The Headlight (Carmen, Okla.), Vol. 18, No. 35, Ed. 1 Friday, March 22, 1918 Page: 3 of 8
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THB HEADLIGHT
SEVEN
HOW UNCLE SAM RUNS THE WHEAT BUSINESS OF THE NATION
-
sSS V5S71 delay In getting this
wheat started across
the world was occa-
sioned by the uncer-
tain Judgment of -the
manager He sent a
sample on to the St Louis zone agent
for test which verified his Judgment as
to grade He then went nbout his usu-
al duties cleaning the grain filling his
bins and shipping out as regularly as
he could in maximum carload quanti-
ties in order to economize the use of
cars in time of congestion He was
careful to keep his records very
straight os to dates and quantities of
wheat purchased on hand and shipped
out for the Grain Corporation requires
weekly reports and full details of
transactions
Selling Wheat to Government
ROUT 21) dnys after the
farmer brought In his
wheat there came a re-
quest to this elevator for
a carload to he purchas-
ed by the Grain Corpora-
tion So one of our
wheat bushels was poured into a car
which miraculously had appeared on
the siding at a time when car shortage
was troubling the entire commercial
world Inquiry might have shown that
Loading Wheat at an Atlantic Port for the Allies
the Grain Corporation was making a
large purchase for the Allies and was
utilizing its knowledge of available
stocks by haying on the Job a trans-
portation strategist — Edward Cham-
bers vice president of the Santa Fe
Mr Chambers was assisting the Food
Administration and has a remarkable
-“way with him" Even before he was
called to assist Mr McAdoo the Direc-
tor General his suggestions to the rail-
roads had a wonderful effect In dis-
couraging their hesitancy as to finding
available cars and n clearing up con-
gestions that looked as though they
never could he uncongested
How Uncle 8am Keeps the Whip
Ease In getting the needed cars was
one of the advantages enjoyed by this
particular elevator after signing the
voluntary agreement which ceded to
the Grain Corporati(n the right to con-
trol storage and direct shipments and
sales of all wheat bought by the pro-
prietor While voluntary this agreement la
almost compulsory since railroads give
priority recognition to Grain Corpora-
tion requests for cars and elevators
or mills outside the official fold must
“rustle” for themselves In return the
Government guarantees the elevator
proprietor against losses and protects
him in every way as to price and pays
him rentals for all storage space requi-
sitioned by IL
Ail elevators local and terminal
must take out licenses or face a shut-
down What Is the power of the li-
cense? It requires the operator to lay
all cards on the table as to his busi-
ness dealings For the time of the
war the elevator becomes a public util-
ity and its proprietor must furnish in-
formation as to his business at any
time when required by the Grain Cor-
poration Each week he must make
and mail reports showing the amount
of wheat rye or their derivatives pur-
chased stored and shipped
Under present license terms the li-
censee can keep on hund for only 30
days unless he obtains a special per-
mit any stocks of these grains or
their derivatives He is also forbid-
den to contract for the sale of any
product which can not be delivered
within 30 days after the contract Is
made
How the Wheat Was Milled
Away went our bushel- of wheat on
Its Journey to the terminal where It
met other bushels of wheat from ail
parts of the territory that fed this
market There It was regarded for
special requirements marked for Im-
mediate milling and rolled on to a
large mill In Illinois The miller
bought the wheat from the Grain Cor-
poration for each miller In the Unit-
ed States Is under license also Rnd
moat of them have filled out another
voluntary agreement which hinds them
her to purchase all supplies from
Grain Corporation or under Its dl-
rect supervision The corporation
charges each miller 1 per cent of the
value of the wheat he grinds to cover
the costs of administering the cor-
poration for the $"0000000 capital is
to he returned to the United States
Treasury unimpaired
The -agreement has Its compensa-
tion however for the policy of Uncle
Sara is to provide each mill with all
wheat possible To do so every mill
signing up was required to furnish an
estimate of its possible milling capaci-
ty for the season This nation wide
survey of milling capacities when bal-
atavd against the available supply of
whom enables the Grain Corporation
to equalise supplies in a way never
done before In fact the schedule of
prices arranged for the primnrv mar-
kets had for an object this equaliza-
tion ' For instance if the proprietor
of an elevator at Maryville Mo 48
miles northeast of St Joseph and 458
miles' from Chicago desires to market
wheat he has available these markets:
SL Joseph Mo Kansas City Mo
St Louis Mo Chicago 111 and New
York City N V To ascertain the
most advantageous price for him he
would work it out on the basis of the
following table:
From this table you can see what
wheat would bring at five dlllerei
markets If shipped from Maryvlll
Mo:
Under these conditions the proprietor
would probably sell at SL Joseph or
Chicago according to his Inclination
The table further illustrates the
equalization of prices and indicates to
what extent the miller Is protected
when buying wheat in any territory
Through this plan discriminations
against the produce the miller and
the consumer are eliminated so far as
it seems humanly possible under a
plan of such tremendous proportions
HESE schedules arrang-
ed for the various
markets are veritable
“price dams” to pre-
vent the overflowing
of the 8 1 ream of
wheat at any single
market They also tend to correct
many abuses prevalent in the past
such as cutthroat methods adopted by
mills to secure supplies and indiscrimi-
nate moving of wheat to terminals
For all practical purposes the wheat
business of the country is apportioned
and whenever possible mills are sup-
plied from wheat in the territory Dear-
est them This policy has for an ob-
ject the saving of waste in transpor-
tation In another way saving is
made: Formerly large quantities of
uudergrade wheats have been difficult
to dispose of on account of unco-ordl-nated
purchase of the competing mills
but under Uncle Sam's domination
each bushel of wheat must now go
somewhere and the poorer wheat will
move just as freely as the more de-
sirable grades
Limiting Millers' Profits
The Illinois miller who received the
carlnt containing our bushel of wheat
milled It promptly and shipped its flour
to a port for exportation The miller
was permitted by the Food Adminle-
tratlon to make a fair profit not ex-
ceeding a maximum of 25 cents per
barrel on the flour and a maximum
profit of 50 cents per ton on the feed-
stuff left over All mills however
must furnish at regular intervals to
the Milling Division full statements of
manufacturing cos's which are scru-
tinized carefully The derivatives of
this wheat the miller sold for domes-
tic consumption as the policy of the
Government Is to keep In the United
States all available feedstuff In order
to encourage live-stock production
Milling Canadian Wheat '
ILE our bushel was
being milled a carlot of
wheat reached this mill
from Canada Importa-
tion of Canadian wheat
without special consent
being forbidden the mill
operatives became curious and made
inquiries This wheat was part of a
large supply which the Grain Corpora-
tion had brought into the United States
to aid Id keeping the American mills
running
There was another reason Domes-
tic wheat was not moving from the
farms as freely as the millers needed
it and shortage forced the mills to
operate at a great disadvantage and
according to them at higher costs
The last Journey stage of our first
bushel although considerably changed
in its form was to go as flour to port
undei' rush orders It now had right
of way over all other classes of freight
except other munitions of war Con-
sent of the War Trade Board being
obtained it was loaded on a ship and
passed safely through the submarine
field to France where It succored the
hungry
We started out to follow the travels
of two bushels of wheat from the farm
to their points of consumption under
war condition with the U S Food Ad-
ministration in control of the market-
ing I have previously discussed the
Journeys of these two bushels from
the farm to the elevator at the country
point Here they parted and one of
them ' passed on to a terminal and
from the terminal to a mill and from
the mill to seaboard There It went to
France for consumption
The Other Bushel of Wheat Starts
Traveling
OW us to the othpr bushel
of - wheat A certain
Georgia miller in need
of supplies notified the
Grain Corporation and
received permission to
buy on the open market
About the same time our co-operative
elevator manager had listed a shipment
with his terminal representative — a
highly reputable commission firm also
under Grain Corporation license This
firm caught wind of the Georgia order
and secured permission to sell the Mis-
souri wheat The second bushel was
among those poured into a ckr and
hustled along to its destination This
shipment did not pass through any
terminal market It moved straight
to Atlanta where it went between the
rollers of the mllL
Controlling the Jobber by License
Now the flour which came from our
econd bushel of wheat was rolling
serenely along In another direction
but the car was diverted by special or-
der of the U S Food Administrator
and received by a large wholesale job-
ber In New York City This Jobber
also does business under a Food Ad-
ministration license but administered
by the distribution divlson Under li-
cense terms the Jobbers must sell at
a fair profit only although the exact
amount of this profit Is not determin-
ed the Food Administration reserving
the right In each case to call a halt
when a licensee has gone “the limit"
Success In This War Depends Large
The New York Jobber took for his
own in this case a profit of 50 cents
per barreL He sold part of this ship-
ment to a retail merchant
This merchant did a small business
and was not licensed hut even here
was another social check For the
retail merchants of the large cities
and those of many small cities and
towns find each morning and after-
noon In the dally papers a price list
for flour and other commodities which
are considered fair by the Federal
Food Administrator for their StatA
These prices are usually arrived at
through the machinery of the whole-
saler' a- ! the retailers’ organizations
Tin n-ialler also discovered that the
Jobber who sold him this flour was
keenly Interested In the prices paid by
' consumer For the Food Admlnls-
i vatlon bag discovered an Indirect
means of control of the retailer by
making the Jobber a voluntary police-
man to his customer The Jobber Is
licensed to sell only to traders who
deal fairly and If it should turn out
that a jobber persists In doing busi-
ness with retailers guilty of profiteer-
ing in staples under control the Food
Administration has and may exercise
the right to revoke the license of the
Jobber
The other part of this shipment con-
talned our second bushel of wheat and
went over to the East Side into a small
bakery which quickly made it into
creamy loaves These loaves were
placed In groceries and delicatessens
and the next day were eaten by hun-
gry little boys and girls with dark
eyes and big noses and quaint ways
Brings Out Startling Truths
Government control has brought put
these startling truths :
More people -unnecessarily make
their living out of wheat distribution
than was suspected Thousands nnd
thousands of little speculators have
had to turn elsewhere for a livelihood
A number of commission men have
had to close shop There are places
where elevators should be built and
other places where there are too many
elevators The Government dominat-
ing the wheat market carries Its own
marine Insurance Wheat handlers at
terminals have had their activities re-
stricted But most of all It Is Interesting to
see how the price of flour per barrel
tumbled from the time Uncle Sam took
a positive hand In the matter The
Food Administration has recently com-
pleted an Interesting chart on the
prices of wheat and bulk flour at Min-
neapolis In a statement of Novem-
ber 26 the Food Administration says:
i The farmer received for the 1916 har-
vest between 6145 and 61-50 per bushel
for the harvest taking the country by
large and Last year he received
under 20 per cent of the price of the loaf
Today he Is receiving over 40 per cent of
the money paid for the cash loaf this
being the result of the stabilization of
prices and the total elimination of hoard-
ing and speculation In this Industry
The statement reports that farmers
on November 26 were receiving with
freight charges Included from the ter-
ritory represented to Minneapolis ap-
proximately $950 for 4 bushels of
wheat The price of ljulk flour at the
Minneapolis mill Is about $1025 per
barrel showing that the miller Is now
receiving about 75 cents per barrel
which must Include both his operating
expenses and profit
URINQ last July and Au-
gust while Congress was
wrestling with Itself to
produce a food adminis-
tration and there was
no Grain Corporation
flour production In the
principal centers was 75
per cent under tne same
period In 1918 In September October
and November nnder the supervision
of the Food Administration flour pro-
duction was 114 per cent of the same
period In 1910 What this means In the
great national situation with depleted
domestic flour reserves and clamoring
foreign buyers can hardly be over-
emphasized when movement of wheat
Into primary markets has been hardly
ly on America’s Next Wheat Crop
half that of a year ago or 100(XH)000
bushels less It was nothing short of
master strategy
The total number of bushels pur-
chased by the Grain Corporation from
the time It commenced activities to
February 1 s 9727614559 Arranged
by months the purchases In bushels
were: September 784120920: Octo-
ber 1935964659: November 30920-
07420 December 2145624906 and
January 17G9S9G608
During July and Angus our flour
exports were about the same as In the
same two months of 1916 but In Sep-
tember October and November the
exportation was 50 per cent larger
than a year ago So the Grain Cor
poratlon has discharged our obliga-
tions to the allies and restored our
flour reserves which Is the larger a
pect of the question
The water wagon is fast becoming
an even more popular vehicle than the
automobile
Since the hen received her reprieve
she has demonstrated what the female
of th species 'can accomplish on old
H C L
Somebody should suggest to the ball
clubs that the exercise has made them
fit subjects to shoulder a musket If
not that hen the swing of a ball club
is not so very different from that of
a hoe
PUBLICATION NOTICE
In the District Court ir and for Al-
falfa County Oklahoma
The A C Houston Lumber Company
a Corporation Plaintiff
vs
J R Smith and Citizens National
Bank of Independence Kansas
a Corporation Defendants
No 1629
The State of Oklahoma to J R Smith
and Citizens National Bank of In-
dependence Kansas Defendants
Greeting:
Defendants J R Smith and Citizens
National Bank of Independence Kan-
sas will take notice that they each
have been sued in the above court by
plaintiff to foreclose its mateHalman’s
lien upon in and to the lease leasehold
and rights of defendant Smith in and
to the northwest quarter of section
twenty-one (21) township twenty-
five (25) range twelve (12) W I
M Alfalfa county Oklahoma upon
all buildings derricks rigs fixtures
appliances appurtenances erected by
defendant Smith thereon in digging
drilling and operating for oil and gas
purposes upon all oil wells or gas
wells on said lands and upon the lum-
ber materials and supplies sold and
furnished by plaintiff to defendant and
used thereon said lien accruing for
lumber materials and supplies sold
and furnished defendant Smith by
plaintiff by contract between April
24th 1917 and May 1st 1917 in
amount of $7705 and used by defend-
ant Smith on said lands and his in-
terests therein in erecting and repair-
ing of buildings derricks rigs fix-
tures appliances and appurtenances
oil wells and gas wells thereon in the
digging and drilling for oil and gas
thereon a duly verified lien statemtnt
being duly and properly filed by plain-
tiff on the 19th day of July 1917 in
the Court Clerk’s office of Alfalfa
county Oklahoma said claim of plain-
tiff being due and unpaid to render
judgment for $7705 costs and ex-
penses of this action gainst defend-
ant Smith to declare plaintiff’s lien
to be the first and prior lien upon all
of said property and Defendant
Smith’s interests therein to foreclose
said lien to sell all the property
above described and allof defendant
Smith’s interests therein in satisfac-
tion of said judgment and lien and
costs And said defendants J R
Smith and Citizens National Bank of
Independence Kansas must answer"
the petition filed herein by plaintiff
on or before the 12th day of April
1918 or the petition will be taken as
true and confessed and judgment ren-
dered for plaintiff against defendant
J R Smith for $7705 with 6 per
cent interest until paid $3750 at-
torney fees and costs plaintiff’s lien
declared and made the first and prior
lien upon the lease leasehold interest
and rights of defendant Smith in and
to the northwest quarter of section
twenty-one (21) township twenty-
five (25) range twelve (12) W I M
Alfalfa county Oklahoma upon all
buildings derricks rigs fixtures ap-
pliances and appurtenances erected
and used by defendant Smith thereon
in digging drilling and operating for
oil and gas purposes upon all oil wells
or gas wells on said lands and upon
the lumber materials and supplies so
sold and furnished by plaintiff to de-
fendant Smith as aforesaid and the
said lien foreclosed according to law
upon and against the lease and lease-
hold interests of defendant Smith in
said lands and all said property and
the said lease and leasehold interests
and said property and oil wells and
pas wells sold according to law to
satisfy said judgment lien and costs
attorneys fee and expenses and the
residue if any applied as the court
may direct
Dated this 27th day of February
1918 '
(Seal) J W RACKLEY
Court Clerk
W E Wiles Attorney for Pltff
FEDERAL LAND BANK
LOANS
The Federal Land Bank Associa-
tion of Alfalfa county is now organiz-
ed and doing business To date about
$18000 has been loaned on Alfalfa
County land at from five to forty
years at five and a half per cent and
no commissions There are twelve
districts in the U S and this county
is in the 9th district working under
the Wichita Land Bank '
Any farm owner in this county de-
siring a loan should write W T Rus-
sell secretary Jet Okla and blanks
will be sent him
BY ORDER OF THE BOARD
OF DIRECTORS
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Salter, Frank A. The Headlight (Carmen, Okla.), Vol. 18, No. 35, Ed. 1 Friday, March 22, 1918, newspaper, March 22, 1918; Carmen, Oklahoma. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc2084513/m1/3/?q=j+w+gardner: accessed June 26, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.