History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, Volume I, Part 32

Author: Vandor, Paul E., 1858-
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company
Number of Pages: 1362

USA > California > Fresno County > History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, Volume I > Part 32

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And yet after his death and after his will was made public, men had one considerate, charitable word for him. That will condoned sins of omis- sion and commission of the past. In the history of Fresno, of all the rich men that have died, none has made such a princely public gift as did M. Theo. Kearney, the man from whom it was the least expected. In that will, he bequeathed everything to the Regents of the University of Cali- fornia with the direction that the Fruit Vale Estate be created a station to be called the "Kearney Experimental Station" as an adjunct of the College of Agriculture in accordance with views embodied by him in a document in the possession of his attorney. The estate has been distributed in accord- ance with the will to the regents, and with their entering into possession in trust for the state one large asset item was stricken from the county assessment roll.

When the regents were considering establishing an agricultural branch college in the north central part of the state and were asking for site dona- tions, Kearney offered 180 acres of his estate gratis to secure the location for Fresno as the typical irrigation district. The offer was declined and the branch was located at Davisville in Sacramento County. Great was the local chagrin. In time the state came in not for a part of the estate as a gift,

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but for all of it as a bequest. It has not been executed in the establishment of the branch college and consequently there has been newspaper and public ill-considered and unjust criticism, with the insinuation that the regents have diverted the income from the Fresno property to equip, improve and maintain the other establishment. The truth is that in round numbers the estate has a valuation of about one million, was indebted for a quarter of a million and has a yearly income of about $50,000. The regents have made many improvements, notably expending over $25,000 in a tile drainage sys- tem for the reclamation scientifically of an alkalized section of land, and cleared the estate of debt, besides continuing all its activities.

The cold truth is that after cost of maintenance the estate does not provide an endowment fund sufficient to establish the college with build- ings, faculty, laboratories, apparatus and all the necessaries for an institu- tion such as the landed gift warrants and contemplates, while at the same time making use of that land with a management and retinue of laborers to continue the revenue. The condition of the accepted trust that the branch be called the "Kearney Experiment Station" would probably preclude other philanthropically minded making an endowment to help perpetuate the name and memory of a man with whom the later donor was in no wise associated, or to aid with gift an enterprise that may not appeal to him as strongly as it did the originator. The least, however, that the regents could have done in these years would have been to give the box of ashes prominent entomb- ment on the grounds with a monument in memory of the man in recognition of his gift to promote the science of agriculture.

In the later years of his life, it was the annual summer practice of Mr. Kearney to journey to Europe to take treatment of the medical waters at Bad Nauheim in Germany. He left on his last journey on May 9, 1906, and the news of his death at sea was received on the 29th, three days after the fact. He was a sufferer from cardiac trouble and subject to attacks of heart failure. He was in San Francisco during the fire and earthquake in April but escaped from the scene of destruction in his automobile .. Out- wardly calm and imperturbable, which was his characteristic bearing, the general excitement undoubtedly aggravated his ailment. He was aged about sixty, claimed to have been born in Liverpool a fact not disclosed by a searching examination of the parish birth records, was probably of Irish parentage, and asserted American citizenship by virtue of his father's natu- ralization of which there was no proof. In politics he took so little interest that it is doubtful whether he ever registered to vote.

According to affidavits filed in a threatened contest of the will dated at Chateau Fresno Park November 1, 1905, the family came to Boston to live and there presumably he attended the common schools. The story is that the father was a victim of drink, that the family was at times in semi desti- tution, an older brother died, and the mother's death followed from a broken heart, in short that early in life he was left in the world without kith or kin. The wretched death of his father and the sorrows of his home life so im- pressed him that fearful of falling into the habit by inheritance he signed the pledge as an abstainer from liquor.

M. Theo. Kearney may be said to have been a good theoretical and. speculative business man, but he lacked the qualifications to make a success- ful executive. He was a forceful and terse writer, showing that he had a good elementary education but nothing more. In all his writings and pub- lished appeals, addresses and raisin association arguments and discussions is an utter lack of historical, literary or scientific allusion or quotation save the most commonplace and familiar. A man of affairs supervising large un- dertakings, he was no bookkeeper. Until his appearance in San Francisco in the early 70's as a clerk with W. S. Chapman, whose name recalls the earliest large Fresno land speculative operation, there is a long unfilled

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gap in Kearney's life from the days in Boston. Evident that his business connections in San Francisco gave him some standing in the community in a secondary capacity, there is proof of his effort "to break into society," and of not infrequent vacation visits to the fashionable watering and sum- mer resorts of the day. His coming to Fresno was in 1873 or 1874 and his arrival on a rainy night has been recalled as that of a dapper young fellow in a long duster and carrying a hand satchel, unknown, unacquainted but backed by self assurance and good credentials. He was profitably associated with Chapman in the sale of a tract on the San Joaquin, and through this connection was appointed about 1877 agent of the Bank of California in the sale of a 2,500-acre subdivision of the Easterby rancho.

Some years elapsed before he came through some speculative arrange- ment into possession of 3,000 acres of what became the Fruit Vale Estate, ten miles west of Fresno townsite, put it under irrigation and in time sold about one-half of the acreage to settlers under cast-iron contracts to improve and plant the land, conditionally upon forfeiture of everything in case of delinquency in installment payments, with twelve percent. compound in- terest on deferred payments. The highly improved and beautified estate domain embracing 5,182 acres is approached from the city at the western terminus of Fresno Street by Kearney Boulevard, an eleven-mile-long wind- ing triple driveway, lined and shaded with palms, alternate white and red flowering oleanders, pampas grass clumps and eucalyptus trees. It is a show driveway over which every visitor is taken to view Kearney Park on sight-seeing tours. This boulevard Mr. Kearney in his life-time donated to the county as a public thoroughfare for which gift the populace gave him scant thanks or credit. The boulevard is advertized as one of the attrac- tions of Fresno and has been compared with pride to the Alameda, San Jose's famous driveway.

The estate comprises 250 acres in a central park surrounding the chateau, fifty acres in oranges, twenty-five in olives, 850 in Muscat grapes, 4,000 in alfalfa, and also a dairy farm. At the main entrance of the park stands a castellated lodge. The Chateau Fresno project was never completed because of his precarious health, though plans with that end in view were under consideration at the time of his death. With his solitary life, the necessity for enlarging the structure, or even the reason for its original conception, are not apparent. It was perhaps only a rich man's folly or whim.

During the panic of 1893 many of the land buyers defaulted in their payments. Kearney enforced the forfeiture clause, increased his holdings by seizing possession of the lands and improvements of the purchasing ten- nantry, held on to every cent of money payments made, foreclosed mort- gages, enriched himself and turned the unfortunates out of home and living, bankrupt, whether man of family or single, widow or maid. He was con- sistent in making no distinctions. The feeling of bitterness against him was intense and general, and he was execrated and ostracised. He enforced for- feitures through the courts and was sustained. Shylock like, he demanded what was his, even though to the pound of flesh, and the courts awarded it, for was it not so nominated in the bond? Yet such same Shylock contracts are enforced today in all lines of business and excite no longer even ripple or murmur of comment. They were yet new in his time, but heartless was the manner of their enforcement to fatten on the misfortune of others. In cited cases the victim was inveigled by fair promises to mortgage to make improvements, hence the execration. The Kearney Vineyard Company was incorporated about 1900 and effort was made to float the shares in Europe, but no sales were made.

Kearney's public career begins with the organization of the first Cali- fornia Raisin Growers' Association. He was prominent as an advocate in the long agitation and campaign resulting in its formation. The growers

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hailed him as the Moses to lead them to the promised land of a stable market and good prices. In the formation of the association, his pooling plan was given preference over T. C. White's capitalization scheme on a basis of a minimum two and one-half cents per pound. Fifty percent. of the acreage signed up in the pool, and on June 4th the association was organized with M. Theo. Kearney (President), T. C. White, Louis Einstein, W. S. Porter, Robert Boot, L. S. Chittenden and A. L. Sayre as directors. In the be- ginning it had general support and hopeful stability was given an industry which without organization had carried the grower to the ragged edge of financial despair. So notable was the early financial success that it was the boast that growers paid off mortgages as never before in years, and general were the prosperity, good feeling and better times brought on through co- operation.

In time differences developed as to policies, intolerance of opposition and clashes in opinions created factions of Kearneyites and Anti-Kearney- ites, and this warfare continued through the life of the association pool, fostered by the commercial packers in opposition to it, and led ultimately to its undoing. In this unfortunate state of affairs, Kearney displayed often the characteristics that so marked him in his business relations and asso- ciations with his fellow men. He petulantly resigned to enforce his con- tentions without, however, ceasing to serve, and at another time refused or declined to serve, the while remaining in office, though no longer persona grata. The public, fickle as a drab, shouted for him at one time, cried him down at another. One year it hooted him out of the assembly hall dishon- ored and repudiated at the close of his term; the very next year it acclaimed him joyfully and almost unanimously reelected him to the directorate. It was declared that he must truly have been of Irish blood for to fight was his nature, and he was never more urbane than when embroiled.

His character was such, however, as to brook no opposition, scorning the best meant advice and refusing pacific compromise measures, once he had set his mind on a purpose and plan. He had in the time of success a large following that regarded him as the one man in the raisin business that was in experience and temperament most peculiarly fitted to cope with the presented details of the situation. He was haughty, imperious and arbi- trary. He exhibited a frigid friendship for him that could aid or whose services he was in need of: he had no consideration but contempt for him that opposed him and took no pains to conceal the fact. He was skilful as a politician but by methods the reverse of the usual artifices of the politician. He antagonized instead of placating many helpful agencies in the unsigned growers, in the commercial packers and in the banking interests, so that a continual warfare was maintained, the factional strife became bitter and personal, and the end was the desertion and disruption of the association. It will not be denied that Kearney was the first leading grower and citizen to awaken the raisin grower to the need of associated cooperation and to present a practical working plan that more judicially operated would have been successful but for his intolerance of the opinions of others, an exag- gerated estimate of his own importance and a rasping domination in attempt- ing to bring to bear upon business associates the same arrogance that marked his relations with hired dependents on the estate.

Said it has been that Kearney died of a broken heart over the monu- mental failure of his raisin association. What was his own opinion of that failure and his ill-requited efforts? Fortunately he left the answer to the question in a written memorandum that after his death was found among his effects. This incomprehensible cynic had penned the following words: 13

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When the time comes to write my epitaph, the following might well be copied :

WARNING.

Here lies the body of M. Theo Kearney, a visionary who thought he could teach the average farmer, and, particularly, the raisin grower, some of the rudiments of sound business manage- ment. For eight years he worked strenuously at his task, and at the end of that time, he was no farther ahead than at the beginning. The effort killed him. M. THEO. KEARNEY.

The same spirit tinged his will. It was drawn by one of the most skilful lawyers, and the one he most trusted in the delicate legal questions con- nected with the raisin association. For one who had ever maintained that he had no kin in the world, he was scrupulously careful that no part of his estate should by any manner of means revert to any legal heir, if one sur- vived. The bequest to the state was in entirety, but he made also a saving disposition of it as a trust, in the event that it be held that the first con- travened the code section against bequeathing more than two-thirds to char- itable or eleemosynary institutions. The court ruling was that the state uni- versity was not an institution coming under this category. To the woman who could prove to be a legal wife he left fifty dollars and to any legal heir a dollar each, and then there was the additional specific clause directing that it was his desire that no portion of his estate go to legal heirs, if any there were living.

Dennis Kearney claimed to have known him as a cousin in San Fran- cisco since 1869, when he (Dennis) was a steamship dock foreman. He told a story that the relationship had been acknowledged in mutual confidences and he gave it an amusing variant in reciting that their recognition and acquaintance grew out of a proposed duel that M. Theo. Kearney and Captain Floyd, steamship dock superintendent, were to have had over a girl that both were courting. Dennis Kearney said that he was approached to arrange the details for the duel on the deck of the old steamship John L. Stephens, but that it "ended in smoke" by reason of his friendly intervention in behalf of his cousin. This narrative was so laughingly improbable that no one ever took it seriously in any part. No detail of it was corroborated in the most remote degree by any offer of proof.

Recalling the haughty bearing of M. Theo. Kearney, carried to the degree of superciliousness, it would have been wormwood and gall and an unbear- able humiliation to have been saddled with the equality of first cousinship with the beetle-browed, furtive-eyed and foul mouthed agitator of the sand lot days in San Francisco in the late 70's, and in the 80's.

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CHAPTER XL

THE LITIGIOUS SIDE OF THE RAISIN BUSINESS. DELIVERY REJEC- TIONS ON A FALLING MARKET. PETTIT'S LONG FIGHT AS THE IMPOVERISHED SEEDER MACHINE INVENTOR. EARLY EFFORTS TO WORK UP A TRADE IN THE HAND TURNED OUT PRODUCT. HIS ASSIGNED PATENT IS HELD UP AS THE PIONEER AGAINST IN- FRINGEMENT, THOUGH ANTICIPATED THEORETICALLY. FORSYTH PRE-SEEDING PROCESS IS REJECTED AS LACKING NOVELTY. LIQUIDATION OF FIRST ASSOCIATION LAGS IN THE COURTS FOR SIX YEARS.

Quadrennial presidential contests or periodical "wet and dry elections" are apparently subjects of relatively minor moment in drawing out local news- paper discussion and in exciting popular interest and comment in Fresno County at least, compared to the recurrent campaigns of education for the formation of a raisin growers' association when there has been none, or to prolong the chartered life of an incorporated one by the signing up of a controlling percentage at time of expiring old contracts. The success or failure in marketing a year's crop of the leading specialty is regarded as a barometric gauge of the prosperity or lack of it in the community, and every one has come to believe that he is personally affected in pocket in conse- quence.

The raisin is, to be sure, a big subject in Fresno, and being so it has been a fruitful source of litigation. Its history would be incomplete without allusion to that phase, now practically closed and determined as to disputed questions as were the many problems that grew out of the introduction of irrigation. The oil period is also marked by litigation that is being threshed out to a finality in the federal courts. Land titles were never a prolific source of litigation as in other counties as the result of conflicting and loosely awarded Spanish grants. There was only one notable grant in the county, that of the Laguna de Tache, and its title was fully determined before the time of selling to settlers.

Before the days of an organized raisin industry, and during the intervals when it was in chaotic state, differences between grower and packer, who purchased and marketed his product, were frequent. The disputes were most conspicuous as to number during periods of a falling market. Contracts were repudiated, deliveries declined, and product rejected, wherefore litigation followed mostly on the part of the grower to enforce contract. An easy method was afforded for repudiation and rejection under the contract itself in that the product was not merchantable because not properly cured, the grapes had been picked too green or too ripe, or had been in the rain, had not been properly cared for afterward and had mildewed or had become sanded. Rejections on a falling market were so common that the grower had no guarantee under his contract, and no wonder the relations between the parties were strained.

Trials of this class of cases involved mainly expert testimony on both sides as to the condition of the product, and preponderance of reliable, dis- interested witnesses. The general history of this litigation shows the grower as favored in the results, for if need be on a falling market few would have been the crop deliveries that would have passed the expert and exacting fault finder. In a later phase when the packer in turn had "combined," the attack was directed against the contracts but herein again the trend of de-

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cisions favored the grower and in an appealed test case the supreme court laid down the law and this litigious field became barren. As in accident cases against corporations, the general demand was for a trial by jury in these raisin and dried fruit cases.

The seeded raisin machine patent was the subject of long, complicated, exasperating and costly litigation with two important results-to uphold the Pettit patent against various infringements and to rule in favor of the independents and against the United States Consolidated Seeded Raisin Com- pany, popularly called the "High Five," in control of the Pettit patent, that the pre-seeding process of the dried berry is not patentable because lacking novelty. The story of the case of George Pettit Jr. against William Forsyth (both dead) instituted in August, 1900, is the old one of many a notable creation in that the inventor enjoyed few if any of the results from the child of his brain, while others who secured by fair or other means control of the mechanism reaped the benefit and enriched themselves.

SEEDER INVENTOR PETTIT IN COURT

The Pettit-Forsyth case buffetted along in the courts for ten years on the sea of litigation before the supreme court granted a rehearing in July, 1910, on the decision of the appellate tribunal upholding the judgment in favor of Pettit, but it was also the step that ended the litigation with pay- ment of the judgment in April, 1911, of $9,111 on the verdict of jury in October, 1907 for $15,200 from which $7,581.76 was afterward remitted on the theory that the stock shares lost to Pettit were not of par value at the time. Case hung fire so long before coming to trial because as Pettit repre- sented in affidavit he was too poor to prosecute it, procure the evidence or engage an attorney to take it up, and that when he found himself in Decem- ber, 1898, "frozen out" of his interest he was "high and dry" financially and at the age of fifty-three compelled to earn a living as a day laboring mechanic.

It was in 1894-95 that Pettit, John D. Spromer and Walter G. Hough experimented with the first raisin seeding machine. Associated as the Pioneer Seeded Raisin Mills with one hand operated machine they made efforts to place its product on the market through large grocers in New York and Brooklyn, in which last named city they were operating. It was according to all accounts a discouraging experience for the man whom the courts have declared to be the originator of the raisin seeder as a physical creation theoretically, mechanically and commercially, and who but for the ending of the litigation when it did in California was drifting helplessly on the current of poverty towards the Fresno poorhouse. Having completed their first seeder so that it would operate, they took their product to New York wholesale grocers, notably Austin & Nichols and Francis H. Leggett, to handle it for sale. Their appeal was in vain. It was not believed that the raisins were seeded mechanically, the seeded raisin was unheard of, the thing was a pretense and a fraud and they met with absolutely no encouragement.

Retail grocers and bakers in New York and Brooklyn were tried with no better success, for who had ever heard of a machine seeded raisin? The offers to leave the new product on trial and make no charge were even de- clined, but when forced on and sold, which was not frequent, a small order would be the result. An artificial demand was created, notably through the largest retail house in Brooklyn, Lockett & Son on Fulton Street. The women friends of the seeders were sent for two or three days to the store to inquire for the Pioneer brand of seeded raisins, and thus attention was drawn to the article. The result was an order for a case, and Lockett & Son became ultimately one of the big customers of the pioneers. The retailers and bakers of New York were importuned and Pettit's son made the round of the baker-

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ies on Third Avenue from one end to the Harlem bridge talking up the new article. The bakers were the first to take it up and give commercial en- couragement, and in one year was worked up quite a little trade in twenty- five pound boxes. The raisin was used in cake making and the seeded proved a great saving in time and labor for the girls who stoned by hand.

Efforts such as these continued during the fall of 1894 and the spring of 1895 and until about August of that year when such a promising trade among the retailers and bakers was worked up that Austin & Nichols took notice, wrote apologizing for their first scant courtesy and undertook to handle the product on a larger scale. Pettit asserted that with this first seeded machine the product was of better quality than the later because the operators were part of the working mechanism. It was driven by hand power, and if fed a little too fast or not sufficiently the effect was apparent and the operation gauged accordingly. It took two men to operate the first machine, Spromer and Pettit alternating in turning the operating crank, not having the means to install power and apply it. According to the evi- dence, the first machine seeded raisins were thus put out in June, 1894, and the Fruit Cleaning Company of Brooklyn, the first competitor, put out its product in 1895, but as also claimed it did not compare, the Brooklynites not seeding as well and undertaking to process the raisins with flour. after seeding to prevent them sticking together but producing a pasty stuff that would not sell as readily.

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History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, Volume I, Part 32

Author: Vandor, Paul E., 1858- Publication date: 1919 Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company Number of Pages: 1362

Author: Vandor, Paul E., 1858-
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company
Number of Pages: 1362