The Mena weekly star., 1920-06-17
FINDS COFFEE AND
FLOUR MINES
Great Warehouses of Chicago Filled
With These Articles of Food. Says
Investigators Report--A news
paper Mans Experience.

Following the sugar trail through
Chicago's billion dollar food cata-
combs one was forced to dodge around
millions and millions of pounds of
-four. coffee and tea to continue
along this pathway of speculation
which was amazing to me as | trod
H.
In my experience as newspaper
man | have had occasion to visit va
rious mines where the minerals OF
the earth stood as a lure to the man
to risk his life in the mining OF
them, but ! have never had the ex-
perience before of visiting flour, tea
and coffee mines which mark the va
rious warehouses of Chicago.
| walked for miles and miles under
ground in Southern illinois during
the coal strike and saw millions and
millions of dollars worth of coal
black. sparkling, dazzling in the UNI
derground light. / saw rooms half
worked and full of coal, but In my
tour OF Chicago warehouses | passed
through similar rooms" and instead
Of the black, sparkling ore there was
the white and brown sacks which re-
sembled lodges.
There is much more flour coffee
and tea In Chicago than there is SUI
gar.
visited the 500 Terminal Ware
house, where both the Washburn-
Crosby and the Pillsbury flour is in
large stores. In one end of the ter
minal, which boasts a half million
square feet Of fireproof storage on
the east side of the building Wash.
burn-Crosby has the warehouses and
on the other end Pillsbury has its
storage warehouse-that is, one of
them There are three floors used for
flour, and there are thousands upon
thousands of bags and millions and
millions of pounds of 1t.
Here were found, in addition to the
large amounts of flour In cloth sacks
and barrels, hundreds of broken pa
per sacks of flour which were placed
on trucks and practically discarded.
Flour in abundance--in fact, over
flow lots that were rotting on docks
OF the Chicago, burlington q Quincy
Railroad In a slip of the river at
Fourteenth street. Photographs were
made Of this, which bore the label of
the Fairfax Milling Company, of Fair
fax, Mimi, and had been in the stor-
age warehouse on the docks for up
ward of two years, according to the
statement of one Of the men In the Of
flee who had charge of the commodi-
ties in the dock warehouse.
Floor after floor in the Currier q
Lee warehouse furnished big dis
play.
At the West Side warehouse flour
was piled ceiling high on the five
floors Of the building. and the ware
house was so filled with flour and
other commodities that flour also
packed the gangways and the stair
cases which led to the different floors
of the building.
The Sibley warehouse at Clark
street and the river also furnished a
view of an abundance OF this com
modify.
This was all privately owned flour
and had nothing to do with the vast
supplies of the United States Grain
Corporation, which reported from time
to time that large holdings of flour
necessitated the large shipments of
flour to the foreign countries on cred
1t. The export OF flour from July /,
1918. to April 2, 1920, by the United
600 barrels. Export Is now curtailed.
On March % the Senate authorized
the selling of 5000. 600 barrels of flour
as a relief measure to foreign coun-
tries The United States Grain Cor
poration received the authorization by
q vote of the House and Senate.
The enormous amount of flour men
toned is bolstered considerably by the
RI - In
which Is found In nearly every ware
house in Chicago that caters to this
sort of storage
Nowhere can a definite figure be
gained as to the exact amount of flour
in storage.
Tea-that commodity which Is used
In nearly every homestead found
in abundance. Tons and tons of 1t
we're found in the warehouses here
on the docks and In the storage places
OF special brand tea operators, inn
porters and spectators.
In the Ontario warehouse at No. 1877
West Ontario street where the J. c.
whitney Company and number of
others have large stores Of tea,
wendell my way through six floors of
tea.
Inc tea was packed On every HOuI
and on many of the floors like
amount of coffee was In storage.
Twas told that there were 10000
boxes of tea to floor. There were
seventy pounds of tea in a box, and
the tea in storage in this place ranged
In price from 81 pound to twenty
cents pound for tea siftings.
Eighty-one importing firms and
dealers handle tea and have ii In
storage in the city of Chicago. These
are aside from the spectators, who
store tea and hold 1t for advancing
markets.
My first introduction to the large
supplies of coffee was at the ware
houses of Griswold & Walker
I believe an estimate of s10,000,000
worth Of coffee would cover the hold
ing Of this warehouse company.
There is a goodly pot of tea
wealthy canister OF coffee and full
larder of flour In Chicago.
c--;---------
WANTED AT ONCE-Ambitious
energetic man to handle the sale Of
our guaranteed household products
in this county.
We have n eomuIata and attractive