Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1878-10-09

& "A
Composition - The Result Last Week,
When Some Outside R-yers Came In
How They Raise the Price and
Drive Out Anyone Not in the King
Statements which Farmers Should Read
and Ponder.
The Pioneer Press publishes what pur-
ports to be stenographic report of the
speech delivered by Hon. Ignatius Donnelly
| at Wayzata, on the 18th inst. Mr.. Donnelly's
forclble exposure of the wheat ring was one
of the telling portions of his speech, and we
quote it entire:
Well, my friends, I have been also working
Tor three or four years past at another reform,
and that is in reference to the grading of wheat.
introduced bills think every season for the
last four winners in reference to the inspection
and grading of wheat. One winter we got the
bill through the Senate, and am not sure but
we did twice. and it was killed in the House.
Now the theory of that bill could be explained
| in this way: If you go down to any of our
| Eastern cities, New York, Philadelphia or Bos-
ton or any of these large cities, you find very
complete system of inspectors for the protec-
ton OF the consumers of those cities. For in
stance, if you ship load of -four down to
Philadelphia or New York you are not per-
| mltted to sell barrel of it until
an inspector, appointed by the city, comes
around, and, with tube that he runs into
| the barrel, he tests the wheat. He tests the
wheat before you are allowed to sell it. This
IS done for the protection of the purchaser. If
you go into the markets there you find inspect
ors of weights and measures. The market man
| is not allowed to sell any produce unless his
measures, his scales are correct, and if he is
found selling with measures that contain less
than the legal quantity, or with scales that are
not properly adjusted, he is punished, in some
cases by the confscation of all that he has for
sale. man goes into the market with a load
of pattles of butter purporting to weigh a
pound or any other amount, and if they fall
short of that amount-there is man comes
around and tests them, weighs them-he will
confiscate the whole amount. So with meat
there is an inspector Of meat to see that the
citizen shall not be imposed on by eating
spoiled meat or meat from diseased animals.
! NO PROTECTION FOR THE FARMER.
Now, all these things show how careful the
consuming population of this country are to
protect their rights from the farmers; but
when we turn to the othes side of the question
we find no protection in any way for the farm
ing GLASS; especislly in this State of Minnesota.
A farmer comes here to sell his wheat he has
! got to take the weight the grade and the price
that the man offers him with whom he deals:
| he is entirely at his mercy. His wheat may be
No. l, and it may be graded down to No. 8.
He may be deceived in the weight and defraud-
| ed out of ~ or 30 cents per bushel in the prof
its; the may have the whole profits of his sea-
sons labor taken away from him, and under
/ l,o., II.
lection; if the man he deals with is rogue he
has no one to whom he can appeal, and the re-
| suit is that, in my humble Judgment, very
great frauds have been perpetrated upon the
people Of this State The State is EARNED
OUT between the different wheat BUYERS.
There is one combination of buyers that will
take one line of railroad, another another, and
another another; and so they divide up the
people of this State very much as an Indian
would carve up deer among his friends. The
thav 5rnt +h buyers have their proyiioe where
| 1ney NUM- tne people and tney won't come up
and interfere with the Minneapolis millers in
| this region, and so it goes.
l. PROPOSED LEGISLATION.
Well, my friends, I proposed in this bill Of
mine system of inspectors. First, proposed
to have central inspector, an inspector in
chief, appointed by the Governor or elected
by the legislature; pick out a good, honest
man, pay him a fair salary; let it be his duty
to establish the grades of the whole State; to
say what shall be Nos 2, 8, 4, 5, or 10, if you
please. Subdlvlde these grades not by differ
ences of 2 or 3 pounds; but, in years like this,
j by differences of half pound in the weight.
Then proposed to have deputy inspector APP
! pointed by the county commissioners or if
! you choose, directly by the people, for each
place where there is an elevator or mill or
where wheat is bought; to be paid by those
who employ him. He would not have, accord
ing to my theory, these little copper testers
| that the wheat buyers are using throughout
this country, but he would have that which the
law recognized, the statute of the State recog-
nized as an established measure, to-wit.: half
bushel measure containing the number of
cubic inches that the law says shall constitute
q half-bushel,-a measure which is said to have
come down to us from the time of the pyra-
mids
| THE swNDLNd TESTERS
Well, now, my friends, let us see how this
thing would work. A farmer comes to Long
Lake or any of these towns where they are
buying wheat, and as it is now he is entirely at
the mercy of the wheat buyer, as have said.
He may have weighed half bushel of wheat
upon pair of approved scales at home and it
may have weighed at the rate of fifty-seven
pounds to the bushel but when he comes to the
purchaser, that person does not take any ac-
count of what that wheat weighed by the half
bushel; he won't permit you to weigh it in a half
| bushel, but he climbs up on the wagon with
little copper bucket that holds about four gal
Ions of wheat, proceeds to test the wheat by
that standard. Now, my friends, we come to
ask, What are these testers? What is the mean
| ing of them? Who invented themo Who estab-
lished them? No man give you an answer.
have friend down here in Washington coun-
ty, the Hon. James Middleton, "a gentleman
who has been member of the legislature one
or two terms) and he told me this out of his
personal experience. He said, week or two
ago he went to Newport station, on the line of
the railroad running from st. Paul to Hastings,
and the man brought out his copper bucket
hnd examined %as sf the wheat and told
it good No. wheat.) .'But," says the eleva~
tor man, II must take off two pounds and a
half to make my testers agree with the testers
at Minneapolis" Well. that reduced the wheat
to No. g. and it took fifteen or twenty cents a
bushel off the profits, which was that man S en-
tire profits on that seasons work in that wheat.
| Well, Mr.. Middleton asked him, sWhat is the
meaning of this? Why shouldn't these testers
be the same?" WELL" he says, ''they have
got new testers at Minneapolis Well, the
thing seemed SO improbable that they could
have new testers weighing two and a half
pounds less to the bushel that when Mr.. Mid
| dleton told me thought, and he thought that
the man had been imposing upon him. So he
was in st. Paul day before yesterday, and he
went with DR.. Day, the postmaster, with whom
| he had had some conversation on the subject
CDR. Day proposed it), to the Office of Fair
banks scales agency-the great Fairbanks
scale manufacturers, of Vermont have State
agency in st. Paul, and they asked him what
this thing meant, this difference of the testers;
and Mr.. Fairbanks proceeded to explain to
them. He said that they were the first firm
that made these little buckets, that they had
them of two sizes-one for the Milwaukee
market and the other for the Chicago market;
that while they were admittedly the same the
scales for the Milwaukee market contained
more wheat to the bushel than that of the
Chicago market; and that when they got orders
to send out testers they had to consult the man