BOOK SEVENTH,

The Fruit Marketing Societies of California."

CHAPTER I.

W

THEIR CHARACTER AND OBJECT.

HILE the object of this volume is rather a study of principles than a record of events, there are some peculiarities attending the development of cooperation in California which are well worth the study of the student of social movements; and as no comprehensive description of the California societies, or of those similar to them in other states, has ever been published, it seems desirable to include a brief sketch of the most prominent of them here.

It is obviously, as things go, an easier operation to buy than to sell, and to save than to gain, for there is required less expenditure of vigor, which, in the main, is the controlling element in human performance. That which is easier for the individual is also easier for an organization, and a French writer on cooperation, therefore, very properly remarks, in speaking of the French agricultural syndicates, which are, in the main, cooperative purchasing societies, that, marketing being the highest exercise of the art of cooperation, it is the last function which he expects these syndicates to undertake.

*See Appendix F for list of societies.

Cooperation develops in each country according to the local necessities of that country, which will invariably indicate the line of least resistance. The conditions attending fruitgrowing in California have been such that the cooperative element among fruit-growers was at once plunged into the most difficult of all cooperative undertakings, which it was compelled to attack without experience in cooperation, and with little or no knowledge of the art of marketing. The movement, with many ups and downs, has proceeded steadily from the first, the co-operative fruit* sales in 1898 having reached, in round numbers, the sum of $5,000,000. While no one can safely predict its immediate future, its work up to this time, which has attracted no attention from any writer upon cooperative affairs,† has been such as to warrant a brief description.

When one once becomes impressed with the law that necessity, and necessity alone, will induce cooperation, and that the unit of cooperative life is the industry, and not the locality, it at once becomes interesting to note and compare the spasmodic outbreaks of the movement in different and distant countries. While cooperation, when once established, has more or less tendency to spread from established centers, it is, after all, always the result of social pressure, and is sure to appear when the pressure is sufficient. The British artisan suffered under the oppression of the retail dealers in the necessities of life, and the result was the magnificent system of

*I do not include cooperative dairying, for the reason that, with a good deal of effort, no one has ever been able to gather statistics whic1 are even approximately correct.

† Mr. Charles H. Shinn wrote, in 1888, a brief monograph entitled "Cooperation in California," which was published, among other studies in cooperation, by the Johns Hopkins University Press. My good friend Mr. Shinn, whose information is very wide in most things, was apparently so interested in the literary possibilities of some picturesque attempts to found cooperative colonies of the Brook Farm order, that he entirely overlooked a substantial cooperative business concern that, even as he wrote, was selling nearly a million dollars' worth of fruit each year, and which had been prominently discussed in the press since 1885.

co-operative stores, which necessarily grew up in a spirit of altruism, and which systematically foster the altruistic spirit from the instinct of self-preservation. The French peasantry, tilling, in small holdings, a soil which has been cropped for a thousand years, felt their greatest need to be economy in the purchase of fertilizers and tools, and the result was the agricultural syndicates for the purchase of fertilizers and the purchase and rent of farm machinery. The thrifty people of Denmark felt their greatest need to be the perfection and economical production of a product for which their country was best fitted, and the result was their remarkable success in cooperative dairying. The peasantry of Germany were groaning under the oppression of petty but conscienceless usurers, and the result was Schutze, and Raiffiesen, and their people's banks. Until lately, the rural people of the United States have not been enduring particular trouble of any kind, and, hence, have been unable to cooperate-a fact which neither Professor Bemis, nor Professor Ely, nor Professor Warner, nor any other of the learned men who have discussed early failures in cooperation in America, have seemed to realize. At last, the fruit-growers of California, who were confronted with a great fruit product for which they owed money, but which they could neither eat nor sell, found it necessary to work together to create and maintain the necessary markets. The pressure has made them cooperate.

I was actively connected with this movement for about three years as a leader. Since that time I have been one of the rank and file. I know all those who are now leaders in the movement too well to make it possible to give the individual mention, which always adds to the interest of a narrative, for I have learned that one's recollection is seldom to be trusted in such matters, and I know that in giving credit I should make errors, which would be excused in a stranger, but for which I could hardly hope to be forgiven. There are many men now active and prominent in cooperative work, but of those who were so in the early days, when active friends were needed more than now, I dare mention but a few. In the organization of the California Fruit Union-the earliest of

the large societies-those specially active were Mr. A. T. Hatch, Mr. L. W. Buck, Mr. H. P. Livermore, Mr. W. H. Aiken, and Mr. H. Weinstock. These earliest pioneers are specially worthy of mention, from the fact that they were the first to break ground. In the organization of the Citrus Associations of the southern counties, all will agree that Mr. T. H. B. Chamblin, of Riverside, was the principal factor. He never, I think, served as a working officer of an established society. Mr. A. H. Naftzger has, for many years, been president of these Associated Citrus Exchanges, and can show abundant evidence of his effectiveness in the vigor with which he is denounced by outsiders. In the dried-fruit trade, the pioneer (successful) organization was the West Side Fruit Growers' Union in Santa Clara County, whose first president was Colonel Philo Hersey, of Santa Clara, who has also been president of the Santa Clara County Fruit Exchange from its first organization. The first meeting of cooperators which I ever attended, and which was a very large one, resulting in the organization of the Santa Clara County Fruit Exchange, was called to order by Mr. F. M. Righter, of Campbell, and the principal address was by Colonel Hersey, then president of the West Side Union, which had been in existence for a year. These two were then undoubtedly the principal leaders in cooperation in the dried-fruit trade. The organization of that industry in the southern counties has been mainly due to Mr. A. R. Sprague, of Los Angeles. In the raisin industry, in the San Joaquin Valley, cooperative work began with local packing associations, of which but two or three lasted long. Attempts were made every year or two to unite the entire raisin industry in one organization, which, however, did not succeed until 1898. I spent a portion of one winter among them in aid of one of these efforts, and some of the men then most active were Professor D. T. Fowler, now of Berkeley, Dr. E. S. Eshelman, Alexander Gordon, and John S. Dore, of Fresno, Mr. F. W. Rowell, of Easton, and Mr. B. E. Hutchinson, of Fowler; and presumably these had been leaders from the beginning; and there are, doubtless, others equally entitled to mention. In the final crystallization of almost the entire

body of raisin-growers into what is practically an effective Trust, Mr. M. Theodore Kearney, of Fresno, was undoubtedly the leading spirit, heartily seconded by most of the leading men of Fresno. Previous to 1898, Mr. Kearney had not, so far as I know, been identified with any cooperative movement. Mr. B. F. Walton, of Yuba City, and Mr. John Markley, of Geyserville, are entitled to mention for helpful effort in many cooperative enterprises. Mr. Markley was one of the first directors of the California Fruit Union. Among those who were most prominently connected with the organization of the wine-makers were Colonel F. Bendel, Mr. P. C. Rossi, Mr. A. Sparboro, and Mr. W. B. Rankin. This personal mention is made, partly because it is proper that those who have been specially active should receive due recognition, and partly to give to any one who may be interested to look further into the history of these organizations the names of some who, if still living, may give further information. For reasons already stated, I have usually omitted, in the narrative which follows, to make personal mention of any

one.

To the student of social movements, the cooperative efforts of the California fruit-growers are of interest in several respects. While the numbers involved are trifling as compared with those of the great cooperative societies of Europe, there are at least six or seven thousand scattered over an area of seventy-five thousand or eighty thousand square miles. The amount of business transacted, while small in comparison with that of the European societies, is respectable, and the sale of produce to the amount of nearly $5,000,000 in contested markets from one thousand to six thousand miles away, represents an expenditure of cooperative vigor equal to that required for the cooperative purchase of commodities of many times that sum in a thickly settled country like France. The interdependence of classes, and the frequent necessity of compromises between them, is shown by the fact that the raisingrowers were unable to effectively combine among themselves for the control of their product, except by a compromise with an adverse interest-the commercial packers-by which the