The daily sentinel., 1913-03-17
CONTRIBUTOR HAS
NEW PLAN TO GET
BETTER MARKETS
The Scntinei:

The Sentinel:
am not a fruit grower, but l am 4
citizen of the Granl valley and in
business here. and therefore If the 1
fruit-grower does not prosper. how
can L? 1t is an ind 'sputable fact that
the 'fruit-grower OF this community
is not prosperins at the present
time. Why? In my opinion for the
I following reasons: The commission
man under the present system of dis
tribution gets more 'ar more, than
his share of the profits. The grower
gets little or nothing Until the com
mission man is cut out, the grower
can never hope to come into his own.
! | don't blame the commission man
/ for making all he can. | do blame
the fruit-grower for allowing him
4 self to be robbed. While We have a
splendid organization for the selling
of fruit, II fails to perform the pur-
pose for which it was created. Most
any person can bill out a car of fruit
What this valley needs is not bill
clerks, but statesmen. Under the
present system of selling fruit to the
commission men no executive ability
/ is needed. You may rest assured
that until you sell your fruit direct
to the retailer and the consumer,
Just that long will you be broke and
failure. The fact that you have
managed to live and to some extent
prosper in the past is not owing
to what you have produced as a
fruit-grower. but is owing to the
coming in of new settlers with mon
ey who have purchased land and in
fused new blood into the communi-
ty Any community to have perma-
nent prosperity mus produce within
itself sufficient revenue to have a
surplus living profit from the pro-
duction of the soil. Under the pres |
ent system this Is not and will never
be so. 1t may take quite a while to /
smoke you out of your slumber and /
get yourself awake to this fact be-
fore you will realize that you are
entitled to bread and honey instead |
of husks. understand, as well as
you. that the commission men are or
ganized and stand together and tell |
you that if you sell your fruit to the |
retailer or consumer in one town, |
then they, the commission men, will /
refuse to handle your product any
where else. ] fulr$ realize that it is |
a battle to the death, Either the /
present system of robbery must go
on or you must own and control the |
distribution of your fruit. | would |
sooner die fighting than by slow /
strangulation. If you are slaves to |
to the commission men you get a /
slaves reward. If by throwing them |
over. you fail, at least you have died |
an honorable death-that of free
born American man. 1t is a fact that |
last summer and fall when our
peaches were rotting on the ground,
because there would be a loss to the
grower to ship tenn, they were sell |
ing to the consumer on the Chicago |
market for from $lj0 10 50 a box.
A friend of mine told me, having
Just returned from Chicago, and
having talked with the commission
men, that the commission men were
in full control of the market They
said, why buy two cars of fruit when |
one car will bring twice the price at
one-half the expense to us. The con-
sequence was, our fruitgrower is
forecIosed out of his home, and the |
consumer in Chicago paid too much |
for his fruit The commission man
did no work and not only did he get /
the cream. but he also got the milk. |
today talked with friend who has
Just returned from the east. Our
apples are selling at retail for &c
apiece. There is no overproduction
of apples in thisicountry and there
never will be The trouble is-there |
is no even distribution-the fruit |
grower is not taking care of the SELL
ing end-his natural enemy-the |
commission mans doing it. Wake |
up. you slaves, before we all starve
to death. Better let half of your
fruit rot this year than try to mar
ket it through the present system.
Order your association to put sales |
men on the, road, develop your own |
market and deliver the goods. We |
can grow fruit; the sun never shined |
upon a better country than the Val
ley of the Grand; our natural re-
sources are unsurpassable. Then |
why let this curse live? Kill it. You
can if will but try. Why don't you
try?
Here is another thing that is
wrong. You should never declare
another dollar of dividend on your
association stock No person not a
fruit-grower should be entitled to de-
rive one cent of profit off of you.
Your association should be run at
actual cost, and not for profit to
holder of stock. Stock should rep
resent the privilege to do business
through the association and not be
commodity for the benefit of the
bloodsuckers and teaches. Cut out
the dividends Set aside a fund suf-
ficient to retire outstanding stock in
the hands Of non-fruit-growing par
ties. And when after few years
of no dividends, 1t can be purchased
at reasonable price, and resold to
fruit-growers on basis of the rela-
ton of acreage Of producing fruit
and produce That is to say; a fruit
grower who has one acre of produc-
ing orchard would be entitled to one
share of stock at a certain set