The herald., 1898-03-06
JOSEPH LETTERS WHEAT
TIE STATIsTICAL FIEND GOES
UP AGAINST IT

Some Interesting Comparisons In
Regard to the Young Gamblers
Big Corner
Joseph Letter of Chicago owns Is 900 900
bushels Of wheat II Is as easy to say
"ffteen million bushels of wheat" as to
say Il want tho price Of dinner" But
there is a world of difference between the
two word groupings. Mr.. Letter Is said to
have 100000 bushels of his wheat in Chi
cago. 1t Is scattered about In various
lofty elevators, practically incalculablc
quantity in each big building. and alto
gether making bulk which, spread out,
would easily cover the whole surface of
Chicago.
Indeed, one might do great many
things with that 5000 900 bushels of wheat,
which would help to impress the ficeting
memory with some conception of its mag
nitude. Suppose it were thought desirable
by Mr.. Letter to suddenly load that wheat
In freight cars and send 1t out on the
railroad. Allowing each car the capacity
of $4,000 pounds. the owner would have to
demand the services of 10000 cars-which
Is probably more than he could get to-
gether at an hours notice. Furthermore
ready to run, they would make a continu-
GUS String" ninety-one miles long. 1t
would probably be better to cut the train
up into lots of twenty-five cars each and
run them in sections. That would make GAO
trains. Running ten minutes apart, It
would require moro than four whole days
and nights for the grain laden cavalcade of
Mr.. Letter to pass given point. II the
target man sat UP in the tower to make
~ fr1er ptrrhk bxt- Al,t 4.
would see from Monday morning at 7
o'clock till Friday morning at o'clock all
Mr.. Letters Chicago wheat go trundling
by. And then the target man would have
right to go to breakfast.
But suppose now that he has these $780,
900 bushels of wheat in Chicago he should
conclude to get playful with It, He doesn't
want the bears to think he is sorry he
bought 1t. anyway. Suppose he should
conclude to put 1t up in a glass column
the diameter Of the brim OF champagne
glass. His wheat filled column OF glass
would be considerably higher than Chin
borazo piled on Everest and that on Mount
Elias and that on Mount Rainier and all
of them on Pixies peak. Indeed, the cloud
piercing, star disturbing line of Letter
wheat would reach an altitude OF 1,6GO 900
feet-rather more than twenty-four times
as far as our atmosphere extends. and
"the winds that blow between the worlds"
together with the saving quality of air,
might be bad for any of the wheat which
Mr. Letter might want to use for seed.
So he might conclude to cut up the long
glass tube into many shorter ones and
stand them fifty feet high. In that case
they would each stand about as high as
the roof OF the elevated trains on the loop,
and there would be 10000 Of them. Using
them for mile posts, they would reach once
around the world and from here to Omaha
besides. If Mr.. Letter sholud conclude to
put all the 100000 bushels Of wheat he
owns into the same shape the flfty-foot
columns would reach twice around the
earth at the equator.
One bushel of wheat made into bread will
keep a man alive and able to work for 60
days. 1t may be news to you, but there are
a great many honest men working day
after day in Chicago. at the hardest kind of
labor. supporting families, who do not have
more than that amount. And yet the
streets we ride upon are paved by them;
the railroads that take us home in the
evening were built and are kept In repair
by them. They shovel the snow and they
sweep the streets at night Soldiers have
81 miles a day and fought bat
tie at the end Of 1t on that amount of food.
Napoleon's army came back from Moscow
to France on considerably less.
Well, these S.000.0 900 bushels of wheat
would feed an army of 12O 900 men, which is
the size Of McClellan's magnificent army of
the Potomac at Its best, a matter of eleven
years. 1t would feed the entire military
force Of Russia, placed on q war footing.
and approximat ting 100000 soldiers, more
than year. 1t would make bread enough
to keep the whole population of Chicago
alive from now till the Fourth of July. OF
course, we would need little water and
little salt with 1t, and we might even hun
ser a trifle for pie-at least, for meat pie
Also, we might need some vegetables to
keep Off scurvy and all that sort of thing.
But II hostile army should camp on the
Belt line railway this afternoon and re-
'use to let any food come in or any person
go out, we could confiscate Mr.. Letters
!, ,000, 900 bushels of wheat and live till In
dependence day. After which most glori-
'us event we should probably be still strong
enough to go out to the Belt line and open
hat thoroughfare to the ordinary business
If the year.
The wheat from these Chicago elevators
the Letter wheat alone, mind you--would
t spread out on the ground to the width of
foot. make well-grained pathway from
acre to the farthest point in Terra del Fue-
20. On that path wo could go down the
Mississippi valley, across the Rio Grande
rom the north to the south of Mr.. Bryans
Mexico, through the hot-headed and con-
entious nations Of Central America, and
.cross the lands which Simon Bolivar ded-
Gated to freedom, and then on through the
vilds of Patagonia, and up to the very surf
which beat one time about the keel Of Ma
yellan's venturesome vessels And our
rood Chicago feet would tread on nothing
rom start to finish but the Chicago wheat
low in Chicago.
If Joseph of old had had this much wheat
n Egypt at the time Jacob sent down
here from Canaan for food, he could have
'iven every workingman in Egypt and
very pack animal in the land of Pharoah
Ill the wheat 1t could carry; he could have
ent them under escort of Canaanitish
trangers out through the isthmus of Suez
md up to the land of promise, and still have
lad wheat enough for the whole Egyptian
ation. They called it corn then, but 1t
vas really the identical grain now in the
1eiter elevators. Maybe 1t would not grade
IS mo red winter but there would be a
fe-sustaining strength to 1t quite equal
o that owned by the Chicago merchant.
Eight million bushels Is a whole lot of
Times-Herald.
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