40 THE HIGH COST OF LIVING 



servative estimate of 12 cents, the loss amounted 

 to over $55,000,000 on the 468,000,000 bushels sold 

 between July, 1915, and January, 1916. It has been 

 stated by Senator A. J. Gronna, of North Dakota, 

 that as a result of unfair grading the farmers of the 

 Western States received only 50 per cent, of the 

 actual value of light-weight wheat. This is brought 

 about by the system of grading wheat imposed on 

 the farmers by the grain exchanges and millers, un- 

 der which the farmers are compelled to sell. Yet 

 the consumers paid for the same wheat at its un dis- 

 counted value. The difference went to the middle- 

 men. 



Senator McCumber stated on the floor of the 

 United States Senate May 1, 1914, that the unfair 

 and fraudulent grading of grain cost the farmers of 

 the West and Northwest $70,000,000 a year. 



There is a submarine zone about the Western 

 farmer which costs our people hundreds of millions 

 annually. This submarine zone is in all respects 

 like the zone which surrounds the cattle-raiser, the 

 egg and poultry man, the truckman, and the dairy- 

 man of the Eastern cities. Only the toll is not taken 

 by one submarine ; it is taken by many, each one of 

 which fixes for its own profit the terms on which 

 the farmer shall be permitted to five. And these 

 manipulators work in harmon3^ Their activities are 

 so interlocked that the concern of one is the concern 

 of all. And they create an inland embargo on food- 



