subject. THE CALL interview, however, pre-
SCltS the full rOnud Of the theory