The first public announcement that a traffic association was in process of organization was made late in September, 1891, at which time merchants were asked to pledge themselves to send representatives to a mass meeting of merchants, producers, and manufacturers to be held on October 17 in San Francisco.[420] This mass meeting occurred as planned. There were speeches, discussion, and amendment of proposed resolutions, and the final indorsement of a plan for joint action. That is to say, it was declared to be the sense of those present that an organization be formed, that the management of it be entrusted to an executive committee and to the usual officers, and that revenue be derived from dues. Most of the program was cut and dried. Among the incidental but interesting features of the meeting, however, was an address by a gentleman from Fresno calling for the construction of another competing railroad, and the presentation of a communication from San Diego, suggesting that the Santa Fé be induced to extend its line to San Diego, and that provision be then made for connection by sea between that city and San Francisco.[421]
The net result of the meeting of October 17 was to reveal an interest in the plan for a shippers’ organization which encouraged the promoters to go ahead, while at the same time the meeting provided the machinery which made further progress possible. From now on, matters moved rapidly. The executive committee was appointed, and its membership was made public on October 23;[422] on October 30 a complete constitution and set of by-laws was adopted by the association, and on November 2 a general call for members was issued.[423]
Interior Towns
It was in securing members that the Traffic Association met with its first check—a check which consisted in the general refusal of residents of the country districts and of the interior towns to join with San Francisco in its fight against the railroads. It has already been pointed out that 97 per cent of the members of the association did business in San Francisco, and the check came in spite of a deliberate and persistent attempt by the Traffic Association to conciliate the interior. It was partly with the idea of gaining support from outside of San Francisco, for instance, that the mass meeting of October 17 changed the name of the association from that of “Merchants’ Traffic Association of San Francisco and the State of California” to the simpler “Traffic Association of California.” Another concession was the appointment of four outside members to the controlling executive committee—a proportion far exceeding either the relative outside membership or the funds contributed from that source. Still other attempts to gain support were made through meetings held in Fresno and San José at which the advantages of the Traffic Association idea were presented.[424]
Dissension
There appears, however, to have been some difference of opinion within the Traffic Association itself with regard to the best policy to be pursued toward the interior. The fundamental complaint of San Francisco was that her distributing territory was being curtailed. Isidor Jacobs said quite frankly that San Francisco jobbers believed at the time when the Traffic Association was formed that the jobbing interests of the city were in a bad way. It was claimed, and with reason, he said, that San Francisco had natural advantages, and that in recognition of these advantages railroad rates from eastern points to San Francisco should be sufficiently less than to interior points, to enable San Francisco jobbers to control the distribution even of eastern goods as far as many Nevada points on the east, and as far as Tucson, Arizona, on the south.[425]
Ideas the same as those expressed by Mr. Jacobs appeared in a petition made public in December, 1892, and signed by over 150 firms in San Francisco, and in an address published at the same time which purported to be signed by 75 per cent of the membership of the Traffic Association.[426]
Nor were there lacking specific complaints to the same general effect. A San Francisco merchant explained that he had a carload rate of $1.75 per hundredweight on goods which he imported from Chicago to San Francisco. The rate on a hundredweight of the same commodity from Chicago to Fresno was $2. The local rate from San Francisco to Fresno was nearly half the rate per hundredweight from Chicago to Fresno, being in fact 90 cents per hundredweight. The addition of the 90 cents to the carload rate of $1.75 made it evident how small a chance he had to do a jobbing trade with the interior in these goods.[427] Another San Francisco dealer, a grocer by trade, was reported as saying that he had been compelled to give up his grocery business because his customers could buy directly from the East more cheaply than he could supply them. The same man asserted that his customers could save a cent and a half per pound on tobacco by dealing direct with Chicago.[428]
It was unfortunate that dissension arose within the Traffic Association on so fundamental a point of policy as the proper attitude that should be taken toward interior towns, for the effect was, in spite of the best efforts of the men in control of association affairs, to deprive that body of the support of the interior. Moreover, opportunity was given to newspapers friendly to the railroads to attack the whole project as a selfish attempt on the part of San Francisco to improve her distributing position. The leading paper which took advantage of this opportunity was the Sacramento Union. This journal for a number of months denounced San Francisco as a city of hucksters, seeking a monopoly of the jobbing and wholesale trade of the Pacific Coast, not in the interest of the consumer, but in order to widen the margin between the cost of goods in which they dealt and the price at which these goods could be sold on the market. The charge was not fair, but the attitude of Mr. Jacobs and his friends embarrassed the Traffic Association in denying it.
Traffic Manager