The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-11-04
Enemies of the Farmers on the De.
fenSiVe.

ragged farmers of Minnesota, the grain
inspectors, themselves destitute of
other defense than insolence and words
OF nockery and insult, have turned
to their guardians and the tools of the
I elevator and milling ring, the Repub-
lican state central committee. This
organization, through its chairman
and secretary, has issued a manifesto
which is conspicuous only in two fea-
lures, namely, a review of the repeated
| efforts of The G o b e to secure @
reform in the methods Of grading and
docking wheat and a hysteTical appeal
to the people to permit the law to
stand and the robbery of the farmers
to go on by a continuance Of the Re
| publican party in power.
The committee is as incapable of
making a defense against the charges
| preferred as were Judge Ira b. Mills,
chairman of the railroad and ware
house commission, who insultingly
styled the compliments ''unmanly
and ccwardly," because they protest
ed against being robbed, and Chief
| Inspector Clausen, who, while not ex-
actly telling the farmers to go to the
devil might as we'll have done so.
charges against the inspectors, init
mate that they are only inspired by the
state Democratic committee, who, they
say, take the old and WORKOUT
charges against tie warehouse commits
sion about grain inspection, freshen
them up little, add few pictures to
the old ones, copy an editorial or two
from The st. Paul G o e, and en-
deavor to stampede the voters the last
week Of the campaign. They dared
not make these charges earlier; they
feared our answer. In the last days of
the campaign, thinking there is not
| time for answer, they seek to win by
fraud and deceit"
This statement is absurdly untruth
! full, and was known by the authors
of the manifesto to be untruthful at
| the time it was uttered. The G b
| printed, in the first column on the
| first page Of it's issue of Oct. II, the
full text of the report Of the Moorhead
| meeting of farmers Of Oct. 8, which
was an adjourned meeting of that of
| Sept. "a. This report was accompanied
| by affidaVits by A. G. KaSSenborg, OF
| Oakport; Ole Oleness, Of Kragnes;
Frederick Goodsell, of Moorhead; Nels
T. Lunder, of Moorhead; Ole E. Tan
| gen, of Kragnes and Alfred Olson, of
| Kragnes. The meeting of Sept. "a was
| attended by 200 real farmers, and the
| affidavits were those Of some Of the
best known among them in the Red
river valley. 1t was participated in by
members of all parties and was in
every sense representative Of the real
sentiment of this industrial class
throughout the state. There was no
| politics in it, The meeting was a
| spontaneous outburst Of Indignation re-
sulting directly from a renewal of the
practices of former years at the very
beginning of the movement of the new
crop of the current year. The first
cars graded No. 1 northern. with an
occasional car of No. l hard. 1t all
tested sixty pounds to the bushel and
was as good as any ever raised in
that section. The report in dealing
with the subject said:
Suddenly and without warning the grade
dropped to No. 2 northern and reject
ed and for time nearly all our b wheat
and we were informed that there wSs
cookie in our wheat We had never before
i heard that cookie affected the grade. 1t was
| impossible to grade the wheat down for any
reason heretofore known, and so this cues
ton of cookie affecting the grade was for
| the first time raised as the only possible ex-
| Before the state inspection law passed
! the same kind of wheat we have raised this
| year would have graded No. l hard, and 1t
will this year after it leaves Duluth 1t is
| the quality of the wheat and the value OF
| it for milling purposes that will establish the
! price and reputation rather than what some
/ young man IN Duluth may grade 1T.
| Grain men in Buffalo tell us that they get
very little of our wheat that is not mixed
| -Nff rybno ho frIIf
| ed No. northern and below at Duluth is
| No. l hard in Buffalo. The great wrong
comes in under our system OF grading Ihere
will be no relief of a permanent character
until the inspection law is repealed Under
this law the farmers of the Northwest have
| been robbed of millions of dollars annually.
The affidavits which were adopted as
part of the report presented some strik-
ing facts and figures; for instance, that
of Mr.. Kassenborg showed that he had
shipped, in three cars, 1000 bushels
! Scotch Fife No / hard, being distrib-
uted in about equal amounts in each
| car. Two cars graded No. northern
and one car No. 1 northern. Yet one
car was locked As bushels, one 80 BUSH
els and the third 16 bushels. This
wheat, it should be remembered, was
one single lot of the same harvest and
threshing. The dockage supplied a
| Id1T Specimen VI TIE dHu III
telligence associated with that branch
of the system. In reviewing the eff
feet in this single case and applying it
to the value of wheat throughout the
state and Dakota, in single crop year,
the report presents the following i'm
pressive figures:
The wheat would net Mr.. Kassenborg so
cents per bushel; 1900 bushels at 80 cents per
bushel amount to $780, leo bushels dockage
at so cents amounts to $50. There was taken
from his wheat over cents per bushel by
wrong grade which amounts to $780, add
$47.50 dockage makes STAT so. This is over is
per cent on the $3.50 taken from him under
the Minnesota inspection law without con-
Sideration. This is not extreme case but
suppose but 10 per cent of the value of our
wheat is taken under this law. and the
states of Minnesota and North Dakota mar
ket $4,000 600 worth of wheat this year; 10
per cent on $4,000 900 is $500 coo.
These computations speak for them
selves. There is no defense for a sys-
tenn the operation of which inflicts
such a loss upon the farmers Of this
section. The report very pertinently
adds, in referring to the system of
dockage controlled by the Minneapolis
syndicate:
Do not the mills get the benefit of this
difference in grade? If not who does? The
farmer loses it; who gets it?
The. conclusions set forth in that re-
port are:
In our judgment the Minnesota state grad
ing law is vicious in all Its aspects, and
we will get no permanent relief until 1t is
repealed and we are left to manage our own
affairs in own way We ask its repeaI
| following thar