The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1915-12-23
COUNCILS RELATIONS TO HOOD RIVER

COUNCILS RELATIONS TO HOOD RIVER
Will the Northwestern Fruit Grow
ers' Council go the way of the North
Pacific Fruit Distributors? From all
reports in the different apple dis
tricts, the light of the huge central
selling agency is waning. This is but
the natural and logical course of an or
ganization so formed as was the Dis.
tributors. The quality of the fruits OF
the different districts is so materially
different that the Distributors. acting
as a collective agency. when it tended
to equaize the fruits of the different
communities, was predestined to run
on rocks. The poorer quality OF one
district was pooled with the better
quality of another, and the latter suf-
fered accordingly, while the pool
worked to the interest of the poorer
district. 1t was necessary for the Dis
tributors to work along such lines; for
its living was gathered from tonnage
handled. But this.very basis of forma-
tion defeated the ends toward which it
desired to work.
Now the Council and the Distributors
are not altogether comparable along
the above lines. But the proposed levy
of cent box tends to make the two
organizations parallel.
The Growers Council has justified
its existence. The results among soft
fruit growers of North Yakima bears
evidence of the bene6ts..of the organ
ization. However, the accomplish
ments for apple growers have not been
as marked as had been hoped for. The
greatest work of the Council was its
instigation of movement that lead to
the organization of the Shippers
League, composed of heads of shipping
organizations, who can accomplish re-
suits by comforting with each other and
taking such action as will stabilize the
bhuuotiy. iuCiS 10 q hSSSosity Aoi 'uS
Shippers League in arriving at proper
values for the crops to be handled.
However, you may be sure that there
will be just as keen competition be-
tween the sales agencies of the differ
ent districts as ever existed before such
an organization. but the League will
tend to eliminate the cut-throat meth
DDS of unorganized days. Understand
the Shippers League is an oganization
absolutely separate from the council of
growers.
In an editorial comment during the
late winter Of 1913 "when the growers
of the northwestern apple districts
were talking new methods Of co opera.
tion, the Glacier advanced the theories
that are today being put into practice.
Before federated cooperation of all
districts can be very successful, there
must first take place working CO.
operation, at least, among the head of
sales agencies in the respective dis
tricts producing considerable amounts
of fruit. Such an order of things is the
task the Shippers League has set itself
to accomplish.
As to the proposed levy of cent a
box on all northwestern apples next
year, we are prone to side with the To-
cal growers opposed to tie plan. unless
it can be shown that Hood River is 60
ing to get some direct benefit. 1t is
maintained that Hood River by its own
efforts in advertising is already far
ahead of the average district; that is,
in respect to the known quality of its
fruits, and that any campaign that will
move the entire industry ahead will
automatically move Hood River for
ward ahead of the other districts. In
other words, Hood River will be in the
same relative position at the end of an
advertising campaign as at the begin.
ming, although the entire plane would
De advanced perceptlDly.
One of the severest criticisms of the
Growers Council can be made in re.
spect to is intangibility. Every district
has been represented on the so-called
Board of Control. This board has been
in control in name only. The men COM
posing the board will not be willing, we
think. in the future to sumbit to the
possibility of any criticism for actions
in which they have had no voice. The
Growers Council was established at a
time when fruit growers, graspiEg at
straws. had lost the sense of proper
tion. Its organization brought the
growers participating from horrible
nightmare into the state of beautiful
dream, from which there is now an
awakening.
But out of the dream state has come
the Shippers League, and the dream
has not been in vain.
Considered from a standpoint of al
truism, it may be very we'll for Hood
River people TO join in the one cent a
box levy. But Hood River apple grow
ers must first consider themselves.
Hood River, to her own detriment and
the betterment of other fruit districts,
made the Distributors possible. The
benefits of working individually have
been shown by the marketing of the
1915 apple crop.