The record-union., 1896-03-25
For a Free Market.

Il
Eds. Record Union: Your ex-
pressed views and proposition for hav-
ing a free market in this city are evil
IDENTIFY based upon sound business COM
mon sense. While residing in San Fran
cisco some years ago, by invitation /
visited a friend in East Oakland (before
the free market was established there),
| and noticing a pear orchard adjoining
his place containing a very fair quantity
and quality of ripe fruit, both on the
trees and ground, and much of it going
to decay, L asked my friend why the
owner did not send it to the San Fran
| cisco market. He told me that the
! prices paid by the dealers or middle
men there were not a sufficient induce
ment to make it an object to gather and
send the fruit over to them, and rather
than leave his legitimate daily business
to peddle it out he preferred to let what
he and his neighbors did not care to use
rot on the ground; for, unlike the greedy
and selfish middlemen, who, rather than
give to the poor andneedy, dumped into
| the bay that on which they could not
realize their own prices, he gave free
Of charge to any one who would not
injure his trees, and invited US to help
ourselves, an offer which we gratefully
accepted.
To me this seemed to be a strange
state of affairs. Fruit in the metropolis
so near by, and held by dealing specu-
| lators at prices so high that even the
| poorest quality and cheapest in price
was held at such figures that it could
not be had by the needy with little or
nothing-as the case might be-where-
/ with to purchase that which the dealers
could not sell but preferred to destroy
rather than give it to the suffering. In
| this land of large liberty people are
| supposed to have the right to do as they
| please with their own property so long
as they do not infringe upon the rights
/ Of others in so doing, hence this very
| selfish class, who care only for the well
1 fare of themselves and their immediate
| friends or relatives, prefer to destroy
their property rather than assist their
| more unfortunate fellow beings. There
/ is a deep wrong connected Herewith
| which the law has not seemed to reach
but which it seems to me might be done
under the head of Abatement of Pub
| lie Nuisances," through imposing a
heavy fine upon anyone known to have
caused the dumping of anything of the
kind into bays, rivers or streets, and
in which event I think such would find
t it to be to their interest to let their un-
sold stock be taken away without ex-
pense to themselves by the poorer
classes, rather than to allow it to rot
in their stores and then pay for hauling.
But the middlemen-profit consumers
| will ask what is to become of them when
| a free market is established and their
/ chief occupation gone. Ny advice is
/ to go out on a ranch and work for an
! honest living like others, and thereby
| become profit producers, instead of
profit-consumer only. If they say that
/ there is nothing in it," such thereby
acknowledge that all there was in it
! between the scantily paid rancher and
the consumer, they pocketed as profit.
and now object to putting themselves
''in the other fellows place." Evil
IDENTIFY the saying that ''one-half of the
world is living off the toll of the other
4 half'' is quite true. And now, all things
taken into consideration, my private
/ opinion, publicly expressed, is that if
| your ideas of a free market are properly
i carried out it will not only be a great
benefit to producers and consumers al
ready here but will also have more in
/ fiuence to induce the right kind of
thinking people to come and settle in
I Sacramento and vicinity than all that
i has been done in the past or can be
done in the near future involving the
same expense, and 1 trust that our
present Mayor is sufficiently progressive
and public-spirited to use his influence
in behalf of the proposed enterprise
with view Of bringing it to a successful
and speedy termination
AMERICAN MECHANIC.
Sacramento, March %, 1896