Life in a Grain Elevator

To most people, life in a grain elevator might seem a dusty, monotonous existence with little or no future at all. But Houston's William Fellrath made a career of it. He joined the city's grain elevator as assistant superintendent when it started operations in 1926, became the $9,000-3-year elevator superintendent in 1941. In Washington last week, the Senate Agriculture Committee heard just how good life in a grain elevator can be.

In two years, testified an Agriculture Department investigator, Fellrath had collected $100,000 from Fort Worth's Transit Grain Co. for blending about a million bushels of cheap Canadian wheat, officially graded as "unfit for human consumption," with high-grade U.S. wheat. Transit Grain exported its low-grade wheat at an estimated profit of some $500,000; the U.S. paid part of the bill by making up the difference between the domestic wheat price and that called for under the International Wheat Agreement. In addition, said the Agriculture investigator, Transit Grain paid about $15,000 to two of Fell-rath's assistants, and another $36,000 to C. J. Winters, manager of a state-owned elevator in New Orleans, for similar services. Transit Grain was also charged with picking up some hotel bills for George C. Cunningham, a CCC official in Dallas, who was also in on the deal.

News of the latest grain scandal first leaked out last month, when Houston's port commission fired Manager Fellrath and his assistants; CCC's Cunningham promptly resigned, and New Orleans'

Manager Winters was also fired. But when the Houston port commission's wrath fell on Fellrath, he protested that he had done no wrong. Actually, he said, he had received $140,899 for his labors -- not $100,000. "Whether I did or didn't make any money makes no difference. I reported every dime I made to the Internal Revenue Bureau ... If someone wanted so many bushels of No. 2 wheat shipped out, it was my job to meet the minimum specifications and no more. I used Canadian wheat as filler [and] the Houston Merchants' Exchange checked that wheat every two weeks -- checked it and approved it." Demanded Fellrath:"Is it my fault if they approved something they shouldn't have?" This week, the Senate Agriculture Committee was trying to subpoena the records of Transit Grain Co., and set about finding out if life in other grain elevators was as profitable as in Houston and New Orleans.

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