The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1923-07-13
FARMER victim OF
FEDERAL GRADES
WASHINGTON AGRICULTURAL d.
RECTOR ARRAIGNS FEDERAL
GRAIN GRADING SYSTEM

According to E. l.. French, director
of the Washington state department
OF agriculture, bureaucratic admins
! tration of the federal grain grades.
1 will cost the wheat farmers of Wash
ington hundreds of thousands Of dol
lars this year. The farmers in Idaho
and the other northwest states will.
OF course, suffer to the same extent.
Director French states that bureau
inspectors who are unfamiliar with
wheat conditions in Washington and,
of course, in the other western
states, have the final say in all mat
ters concerning grades, and that their
lack of uniformity in passing on the
grades, works an untold hardship on
| both grower and dealer, with the ten
! dency of the buyers to grade the grain
down in order to protect themselves,
Mr.. French suggests a grade commits
sion, on which there will be some
western men, as remedy for the ex-
listing evil
In an interview given out from his
office at Olympia, Thursday Director
French said:
while the wheat farmers of Wash
ington this year will harvest one of
the largest crops in the history of
the state, they will receive hundreds
of thousand of dollars less for their
crops than they should, through the
working of the present federal grades
for wheat and more particularly
through the vacillating and uncertain
stand taken by the bureau inspectors,
who have the final say on wheat grad
ing, and through the innumerable
rulings and regulations which they
have made supplementing the original
law establishing the grades
Raps Bureau System
Declaring that this is the newt
able result of the bureaucratic sys-
tenn which has grown up in our fed
eral government, where the chief OBJ
ject of the bureau employe is to
keep solid y with his chief, who is
entrenched behind civil service rules
and retains his position regardless of
political changes, he continued:
&c This state has in it's employ a
number of highly competent grain in
spectors with years of experience
who are likewise thoroughly familiar
with the problems of the wheat
grower and with the details of mar
keting wheat in foreign countries,
which take our large surplus product,
which amounts to more than one
tenth of all the wheat annually ex-
ported from the United States. Yet
the work of all these state inspectors
is subject to review for approval or
rejection by grain inspectors ap-
pointed by the bureau chief from the
civil service list, almost uniformly
sent here from other states and who
are responsible only to the chiefs in
Washington and who are unfamiliar
with the problems of the wheat farm
ers in this section and with the ex-
port trade.
Chaos ReigDs
1.-The result is hopeless confusion
in the application of grain grades.
No two federal inspectors will grade
the same cargo or the same carload
alike if the grade is at all close,
except through a remarkable coinci-
dence. The buyer has no assurance
that grain will grade the same at
an interior warehouse and at the
shipping point. If the grade is low
cred at the coast he is out thousands
Of dollars on large lots and naturally
the buyers will bid down, with re-
5ultant loss to the grower.
" Understand, this department Is
heartily in favor of grain grading and
the state being a pioneer
in the work. When properly done, 1t
enables the farmer to get the full
market price for his product. In
order to get the desired results it
might be well to have the grades
established by a commission composed
in part at least of men who have had
experience in growing grain
in this state and in marketing our
grain in foreign countries, instead of
octo, mr. "a