The San Francisco call., 1906-08-17
ASSERTS FARMERS
ARE IN ERROR.

Fairfax II. Wheelan of the Southern
Pacific Milling Company insists that
p the farmers Of the Sacramento Valley
have no legitimate complaint on ac-
count of their inability to obtain San
Quentin 5ute bags and that they have
no logical reason to suspect certain
grain growers of San Luis Obispe and
Monterey counties Of having cornered
the prison-made bag market through
the corporation Of which sIr. Wheelan
is a director.
1t will be remembered that The Call
furnished evidence to show that specu-
lators in the two counties above named
had taken advantage of the convict
labor output to corner the supply of
grain sacks urgently needed by the
farmers, and that the board of prison
directors was investigating the matter
Mr.. Wheelan then made the statement
TO The Call that his company had re-
ceiVed 100000 prison bags on orders
OF farmers, and that statement pro-
voked communication from an agri-
eulturist Of Monterey County to the
Woodland Mail, from which the follow
ing is an excerpt:
As TOLD BY A MONTERREY FARMER.
am a farmer and have in former years
contracted with the Southern Pacific
Milling Company for San Quentin bags.
Lnis year the Milling Company's agents
told US farmers that we could not get
any San Quentin bags, and we con-
tracted with them for Calcutta bags
and now we are not receiving the CAL
cutta bags. How this was done / don't
know. but through some crooked work
1 suppose 1 can furnish you a list OF
names Of farmers of this vaI1ey who
contracted for Calcutta bags and are
receiving San Quentin bags in their
places: amounting TO between 10000
and 10000 bags in all Any informa-
tion or assistance I can give you / will
cheertully DO. / an giving you a list
OF few OF the farmers who contracted
Tor calcutta bags and are now receiV-
ing the others. The price of the CAL
cutta bags was to be $3.50 per 100 de-
livered in San Lucas. Monterey County
MR. wHEELAN EXPLAINS.
When the attention of Mr. Wheelan
was called to the foregoing statement,
he said:
. 1t is. correct, with the exception of
the claim that agents of the Southern
Pacific Milling Company told the farm
ers they could not get any San Quen-
tin bags this year That statement is
incomplete and misleading and implies
crookedness on the part of our agents
II is true that our people did tell some
of the farmers that they could not OBJ
tain any San Quentin bags this year.
but that was after applications had
: been filed with the board Of prison
directors for all the bags the San
quentin mill could turn out this year
When we found that no more applf-
cations for San Quentin bags would be
received we ordered one shipment of
200. 900 bags from Calcutta, and later
ordered another shipment of $4,000
bags. There was some delay in the
shipment of the Calcutta bags. and
where our patrons had 10 have bags
sithout loss of time in order to save
md sack their crops we, In many in
stances, provided them with the San
Quentin bags at the San Quentin price
plus a half cent on each bag to COM
pensate US for the expense that we
were put to in securing the sacks
That is how some farmers who con-
tracted with US for Calcutta bags that
cost about $3.50 hundred received San
Quentin bags that the prison directors
sell for 6k cents each. Our Calcutta.
bags have arrived and are being dis
tributed TO our different warehouses
to be delivered to the farmers.
BIDS YoLo WAKE UP.
There is no reason why the farmers
ae Yolo County did not get more bags
from San Quentin, except that they
we're slow in filing their applications.
They have no legitimate kick, and
they have no. reason to cry that the
farmers Of San Luis Obispo and Mon
terey counties cornered the bag market
through the Southern Pacific Milling
Company. If we see an opportunity OF
getting bags cheaply and early for our
patrons we do not let the chance pass.
II is up to the Yolo County farmers
to go and do likewise"
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