The Oregon daily journal., September 29, 1907, Page 43, Image 43

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ROB ABLY you would find it hard to guess
what is the biggest perennial crime committed
in America.
Listen From the people of the United
States every year, it is charged, -there is stolen
by dispensers of 'commodities using false
weights and measures the stupendous sum of
$200,000,000!
How is this known? In one state, New
York, a public official, after a tour of the state
inspecting scales and measures, has become
convinced that the annual tribute to the short
weight tyrant is $20,000,000 injhat state
alone.
New York's population is one-tenth that
of the entire United States. So, if the same
ratio of, stealing holds elsewhere, the aggregate theft is not less
than $200,000,000. ;
Two and two-thirds dollars for each person, or over $r$
for the head of each family of five in the United States.
Even should the estimate of the expert be too hi gh and' the
figure cut in fwo, what an appalling yoke for the millions of people
. PORTLAND OREGOH SUNDAY MORNING ' SEPTEMBER 29, J 907
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who find it difficult in any event to meet the
high prices of foods and necessaries.
And reports from other sections of the
country show that this pillaging of pockets
by means of light weights and short meas
ures is general throughout the land.
O KEAUZE the meaning of this annual
theft of 1200,000,000, just look at a few
comparative figures.
It will be admitted that tbe average
family can live comfortably on $2000 a year.
Then this yearly steal would support 100,000
families, or 500,000 individuals the population
of the citjwof Cleveland.
It would cover almost two-thirds of the loss
caused by San Francisco's earthquake; would
pay the insurance losses' in four Baltimore fires.
If invested at 6 per cent, it would yield $12,
000,000 annually, which would support many a
worthy philanthropic institution.
The interest alone on this vast amount
would give, each summer, vacations in the coun
try to all the slum children in the ten largest
cities in the United States. Perhaps, if put to
such a use, it would compensate to some extent
for robbing those children of milk, bread and
meats.
It was Frita Eeichmann, superintendent of
weights and measures for New York state prac
tically every other state has such an official
that made the startling statement that the peo
ple of New York are defrauded out of $20,000,000
by means of short weights and measures an
nually. He is not a man given to rash statements.
His predominating quality is honesty. His posi
tion pays $300 a year.
This doesn't matter to him. He was so Im-
pressed with the fiendish, flesh-grabbing system
whieh has for its principal victims the poor, that
he undertook a thorough inspection tour of t6b
6tate.
It was after having fully tested, personally,
the weighing and measuring conditions in some
of tne big cities that he made the startling accu
sation. Still stronger were his remarks when seen by
a representative of this paper. He 'declared
that the whole nefarious condition is traceable
to official incapacity or crookedriess.
In the state of New York many of the of
ficers sworn to protect the people in the matter
of weights and measures have with amazing
boldness utterly declined to perform their duty,
, he asserts.
"In the domestic commerce law,rt said Mr.
Reichmann, "provisions are made for testing and
sealing of the weights and measures used in
trade. County, city and town scalers are pro
vided for, and their duties prescribed.
LAW IS DISREGARDED
"In the large majority of cases these pro
visions have not been carried out.
"In more than one-hllf of the counties the
boards of supervisors have not even apppinted
a county sealer of weights and measures.
"With the exception of Buffalo, Rochester,
and most notably New York city, the cities of
the state have paid no attention to a rigorous
inspection, and the little work that has been
done has been most inefficiently done.
"This ia caused by the lack of proper state
supervision and because the necessity of having
active, energetic and efficient men as sealers of
weights and measures has never been called to
the attention of the authorities.
"Weights and measures enter into every
transaction of trade, and the unscrupulous
dealer has taken advantage of lack of inspection.
"A great many honest dealers and the ma
jority are so have faulty weights and-measures
through carelessness and ignorance. A very
effective and simple aid in he inspection, of
weights and measures would be that all licenses
for retail merchants, for milk dealers, peddlers,
hucksters,, etc., be issued only when a certificate
of inspection by the local sealer of weights and
measures is presented, such inspection, of course,
having been, made immediately preceding the
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issuance of tha license and accompanied by a
sworn statement that all of the weights and
measures in their possession have been thus
tested",
If any commentary is needed to fully illus
trate the enormity of this fraudulent system of
selling, it may be found in sidelights which
Mr. Reichmann discovered in his tour.
In one meat shop, for instance, he found
that the clerks got no salary at all, but secured
an income entirely through giving short weight.
The actual weight of every piece of meat
was known to the proprietor. What the cftrk
could add to this in making a sale was his own.
Thus was robbing reduced to a fine art.
Is New York state isolated in the commis
sion of this crime!
An investigator in Chicago makes an eluci
dating report.
In Illinois there is a law which makes it
an offense punishable by a very severe penalty
for a starving mother or child to steal a loaf of
bread or an apple from any merchant. There is
no state regulation to punish the merchant who
steals hundreds of dollars from the child or
mother. .
RESTRICTIONS EVADED
True, in the state food law there is a para
graph which states that an article of food shall
be deemed misbranded, "if in any package form,
and the contents are stated in terms of weight
or measure, they are not correctly and plainly
stated on the outside of the package."
Interpreted, this means that if the weight
or measure of a package is stated at all, it shall
be correctly stated. All the merchants have to
do is not state the weight or measure at all, and
then the law offers no restraint over them in any
kind of short-weight theft they see fit to perpe-
trate.
The result is that in nearly every article of
food sold in the state of Illinois some merchants
steal something of value from the consumer.
Not only in food, but in most articles of house
hold consumption, the purchaser ia defrauded
of some amount of the product bought.
In the item of coal alone the people of Chi
cago were robbed of $3,000,000 in one winter,
and in the state of Illinois the theft amounted
to at least twice that figure.
Next to coal, ice furnishes the source
through which the greatest cheats are perpe
trated on the people. In nineteen sales out of
every twenty ice dealers of Illinois steal from
a penny to a dollar's worth. By this means the
people are robbed of several million dollars every
year, as ice is not sold in packages, and "the con
tents" are not "stated on the outside of the pack
age," and hence no law is violated.
Next in order of thowo who realize the great
est harvest through the short weight and meas
ure frauds are packers whoso cunning devices
extend throughout the nation.
Mnny packers used to put up five-pound
buckets of lard which contained only four
pounds, but a state law was enacted which pro
hibited them from calling the bucket a five
pound bucket unless it actually contained five
pounds. So those who would cheat simply stop
ped calling the bucket a "five-pound" bucket, but
placed the same four pounds of lard in it and
sold it for the same price. Of courso, the con
sumer still thinks he is buying five pounds.
Lard is only mentioned by way of illustra
tion. The same shrewd scheme is practiced in
the sate of almost all kinds of tinned products.
Illinois is the greatest food producing state
in the Union and manufacturers realize a big ex
tra profit every" year by holding out small quanti
ties from the consumer.
Wholesale and retail stores teach their em
ploys to steal from customers by shrewd decep
tions. Employes of stores aro trained to steal
from the public from the time they enter tho
business on penalty of being discharged if they
are so "disloyal" as to give honest weights and
measures. :
Many oyster dealers sell oysters with 25 per
cent, water, when the cans or packages are sup
posed to contain only 5 per cent.
Boxes and bottles are made with raised bot
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Last year the Woman's Full Weight Club was organized in Chicago., v
These women caused the election of Joseph Grein as city sealer.' II
put a temporary stop to frauds by seizing thousands of fraudulent scelea
and short weights and measures and making wholesale arrests.
Great wagon loads of fraudulent measures were heaped in piles on
the lake front and destroyed in bonfires to the delight of vast crowds.
But recently the old conditions have prevailed, and the protests of tha
Woman's Full Weight Club have been ignored. Joseph Grein was sum
manly removed from office. :. :;,-;;::':!'
Tn Illinois the law is like the spider's web, which only catches tha ;
little offenders, while the big, heavy ones fall through.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars are lostv annually to the people of h
the city of Cleveland, according to Official Sealer Owen Kane, who de- 1
clares that the giving of short weights and measures ia very generally
practiced by almost every class of retailer who is called upon to weigh ;
or measure out his goods. ; .;'v,
"Thero is not a particle of doubt," said Mr. Kane, "that dealers sys ,
vematically rob their aastomers. There is doubt, either, that they
in many instances do it knowingly. The blat o is not so much, perhaps,
with the humble retailer as with the big concerns which manufacture
baskets, milk bottles and other things in which stuff is sold to the public
"Prior to our putting into force & weights and measures ordinance,
several months ago, there was not for a period Of nine "year a baslut
maker in or near Cleveland who di.t not make half-bushel baskets ihort
from two to five quarts. - ..-
, , . (CONTJt)? ON INSIPBTFAGE) ., '