The Box of Cherries That Made the Railroad Pay Up
Walla Walla shippers turned a single unstamped crate into a daily $50-fine threat—until Northern Pacific headquarters blinked.
Who pays the stamp—the shipper or the carrier? At Walla Walla, W. S. Offner, the Walla Walla Produce Co. and others decided that the transportation companies should furnish shipping receipts with stamps attached. They were sure they were right, because the law said so. But the corporations refused to take shipments until the stamp was affixed. So Messrs. Offner, et al., furnished the stamps under protest, and under advice of their counsel each day tendered to the different companies a box of cherries without the stamp and let the representatives in the various railway offices understand that they were expecting to have the court register a fine against them of $50 each time the box of cherries was refused. According to the tally being kept, the aggregate of these fines was running up to the hundreds, and each day the railway officials became more choleric and expressive upon the reappearance of that fateful box of cherries. But Thursday last Mr. Goodhue, of the Northern Pacific, telephoned over to the fruit companies:
"Say!"
"Well!"
"I have just received a message from headquarters. We will furnish the stamps. S'long."
“I have just received a message from headquarters. We will furnish the stamps. S'long.”
The standoff was tiny—one box of cherries—but it captured a familiar dynamic: small producers versus the corporation that controls the rails. Then as now, who absorbs a tax, fee, or compliance cost can become a test of power, and a well-aimed act of civil disobedience can force a reversal.
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