Bisbee daily review., 1908-02-01
GRIEVANCE OF
 THE SHIPPERS
 SOON READY
Phoenix Commercial Club Dr. ganized For Better Freight Rates Provides For Finances By Classifying Members.

PHOSNIX. Jan. 31-The Marlcopa County Commercial club has been very busily engaged during the past week in the furtherance or the pre- iiminaries of the movement for se- curing better freight rates for this valley. The work, however, nas all been of a secret or at least of very quiet nature and has been confined
 mainly to the activity of the board of directors, which is engaged in working out plans Tor the financing of the organization for the work in hand
 . The results have been flatering and T plan has been adopted which seems to meet the approval of the shippers as far as it has been presented and the board has good reason to believe that under its provision practically every shipper in the valley, large and small, will unite with the organization.
 There was never a doubt but that the largest merchants and other ship pers were willing to cooperate, but there was some doubt as to their be- ing willing to alone bear all the bur den of the expense, for it is possible that it may be a considerable item before the campaign is finished. A still greater reason for desiring the cooperation, is that in the event it becomes necessary to appeal to the interstate commerce commission, the club desires to aays every regular shipper of any commodity in the val ley, represented by it's organization so 1t can face the commission with a solid front and unanimous agree ment as to what the actual conditions are.
 The beard therefore decided to as- sess each member Of the club a fixed amount but as the business of the uff- ferent shippers varies so much in magnitude it was seen they could not all come in on the same basis unless the fee was made so small the club worIld not be sufficiently financed. The board therefore divided the mem bers up into two classes, rated as it thought the business of each would warrant and maintain a fair propor- ton o the expense of the club. The larger merchants were placed in what was called the $60 per year class and from that the classes graded down as follows: $50, $40, $50, $25, $15. The membership is always the same in rights and representation, only the large businesses pay the larger fees Under this plan it was seen that the total revenue per year from Phoenix would be s4,47S and from the south side S1295, making a total of S5,773. It was decided that that was not quite as large a fund as would be re- quired so at another meeting held Monday night the S60 class was raised to S100 and a part of the mem bers of the $15 class was put in a S6 class or at the rate of 50 cents per month. It. was believed that every shipper could at least come in for that much. This brought the total of the revenue, which is to be paid quarterly, up to S6,413.
 This plan was ratified by the Phoe- nix merchants and yesterday the three south side members, Messrs. Gibbons, Stapely and Cook, met in Phoenix, approved the work the oth- CTS had been engaged in nightly and
 said there was no doubt it would meet the approval of the sOuthsiders.
 The board of directors has also
 been advised by the secretary of the Cattle Growers association that the catle men will no doubt be glad to co operate and it is also understood the orange and cantaloupe raisers have signified a similar willingness. While this has been going on Traf- fic Manager Jones of the club has been busy getting out circular let
 ter to each member reciting the de- l tails of the above arrangement and l also enclosing blanks for each mem
 Der to Fill out giving the magnitude i of his shipments, the nature of the | commodity, the initial points and the
 rates paid. Mir. Jones has also sent
 for rate books from San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, Fl Paso and Al buqusrque, so he can estimate what
 differences exist that favor other
 communities as against Phoenix. He
 believes he will have this data at
 hand and be able to discover these
 differences so that he can made out
 3 statement, brief. bill Of complaint
 or whatever it may be called for pre- sentation to the railroad companies in about three weeks.
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