The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, April 26, 1917, Page 9

This is a picture of what happened at Grand Forks a few days ago, when a lot of “prominent citizens”—. “anti” union to fight the Nonpartisan League and reform in general. critter? Doc Guilty was accused of being the father of it and Norma with it. The thing took to bed mortally ill after the Leader had let t nursed it along in hopeless fashion for a few months and finally hu again. A few noted characters take part in the joh. the market steal and the old-time politician who find: there to poison men’s minds and to lead them to do a the minds of one class against another, Other creatures of the night come flocki to rule, so they crowd around with int flock” has brought a lamb as a sacrific I DONT THINK YOU CAN GET ANY LIFE INTO THAT OLDO GOOD the spirit of antagonism to the interests of those ng around when they see plans like this on foot. erest when the anti-progress crowd gathers to re e—his part of the orgy. So the grinning skeleton Dakota, in the effort to keep them from working together. OISTURE content hecomes one of the important elements in the: grading of wheat under IS4l the official _grades issued S———= March 31 by the office of markets, department of agriculture. Heretofore moisture has not figured in grade making (further than the re- Quirement that = the grain be ‘“dry” enough for safe keeping) but now its exact quantity is to be used in fixing the grades, and one per cent more or less will throw, a carload of grain into another grade, with a spread in price of three to five or six cents a bushel." The "best grade under the new standards, No. 1 Northern Spring (or No. 1. Dark Northern Spring or No. 1 Red’ Spring) shall not contain more than 1314 per cent of moisture. If it does it drops down into the next grade, while the highest moisture content per- mitted is one-half per cent less tham the customary amount used in milling of wheat according to millers’ testi- mony. This means, that while the millers and elevator men will be per- mitted to have grain depressed from the top to the lowest grade just be- cause it has one, two or three per cent of moisture above an arbitrary amount, these same millers will have to wet the wheat back again to the prohibited point before they can make flour out of it. They will cheat the farmer out of one to five grades because his wheat has moistuge, buy the wheat cheap, and then immediately put it through the tempering process to make it wet enough to use. They will demand that it have not more than 13% per cent, and as soon as they get it, they will add enough water to bring it back to 15% or 16 per cent, or more. MILLERS ADMITTED THEY < MUST HAVE MOISTURE Millers themselves in the federal grain hearings at Minneapolis testified that they “temper” wheat up to a moisture content of 16 per cent, be- cause, say the millers, it mills better. Dr. E. F. Ladd has also pointed out that the millers add a lot of water to their wheat when they mill it, and frequently add so much that the quak- ity of the flour is actually lowered. But on tep of these well known facts, and the open admission of the millers that they must have wheat with a moisture content of 15% to 16 per cent, Grade Maker C. J. Brand, decreed that only the lowest two grades could have this much moisture. Thus if wheat taken to the elevator from the fields happens to be a little more than 13% per cent moist, no mat- ter if it is equal to No. 1 Hard, it must drop down one grade at least, and if it has more than 1414 it must drop down two or three grades, and lands in bureau grade No. 4, which is the same as No. 3 Northern. There was an impression that if the Northwestern states should make a strong enough kick about the tentative Brand grades, some of the worst of the proposed features would be modified, but a comparison of the published grades with those tentatively put forth in the government bulletin of Fehru- ary 6, shows how far wrong the North- west was in this hopeful guess. Moisture content for No. 1 grade was tentatively placed at 14 per cent, but it was finally established at 13%%; for No. 2 and No. 3 it was placed at. 14 also, and this was raised one-half, making the official moisture content 14%; it was tentatively placed at 15 per cent for No. 4, and finally estab- lished at 15%; and for No. 5 it was tentatively placed at 16, but finally established at 15, GRAIN RING WINS ' GOING AND COMING By this means Mr. Brand and his fellow grade makers cut off one-half per cent of moisture at each end of the scale, making the limits 13% and 15% instead of 14 and 16 as was at first suggested. The millers and the elevator men win by this simple lit- £ AN 7,4%% S tle device. Much wheat in all respects fit for No. 1 Hard, fit to go into the top grade of the new system, will be knocked down a grade or two—which means three to twelve or fifteen cents, and often more—and much of it at the bottom of the scale will be eliminated from the hard spring wheat grades entirely—why?—because it happens to have as much moisture as the millers say it must have before it will grind inte flour. Buying top _grades several notches below their value, and buying bottom grades by sample entirely with- out grade protection, the grain com- bine will be enabled to make up for what the farmers have learned about “Feed D" wheat. BRAND GRADES RAISE TEST WEIGHT PER BUSHEL Similar plums will fall into the lap of the grain ring by shaking the tree a little more. The test weight per bushel has been raised for both the top and the Iowest grades (although for the in- between grades it was averaged, just as was the moisture content). Na. 1 Hard has a test weight of 53 pounds per bushel, but Brand grade No..1 has & tést weight of 59 pounds per bushel, whereby much No. 1 Hard wheat will again be squeezed over the line to the advantage . of the millers by several cents a bushel. This will still further cut off the quantity of top grade wheat produced in the Northwest, for which it is famous as the exclusive producing section. Again cutting off the limit at the bottom, the millers make another wholesaie grab at the farmers’ expense. The ‘department’s bottom: grade is No. 5, equivalent to No. 4 Northern. No, 4 Northern has a test weight of 49 pounds per bushel, but the Brand grade mak- ers raised this to 51 pounds for their No. 5. In a season like 1916, this would result in throwing a large pro- portion of the crop into the hands of the grain trust at the lowest arbitrary figures which they.cared to frame up, NINE % s mission of “ about a hundred of them altogether, formed an This was a sort of resurrection ceremony for the “Good Government League”. Remember that n Black was the nurse. Judge Northern Pacific Yo he daylight into it as part of the Leader’ ng crape on the door. The funeral was private—no flo There is the political bess, the disap ung had some sort of underground connection carrying the truth to the people”. Black wers. Now they’ve gone out to dig it up pointed office seeker, the reactionary legislator, the man who profits by s the game of crooked politics to his liking. They all were there. Spirits of darkness, agents of evil, were also nd say things they would regret having done and said. There was the slinking spirit of dissension, that poisons who work, bred by living in comfort on the work of other men’s hands. Graft and corruption know that they can not live if the people are allowed vive the league to prevent government by the people. The “shepherd of the will be dressed up and set on a pedestal to frighten the people of North | Injustice in New Grain Grades Heavy Penalties for Moisture Included in | Brand’s Federal Standards; Government Grades Aid Robbery on Light-Weight Wheat and wholly without any grade pro- tection. It would increase the scope of the “feed” grades, which the grain ring brazenly and.illegally inforced on all Northwestern farmers last year. They established the“so-called “feed” grades to take care of wheat which they claim was too low in quality to come within standard grades, and now the office of markets and rural organ- ization has given them two pounds more on whith to work the fake of “feed” grades. > And the office of markets did this in the face of the fact scientifically provenr by Dr. Ladd and the govern- ment working in conjunction, that these low grades make almost as much and almost as good flour as the higher grades, (and on some samples better); and in the face of the fact that mills doing commercial business were. grind- ing up flour of less than the lowest limit for No. 4 Northern, and making highly satisfactory flour for discrimi- nating customers. ~ ‘The millers and grain gamblers won again. HUMPBACK OUTLAWED IN SEVERAL. GRADES ;Mr. Brand alsp fell for the hocus- pocus classification of “humpback”, and through the office of markets and rural. organization made. it legal amnd binding. In every one of the hard spring wheat grades “humpback” ig mentioned with warning and the dis~ crimination that only a small percent- age of it can be included in any of these grades. The millers said it was not good milling wheat, and S0, in addition to basing grades partially upon the amount of “humpback” it contains, the grade makers created a whole system of “Red Spring Hump- back” grades beginning with No. 1 and running down to No. 5 and “Sample Grade”. : 3 “Humpback” is the substitute medium by which the grain combine “horn- swoggles” the farmers since the Agri- (Continued on page 17)