hear, as I did, that “Spreckels got a lot of people into a railroad and then sold it out to the Santa Fe.” That is true. Spreckels did that, but not Rudolph Spreckels. That was an act of his father, Claus Spreckels. Again, they asked me if I didn’t know that the public utility system of San Diego was a Spreckels monopoly. I did, but I happened to know what many Californians seem not to know, that the Spreckels of San Diego is not Rudolph, but a brother of his and a personal enemy. Claus Spreckels is interesting; the whole Spreckels family may be well worth knowing, but most of them are in business or private life. Our subject is Rudolph Spreckels, the business reformer; not his family — except as “blood will tell.”
The Spreckels family is an institution in California and, generally regarded as a unit, is not popular. The Spreckelses fight. They fight hard. But they don’t fight together. They are not a unit. The family fights inside as well as out, and not all the members speak to one another. They differ among themselves in character, tastes, methods, purposes and, apparently, in morals. All they seem to have in common is a certain aggressive independence. They are in business what Labour would call “scabs.” They work by themselves and each by himself.
