Daily globe., 1879-01-21

ing 2115 cents per bushel, and that the re-
mainder of the difference, 215 cents per bush
el, went to the railroad company; that by
paying cents per bushel on No. checks,
they were able to get certificates of No. 1
wheat, the difference in price between No. 2
and No. 3 being from 15 to 20 cents per bu-
shel at that time, and the names of parties
who thus paid to get their checks so raised
| are also given; that when they weighed up
the elevator they found in store 200 bu-
shells of wheat more than the amount shown
by the books to have been bought;
that said general agent of elevators received
from the bookkeeper certificate to the rail
road company for 1,2OO bushels of No. 1
wheat, which was handed by the elevator
manager to another railroad official. Names,
dates and localities and full particulars, with
much general information on ways that are
dark in the wheat trade, are given in full.
AS the names of many of our prominent
wheat ringsters, millers, railroad officials
ETC., are implicated in these transactions, I
shall not make this affidavit public, but shall
deliver it to the appropriate legislative COM
mittee, before whom the parties interested
may have an opportunity to explain. I do
not wish to be understood as vouching for
the truth of these very remarkable transac-
tions, but I do consider that my duty as
good citizen, commands me to pursue
such course as will either fully vim
dicate or fully punish the parties therein
implicated. This am doing without malice
and without fear. If the men implicated in
these extraordinary statements are innocent,
their books and other documentary evidence
will show it. At any rate I believe they
should have an opportunity to meet the
Legislative committee before their names are
given to the public It is needless to add
that they are all ardent admirers and de-
tenders of the swindling brass kettle Every
man who loves mercy, deals justly, and walks
humbly before his God, will agree with me
that system of handling, grading and sell
ing wheat, wherein it is possible for such
wholesale robberies of the people
to be perpetrated with impunity, should be
swept out of existence as by the beso,n of
destruction.
First t-Annihilate the swindling brass
kettle. Do it on the same grounds that the
Legislature drove its twin-sister, the three
card monte game, out ofithe State. Where
the ''Little JOKER of the three card monte
crowd has swindled thousands of dollars
from the people of Minnesota, the other
little joker of the brass kettle crowd has
sWindled the farmers of Minnesota out of
hundreds of thousands, and thus far has
done it with ilnpunity. The simple fact that,
by it's skillful manipulation, it will give
three different grades of wheat from the
same sample, IS enough to condemn it.
Second Abolish the half bushel or bushel
pork or beef or hay, for what it will bring
hU r>1p M,1yo -
and sell by the 100.
every railroad company, and every Touring
mill under the surveillance of State officer.
whose duty it shall be to drop in OCCASION
ally and examine their books, test their
scales, learn how different grades or samples
are mixed, so that the farmers may be pro-
tected from the frauds and abuses complained
Of.
Fourth-Authorize the organization of
Minnesota board of trade, composed of one
or more competent farmers, to be selected
from each judicial district by the Judges
thereof. Clothe them with enough
prestige and power as to
command the respectful attention of dealers,
and thereby give Minnesota voice as
sovereign State III determining the value and
quality Of her great ste pie.
Certainly such board, if properly select
ed, would have as much influence in deter
mining and adjusting grades as any crowd
or ring of wheat spectators in Milwaukee or
Chicago.
The time has come when Minnesota wheat
must be bought and paid for as Minnesota
wheat, and not by the standard of soft and
starchy wheat of less favored regions.
The idea that the grade and value of Min
| nesota wheat is to be fixed and measured by
gang of Milwaukee or Chicago speculators
is too thin to be tolerated.
Improve and protect our one harbor and
outlet by way of Lake Superior, SO that
wheat can be shipped direct from Duluth to
Liverpool without breaking bulk. Improve
! the navigation of the Mississippi river and
ship by way of New Orleans. Hurry up the
improvement of the Fox and Wisconsin
rivers, so that barges and steamboats, from
Green Bay may load up from st. Paul ele-
Vators. Then, and not till then, is Minneso-
ia delivered from the thralldom of Chicago
and Milwaukee and the railroads interested
therein. Then will Milwaukee and Chicago
come as suppliants for small share of the
wheat of the great Northwest, and at such
prices as it IS intrinsically worth.
| firmly believe the agencies are at work
whereby many who now despair of deliver
ance will yet see Minnesota disenthralled-
vlndicated; our one lake port enlivened by
the flags of all nations; the head of naviga
ton on the Mississippi, covered with barges
and steamboats, from Green Bay and from
New Orleans, and its banks on both sides for
miles above and below our present elevators,
thickly studded with mammoth elevators
and Touring mills crowded to their utmost
! Il o}o, 4bo~
products of the rapidly developing region
west and northwest of us. So mote it be-.
Mr.. President, for more than ten Years
have the farmers of Minnesota, through the
agencies family delineated in this report,
been plundered. The pioneer farmer seems
sometimes to stand alone, with everything
IN air and on earth making war upon him:
with nothing left to him but his indomitable
soul.
Only those who have passed through it can
understand the long, hard, dark, continuous
struggle which awaits the settler in new
| cou try; the battle with nature, her cruelties
and uncertainties, on the one hand, and the
conflict with his fellow man, his greed, his
cunning and his rapacity on the other. AS
an humble representative of this class do
! now come before this tribune, and in their
behalf, ignoring all partisan or political in
t1uences, ask for nothing but an impartial
hearing, firm in the belief that such action
Will be taken by the present legislature as
| will efectually end this wholesale robbery of
the people. All of which is respectfully sub
mltted. LEONARD B. HODGES,
Chairman Committee
Another Invention for Grading Wheat.
"a hroc o&%