Arizona republican., 1908-01-29
REVENUE PLAN OF
 C0MMt RCIAL CLUB
It Is Expected the Grievances of the
 Valley Shippers Will be Ready for Presentation in About Three Weeks.

The Maricopa County Commercial club has been very busily engaged dur ing the past week in the fuTtheTance of the preliminaries of the movement for securing better freight rates for
 this valley. The work however has 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 for the financing of the or ganiZatiOn for the work in hand. The results have been flattering and q 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 provisions 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 shippers were willing 10 cooperate. but there was some doubt as to their being will ing to alone bear all the burden Of the expense, for it is possible that may be a considerable item before the cam paign is finished. A still greater req son for desiring the cooperation, is that in the event it becomes necessary to appeal to the interstate commerce commission, the club desires to have every regular shipper of any com modity m the valley. represented by its organization so it can face the com mission with solid front and a unan- imous agreement as to what the actual conditions are.
 The board therefore decided to assess each member of the club d fixed amount but as the business Of the diff ferent shippeps varies so much in mag nitude it was seen they could not all come in on the same basis unless the fee was made so small the club would not be sufficiently financied. The board therefore divided the members up into two classes, rated as it thought the business of each would warrant and maintain d fair proportion of the expense of the club. The larger mer- chants were placed in what was called the s60 per year class and from that the, classes graded down as follows: $50. $40, $50. S25. Sl5 The membership is always the same in rights and rep resentation, only the large businesses pay the larger fees. Under this plan it was seen that the total revenue per year from Phoenix would be $4fIS, and from the south side S1295, making a to- tal of s5G73. It was decided that that was not quite as large q fund as would be required so at another meeting hCid Monday night the $GO class was raised tu SlG0 and a part of the members of the S15 class was put in q $6 class or at the rate of 90 cents per month. Ii 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 s64l3.
 This plan was ratified by the Phoe- nix merchants and yesterday the three south side members. Messrs. Gibbons, Stapely and Cook, met in Phoenlx, ap- proved the work the others had been engaged in nightly and said there was no doubt il would meet the approval oi the south siders.
 The board of directors has also been advised by the secretary of the Cattle Growers association that the cattle men will no doubt be glad to cooperate and it is also understood the orange and cantaloupe raisers have signified a similar willingness.
 While this has been going on Traffic  Manager Jones of the club has been busy getting out circular letter to each member reciting the details of the above arrangement and also enclosing blanks for each member to fill out giving the magnitude of his shipments. the nature of the commodity. the in- itial points and the rates paid. NIT Jones has also sent for rate books from San Francisco. Los Angeles. Den yer. Fl Paso and Albuquerque. 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 make out a statement, brief, bill of complaint or whatever it may be called for presentation to the railroad companies. in about three weeks.