St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-05-16
DONE IN THE NIGHT.
Leopold Ario Relates the Pc
culiap Methods of the Du-
luth Elevators.
Thousands of Bushels Of
Wheat Alleged Shipped
Without Inspection.
The Farmers Robbed by the
Most Cunningly Devised
Methods,


Methods,
BY Which the Grain Slipped
Through Floors Into
Pocket Bins.
The day started out right interesting
III the wheat inspection investigation
yesterday. and there was most decided
lull in the storm of developments. AS
the day waned, however. the affair be-
came tiresome and monotonous. There
was but one witness examined. The
direct examination consumed the morn
ing session, and the afternoon was oc-
cupied in cross-examination. This wit
ness was Leopold Ario, who had served
as night Waterman for several years for
the Duluth Elevator company. He was
willing witness, and often volunteered
yoiuble explanations that annoyed Mr..
Severance, the counsel for the elevator
syndicate and the grain inspector. The
state case. as OH the previous days,
was conducted by Assistant Attorney
General Childs and W. W. Erwin. The
latter entered into the spirit Of the case
With his customary vim and Sagacity.
The burden of MIR. SeVerance'S efforts
were to make the witness swear that
the elevator company and the officials
of the Duluth municipal government
were thieves, but the witness cIeverly
maintained his primary position that
whether these people are thieves or not
was not fol him to Judge.
MI AFRO has been quite actively in
tereSted in the Farmers Alliance cru
SADIE since its incipiency in the legis-
lature. He secured position as one of
the clerks of the house investigating
knowledge had fallen to him while in
the service of the elevator company.
Mr.. Ario deposed that he had personal
knowledge OF shipping wheat out of the ele
yators i'll the night time without either
weighing or inspection by the state omcials
who are
Required to Perform
this Office under the provisions of the grain
inspection law. On one occasion he saw
5000 bushels so shipped out of Elevator (,
over the Duluth. South Shore d Atlantic
railroad. AT other times he saw shipments of
various large amounts made in secrecy. with
out the functions of the state welghmaSter
being performed. He said the steamer New
Orleans took out 5000 bushels, and in 1856
tuliy 2WV1O bushels of uninspected wheat
were taken from Elevators Z and f.
This was shipped out by the
transit Cline boats. Witness explained that
the foreman of the elevator was in the habit
of notifying the employees of the elevator
When boat was expected, and the foreman
always enJo1ned the strictest secrecy. The
operators were not allowed to carry lights
when these loads were being taken, and the
employees were threatened with dire prose-
cutlon for SANDER should they reveal the
peculiar workings. One foreman had told
the witness that the elevator company would
send him TO the penitentiary if he ever in
formed, explaining that the company
had plenty of money and would buy up
the jury in the case.
John LOTUS, foreman of Elevator E,
had said to witness:
For Gods sake don't give the thing
away
Foreman Sharyey had menaced the
witness thus:
IF YOU say anything about this I'll have
you arrested and sent TO Jail, by J-s The
elevator company can buy up any jury. and
send you TO saltwater"
Aro produced memoranda which he
had made at the time of the alleged
Illicit Shipments
of wheat, claiming that he made the
same after reading the shipment slips.
These memoranda showed shipments
made in night of amounts varying
from 5000 to $500 bushels.
The witness testified at length about a ne
culiar arrangement whereby u neat little
profit was realized by the manipulations of
the scheme. The shipping bins, he said, leak.
The floors are constructed of 2x6 pieces set
up on edge, and they are often so far apart
that the grain goes pouring down through
the crevlees to the pocket bin. which is
situated Immediately beneath. The wheat
SO caught is never credited up to the owner
Here followed lengthy exposition of
the shiftleSs methods of the men who
emptied wheat received by rail into the
elevator bins. The witness said that
such large quantities of grain are left in
the bottoms of cars that men and bows
reap profitable reward for following
up the cars and sweeping them out. In
deed. witness himself engaged at one
time in the speculative business of buy
ing this grain from the industrious
''sweepers'' and selling his product
back to the elevator company. When
he made such sales he notified the pur-
chaser that the wheat was Sweeplngs of
cars. but the elevator company was
perfectly willing to buy under such cir
cumstanceS.
After Mr.. Childs had exhausted his
catalogue of questions. Mr.. Erwin
Took the Witness
and elected the statement that Ario had
come to st. Paul to give information be-
cause he had read in the papers that an
attempt had been made to sift out the
facts. and that it had proven a failure.
He thought he could help out the in
yestigation,
In the afternoon Mr. Severance took
the witness and subjected him to
lOng-drawn-Out croSs-queStiOning, with
the hope OF breaking down the main
testimony.
Witness had testified to certain grades of
wheat, and to prove that he could not tell re-
jected from No. ] hard, samples were sub
mitted for MIN to display his technical skill
upon. He unhesitatingly pronounced the
different specimens as No. 1 hard, and they
we've introduced in evidence and will later be
tested by state inspector A sample of bar
ley was also shown the witness, but he wittily
replied that he was not farmer and knew
nothing about the grades of barley.
He testified that there.are four grades, and he
proceeded to name them. There are No. 1
hard, No northern. No. northern and No.
3 northern. Then follows rejected wheat,
which is, technically, no grade at all. This
includes damaged
Wheat-Frosted or Wet
and such grain as will not pass the grade
tests. Through The course of his croSs-eX-
animation it was shown that witness had the
several carloads of wheat that he had testi-
fed, in his direct examination he had pur-
chased from divers people-that he had the
same hauled to the elevator by the railway
company-the Duluth road-free of cost.
Mr.. Severance made strenuous eff
fort to show, through his handling of
the witness, that the cars in which
wheat was shipped are armed with in
Vulnerable cracks, creyices, and other
natural receptacles where wheat is left
by the elevator men III unloading tine
cars. and it was his aim to show that the
fact that certain quantities of wheat
were generally so left i'll cars was not
owing to any remission OF the elevator
men. He sought to prove that it was
these small quantities that witness had
bought from the boys who had enter
prise enough to gather nm the SCATTER