Little Falls weekly transcript. (Little Falls, Morrison Co., Minn.) 1894-19??, 1900-10-30


mat the svain service has bssn 'ra-
formed II IL simpl w ons 81 many
other instancesv which show that all
but known to he untrue BY. those who
make them. IA N NJ ..s& n: i$i II!
h In connection with this disclosure ~
the Weighing branch Of the grain sery-
Ice II might be interesting to some W
learn who inspscts all the fax received
ut Minneapolis and something about
the merits Of his work. az shown ~
The records Of the Inspectors e!ylca.
Mr.. Reishus. In IRIS iilN report.
made himself famous by saying that q
man OF ordinary sense should make Q
good inspector after an apprentices
ship Of two or three months! Mr..
Reishus would hardly have made such
an official statement II he had had any
experience himself. X g53 /
Any one who knows anything about
inspecting grain. knows that It re-
quires the experience OF years. y.:.
But what was still worss, Mr.. Rel
shus proceeded at once to act upon
this theory. Az soon az he was sworn
IN he appointed Herbert Gray. q hotel
clerk from his town. a. flax sam
pier" The records. for some purpose
residence as Swift county. but In
truth and fact he came from Marshall,
Lyon county. Although he was nom
inally fax sampler, he was assigned to
clerical work in the Minneapolis once.
He was appointed In October, and. af-
ter doing clerical work until the fol.
lowing February, he was made fax in
spector. and has since inspected all
AJAX received in Minneapolis!
81 OF course, the same kind of skill IL
not required in the inspection of fax
as in the inspection of other kinds OF
grain. It consists principally in sift-
Ing out the dirt, weighing 1t and f1gur'
ing out it's per centage. The grain re-
ceivers at Minneapolis say that more
than 0ne-half the cars of flax inspect
ed are reinspected. and that in almost
every case the percentage Of dirt Is
changed. This shows that the original
inspector either cannot weigh the dirt
correctly or is not able to figure out
the percentage. a
; A car was. recently inspected and
graded mo. L." ~ per cent dirt. 1t
was reinspected and graded Reject
3D." 10 per cent dirt. It was carried
to the appeal board, who graded
Rejected" 10 per cent dirt. The par
ties in interest became disgusted, aid
after Weighing a sample, settled on the
basis Of Rejected" 16 per cent dirt.
The history of this car Is known to
every commission man In Minneapo-
lis, and illustrates the character Of
the: reform in the inspection de-
partment s
The whole thing is matter Of rec
ord, and Is open to the inspection OF
every one. .
It. cannot be wondered at that the
grain department is in a democrat
ICED and disreputable condition. Two
years ago it had worldwide reputa
tion. Representatives Of state depart
ments and grain associations from
other states came here to stu dy our
methods, and magazine writer's wrote
long articles upon its merits which
were read by the civilized world, But
how different now!
The whole story is told when(it is
said that the powers that be Nave
chosen to build up a political mainline
OF the department instead Of making
1t efficient or OF trying to maintain the
reputation It has enjoyed in the past
And 1t is in striking contrast 10 pre-
vious administrations where, instead OF
turning the department into political
machine, efficiency and ability were in
sisted upon. It is a matter of history
that under a Republican administration
OF TIE department rigid civil service
bill was drawn up and recommended
which positively prohibited in every
form the exercise Of political influence
upon any employee. :