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Storage of Cereal Grains and
Their Products
FIFTH EDITION

Edited by
Kurt A. Rosentrater
Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering,
Food Science and Human Nutrition, Iowa State University,
Ames, IA, United States
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To Kari, Emma, and Alec.
List of contributors
Brian D. Adam, Department of Agricultural Economics,
Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, United
States
Frank H. Arthur, USDA-ARS-Center for Grain and
Animal Health Research, Manhattan, KS, United
States
Griffiths G. Atungulu, Department of Food Science,
University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture, Fayet-
teville, AR, United States
Ray Bucklin, Department of Agricultural and Biological
Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL,
United States
Mark Casada, USDA Agricultural Research Service,
Center for Grain and Animal Health Research,
Manhattan, KS, United States
Denis Drechsler, G20 Agricultural Market Information
System (AMIS), Rome, Italy
Kenneth Hellevang, Department of Agricultural and Bio-
systems Engineering, North Dakota State University,
Fargo, ND, United States
Digvir S. Jayas, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB,
Canada
Carol L. Jones, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater,
OK, United States
Phil Kenkel, Department of Agricultural Economics,
Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, United
States
Anthony Leali, 4B Components Limited, Morton, IL,
United States
John Mack Manis, Maryland Department of Agriculture,
Annapolis, MD, United States
C.M. Maragos, Mycotoxin Prevention & Applied
Microbiology Research Unit, National Center for
Agricultural Utilization Research, Peoria, IL, United
States
Gretchen A. Mosher, Iowa State University, Agricultural
and Biosystems Engineering, Ames, IA, United States
Thomas W. Phillips, Department of Entomology, Kansas
State University, Manhattan, KS, United States
R.H. Proctor, Mycotoxin Prevention & Applied Micro-
biology Research Unit, National Center for Agricultural
Utilization Research, Peoria, IL, United States
Kurt A. Rosentrater, Department of Agricultural and
Biosystems Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames,
IA, United States
Sammy Sadaka, Department of Biological & Agricultural
Engineering, University of Arkansas Division of Agri-
culture, Little Rock, AR, United States
Deanna S. Scheff, United States Department of Agri-
culture, Agricultural Research Service, Center for Grain
and Animal Health Research, Manhattan, KS, United
States
Soraya Shafiekhani, Department of Food Science,
University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture, Fayet-
teville, AR, United States
John Sharpe, Federal Grain Inspection Service, Kansas
City, MO, United States
Rashid A. Suleiman, Department of Food Sciences and
Agroprocessing, Sokoine University of Agriculture,
Morogoro, Tanzania
Graham Thorpe, Institute for Sustainable Industries and
Liveable Cities, Victoria University, Melbourne,
Australia
T.J. Ward, Mycotoxin Prevention & Applied Micro-
biology Research Unit, National Center for Agricultural
Utilization Research, Peoria, IL, United States
Johnny Wheat, 4B Components Limited, Morton, IL,
United States
Gregory D. Williams, Facility Engineering Services,
Springdale, AR, United States
xvii
Preface to the first edition
Storage of Cereal Grains and Their Products is the second
in a series of monographs sponsored by the American
Association of Cereal Chemists. The subject seems espe-
cially timely; in spite of recent advances in technology,
millions of tons of cereals are wasted each year through
spoilage of various sorts. Yet hunger is widespread and
populations increase ever more rapidly. Protection of food
supplies through sound storage practices is thus a matter of
most importance.
Each of the 11 chapters of the book has been written by
one or more experts. The chief aim was to produce a useful
treatise by combining comprehensive reviews of the sci-
entific literature with knowledge drawn from other sources.
In pursuit of that aim, some unevenness among chapters
could not be avoided; some aspects of the subject are
brightly illuminated by the light of scientific knowledge; on
others that light is dim, and we must depend largely on
practical experience; and elsewhere, even practical experi-
ence is limited, and we grope in semidarkness.
The first six chapters deal with moisture, chemical, and
physical changes with time, microflora, respiration and
heating, insects, and rodents. Their main purpose is to
provide the scientific background for a consideration of
storage problems, though all, and especially those on in-
sects and rodents, do full justice to practical matters also.
The last five chapters, by contrast, deal largely with areas in
which practical experience is the chief source of knowl-
edge. Two describe grain storage facilities in the country
and at terminal points and discuss their operation; one deals
with grain drying; and the last two with cereal products
themselves, namely, with bulk storage of flour and with
packaging of various types.
Three further comments may appropriately be made on
the book as a whole. Firstly, since authors were urged to
deal fully with their subjects, it was inevitable that some
topics should be discussed in more than one chapter. We
did not attempt to remove all such repetition, since we
believed that the reader would prefer to have each chapter
essentially complete in itself. Secondly, while the treatment
is often both comprehensive and detailed, not all cereals
and their products are fully covered. The aim was primarily
to elucidate and illustrate the main principles governing
storage rather than to discuss specific problems presented
by individual grains or products. And lastly, as might be
expected, since all authorsdand the editorsdare citizens
of the United States or Canada, the book gives most
emphasis to North American investigations and practices.
We are deeply indebted to our authors for the time and
labor they gave to the preparation of their chapters, and for
their patience, forbearance, and cooperation, in dealing
with the many matters, some important and some trivial,
that authors and editors are bound to discuss. Circum-
stances beyond our control made it necessary to find a
number of new authors when about half the book had been
written, and as a result, the completion of the work was
considerably delayed. We are therefore especially grateful
to those authors who turned manuscripts in early and were
later kind enough to bring them up to date and to those
who, coming to their tasks late in the day, made special
efforts to meet our postponed deadlines.
In carrying out our part in the preparation of this book,
we received much help and valuable advice from the
chairman of the Monograph Committee, W. F. Geddes. The
other members of this committee were C. N. Frey, George
Garnatz, Majel M. MacMasters, Betty Sullivan, J. A.
Shellenberger, and ourselves. The committee chose the
subject for the book, prepared an outline of its contents,
selected authors for the various chapters, and asked them to
contribute.
We were particularly fortunate in persuading Kathleen
Webb, who helped with volume I of this series, to under-
take the technical editing of volume II also; her painstaking
work has added immeasurably to the quality of this book.
Eunice R. Brown, Margaret Hilligan, V. G. Martens, and R.
J. Cheale also gave us valuable assistance. Lastly, we pay a
well-earned tribute to R. J. Tarleton, Managing Editor of
Cereal Chemistry, who undertook the final work of pub-
lishing the book for the American Association of Cereal
Chemists.
J. A. Anderson
A. W. Alcock
October, 1953
xxv
Preface to the fifth edition
I have a distinct memory as a child of watching a con-
struction crew build forms, tie rebar, and pour concrete for
a new grain elevator annex at our local co-op. It was
fascinating to watch a structure such as that being built (see
Fig. 1)! As I became older, I worked on my family farm and
had increasing responsibilities, as did most farm kids,
starting with cleaning barns and hog houses and fetching
tools, to tillage, hauling grain, and, eventually, operating
the combine itself! Harvesting the corn and soybean fields
was the ultimate responsibility on the farm..after all that is
where we derived our livelihood. I also recall checking the
grain dryer in the middle of the night to make sure that the
wet holding bin hadn’t run emptydif it had, then the dryer
had to be shut down. Loading trucks, hauling grain into that
local grain elevator (hours of waiting in line to dump were
not much fun as a child though), cleaning out grain bins
FIGURE 1 Local grain elevator expansion built when the author was a
childdthis spurred his long-running interest in grain storage structures.
(scooping out molding soybeans was an especially fun
chore), fixing augers, and all of the other associated work
necessary to keep our grain handling and storage operation
functional were definitely a character building experience
for certain (Fig. 2). In the words of the FFA Creed “I know
the joys and discomforts of agricultural life and hold an
inborn fondness for those associations which, even in hours
of discouragement, I cannot deny.” I must give credit to my
grandparents and parents, without whom I would not have
had these experiences and would not have had such a deep
appreciation for agriculture and grains.
When I attended Iowa State University, I decided to
focus on process engineeringdI had a keen interest in
designing the systems that I had worked with all of my life
on the farm, at least up until that point. I remember finding
FIGURE 2 Farm where the author was raised; this provided considerable
experience in production agriculture.
xxi
xxii Preface to the fifth edition
the 4th edition of Storage of Cereal Grains and Their
Products (edited by D.B. Sauer, 1992) in the ISU library,
where I found the cutting-edge information critically
important to my career, especially as I started working for a
local engineering company designing grain elevators and
feed mills (see Fig. 3).
It wasn’t until years later that I obtained the first edition
(edited by Anderson and Alcock, 1954) of this book. It
struck me that much had evolved in terms of technologies,
equipment, and operations between the first and the fourth
editions of this bookdyet there was much that had not
actually changed over the years. Our industry is like that.
We have so much knowledge built up that we use on a day-
to-day basis, but may not think about the historical context.
Fast forward to July 2016. I was returning from an
extended trip throughout multiple countries in sub-Saharan
Africa with a group of undergraduate students, where we
had just finished an experiential learning program focused
on subsistence farming, grain storage, and food security
issues. Also, I had just finished my work on the new edition
of Kent’s Technology of Cerealsdwhich some of you may
know focuses primarily on grain processing topics. During
my layover in the Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, I
decided to assemble a list of grain storage topics (inspired
from my time in Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, and South
Africa); I began thinking about Storage of Cereal Grains
and Their Products, so I wrote the proposal that would
FIGURE 3 First grain elevator designed by the author.
eventually lead to an updated, modernized version of this
classic reference bookdthis version of the book.
As with the previous editions, this iteration of the book
has been written by a team of experts in the various
branches of grain and grain storage issues. I charged all
contributing authors with providing a comprehensive
overview of their specific topic and also to provide in-depth
state-of-the-art scientific and technical aspects, so that this
volume will provide comprehensive coverage of modern
grain storage, preservation, and handling operations. After
all, it has been almost 30 years since the last version was
published. You will see that there are many chapters that
correspond to previous editions (e.g., moisture, drying,
aeration, insects, molds, etc.) These have all been updated
and expanded. But we have also endeavored to provide
new chapters that will augment the technical nature of this
work. For example, chapters on engineering design, storage
in developing countries, sensors and instrumentation, as
well as safety and human interactions have been added.
This book should now be an updated resource for not only
scientists and facility operators but also engineers and de-
signers of facilities.
Some of the topics have been rearranged in order to
provide a better flow through the book. We have also
subdivided the chapters into four main sections: introduc-
tion to grain storage, design and operation of grain facil-
ities, preservation of grains, and further considerations.
These subsections should help guide the reader to specific
topics of interest.
I think that it is important to acknowledge that the bulk
of the writing for this book, not only my chapters, but many
other authors as well, was undertaken and accomplished
during 2020 and 2021. None of us will soon forget the
COVID-19 pandemic and the challenges that it brought. To
an extent, the writing was facilitated by the pandemic and
the lockdown that many of us experienced..taking breaks
from writing to mow the lawn or change the laundry; on the
other hand, writing was hindered by a confluence of various
events in everyone’s lives. It is important to give special
thanks to the authors of each chapter for endeavoring to see
this project through to the end. Indeed your contributions
are greatly appreciated. The pandemic was not easy to
survive, let alone thrive and accomplish a project such as
this. Thank you to all for your fortitude in this endeavor.
We did it!
So, with the pandemic (hopefully) behind us, it is
important that we acknowledge that with the publication of
the first edition of this book in 1954, Anderson and Alcock
instituted what would become a classic text in the cereal
grains literaturedas evidenced by five editions being pro-
duced so far. Their intent was to provide a comprehensive
review of all major aspects of cereal grain storage, preser-
vation, and handling operations, and to help improve in-
dustrial operations and reduce postharvest losses. Since that
 Preface to the fifth edition xxiii

time, the grain and grain processing industries have seen should serve as a timely and expansive resource that will be
many changes and new technologies. Even so, on a useful for students, researchers, and industrial practitioners
fundamental level, cereal grains, how they are preserved alike for years to come.
and stored, how they are handled, and even how they are
processed into various food, feeds, and other products, have Kurt A. Rosentrater
changed only a little over the decades. This new edition July 2021
Acknowledgments
There are so many people that deserve to be acknowledged
in this section. First, I would like to express my apprecia-
tion for the fantastic team at Elsevier who worked with me
throughout this process. Specifically, thank you to Lindsay
Lawrence, Laura Okidi, and Karen Miller (this was our
second book project together!), Editorial Project Managers,
as well as Megan Ball, Senior Acquisitions Editor, and Rob
Sykes, Acquisitions Editor. We could not have accom-
plished this without your continual support, encourage-
ment, and hard work. Everything has come together thanks
to your team!
I would also like to express my thanks to Greg Grahek
and Phil Bogdan at the Cereals and Grains Association
(formerly the American Association of Cereal Chemists,
International) for their encouragement to pursue this
project.
Unfortunately, during the editing stage at this project,
professor Ray Bucklin passed away. During his life, he
played a key role in greater understanding and better
designs of grain storage and other agricultural systems. He
will be missed by many.
Special thanks to all the contributing authors. Whether
you were writing a chapter from scratch or revising an
existing chapter from the previous edition, this was a lot of
work for each of you. Thank you for taking the time to do
this important work. The readers will greatly benefit from
your efforts for years to come.
I would also like to thank my graduate and under-
graduate students. Over the years, we have pursued much
grain-related research together, in Iowa, around the United
States, and throughout the worlddat the commercial scale
as well as at the smallholder, subsistence level. You have
asked questions, helped develop and test solutions, and
made me consider many approaches and possibilities to
improving grain storage, handling, preservation, and
processing.
I would be remiss if I did not thank my graduate ad-
visors and major professorsdTom Richard, Carl Bern, and
Rolando Flores. From them I learned how to conduct
research, write scientific manuscripts, and get them pub-
lished in peer-reviewed journals. Walt Riedell at the
USDA-ARS helped me grow as a scientist; our discussions
on the philosophy of scientific research as well as statistical
tools for analysis of research results were invaluable, as
were our conversations about Bushonics. Thank you.
Of course, my thanks would not be complete if I did not
express deep appreciation to my wife and children. Your
patience, love, and support make all of this worthwhile.
xxvii
About the editor
Kurt A. Rosentrater, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at
Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, in the Department of
Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, as well as the
Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition. He
teaches courses on grain storage, preservation, handling,
and processing, fermentation and bioprocessing, pet food
processing, life cycle assessment and techno-economic
analysis, and food engineering unit operations. His
research focuses on storage and processing of grains, oil-
seeds, and other biological materials into foods, feeds,
biofuels, biochemicals, bioplastics, and other bio-based
products. He conducts research, training, and outreach ac-
tivities in the United States and throughout many devel-
oping nations.
Before coming to Iowa State, he was a Lead Scientist
with the United States Department of Agriculture, Agri-
cultural Research Service (USDA-ARS), at the North
Central Agricultural Research Laboratory in Brookings,
South Dakota. His research program focused on produc-
tion, processing, and optimizing the value and utility of
distillers grains and other nonfermentable components from
corn-based fuel ethanol manufacturing.
Prior to this, he was an Assistant Professor at Northern
Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois, in the Department of
Engineering and Industrial Technology, where he taught in
the areas of research methods, manufacturing systems,
engineering mechanics, engineering ethics, and design.
Before that, he worked for a design-build firm and was
responsible for process and equipment design, as well as
plant and site layout for agri-industrial storage and pro-
cessing facilities. He attended Iowa State University where
he received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Agricul-
tural and Biosystems Engineering.
He grew up on a family farm in Iowa that produced
corn, soybeans, swine, and beef. His first experiences in
grain handling, storage, and processing occurred on this
farm, where he gained first-hand knowledge of both the
toils and rewards of hard work.
He has authored or coauthored over 500 research pub-
lications, including the books Kent’s Technology of Ce-
reals, 5th edition (2018, Elsevier) and Distillers Grains:
Production, Properties, and Utilization (2011, Taylor and
Francis).
He is widely sought as a speaker and trainer, both
domestically and internationally. He is an active member of
the American Society of Agricultural and Biological En-
gineers, the American Association of Cereal Chemists, the
Institute for Biological Engineering, the Institute of Food
Technologists, and the American Society for Engineering
Education.
xix
Chapter 1
Introduction to cereal grains,
pseudocereals, oilseeds, and pulses
Kurt A. Rosentrater
Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, United States
Since ancient times, the growth and expansion of civiliza-
tion has depended in large measure upon the domestication,
cultivation, improvement, and use of cereal grains and
related agricultural commodities (Storck and Teague, 1952;
Moritz, 2002; Sinclair, 2010). In fact, throughout history,
grain was held in such high esteem, and it was such an
important part of everyone’s daily lives that the cultivation,
harvest, and threshing of grain, and the making of food,
beer, and bread, were often depicted in artwork; to this day,
cereal grains appear in modern art installations as well
(Fig. 1.1 shows a few examplesdthe art world is replete
with many more).
Agriculture has allowed for the diversification of labor
and the development of other disciplines as societies have
developed and evolved. Agriculture has comprised the
majority of employment in most societies until recent times
(although in many countries, especially in developing
nations, that is still the case). This began to change during
and after the Industrial Revolution, as mechanization
allowed farming practices to become much more efficient
(Fig. 1.2). This was further accelerated in the 20th century,
with the development and widespread adoption of plant
hybridization fertilizers, herbicides, and insecticides. And
computers, instrumentation, and biotechnology have
continued to increase the efficiency acceleration toward the
end of the 20th century as well.
During the last 200 years, scientific discoveries and
engineering advances have impacted not just agriculture
and food production but also all aspects of societies around
the world. Modern cereal grain production, storage,
handling, and processing operations retain semblance to
those of our ancestors, but on a much larger and advanced
scale. And technologies have been accelerating and com-
pounding upon each other synergistically. In fact, agricul-
ture has become so efficient in many developed countries
that less than 2% of these populations are directly
Storage of Cereal Grains and Their Products. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-812758-2.00022-2
Copyright © 2022 Cereals & Grains Association.
Published by Elsevier Inc. in cooperation with Cereals & Grains Association. All rights reserved.
employed in the agricultural production of grains, foods,
and livestock. Even though the proportion in many devel-
oping countries is still quite high, the reduction in direct
employment in production agriculture is declining as well.
Historically, as societies developed and technologies
evolved, and food production became more efficient,
greater human populations could be supported (food is only
one of a vast number of factors upon which populations
depend, though). This became especially true during and
after the Industrial Revolution, when populations in many
countries began to rapidly increase. Overall global popu-
lation reached approximately seven billion in 2011
(October 31, according to UN estimates); it is anticipated to
reach nearly 10 billion by 2050 (UN, 2017); and, depend-
ing upon the growth estimates used, it may eventually reach
nearly 12 billion by 2100 (Fig. 1.3). Population growths,
and changes in population density, are not distributed
equally around the globe, however. For decades, Asia
(primarily China and India) has been the fastest growing
region of the planet. But Africa is quickly catching up to
Asia both in terms of numbers of people and human den-
sities. As shown in Fig. 1.3, regions that are considered
“developed” appear to plateau or even decline over time
through the 21st century. The greatest growth anticipated to
occur during the next 100 years is predicted in developing
countries (most of which are in Africa). This may strain
already fragile ecosystems, which could have a direct
impact of grain and food production. Considerable work
needs to be done to improve infrastructure and increase not
only grain yields but also storage and preservation efficacy.
Population growth is arguably the greatest challenge to
the planet, as there is greater and greater demand for goods,
services, manufactured products, energy, water, and
ultimately concomitant impacts on the environment. And,
as the global population continues to grow, there is an ever-
growing need to increase the available food supply. This is
1
2 Storage of Cereal Grains and Their Products

FIGURE 1.1 Cereal grains have played a key role in the development of societies, and as such have appeared in paintings, sculptures, and other forms of
art throughout human history. Some examples include top left, painting in tomb of Nakht, 15th century B.C. Egypt. Top right, the Greek goddess Demeter;
and center right, Roman goddess Ceres, who were credited with bestowing cereal grains to humans. Bottom, Mesoamerican sculpture of maize. (Facing
page) Top left, Haystacks by Claude Monet (1891). Top right, Fall Plowing by Grant Wood (1931). Center left, The Sower, Beaumont Tower, Michigan
State University, 1928. Center right, Ceres, Chicago Board of Trade (1930). Bottom, Corn Palace, Mitchell, SD, USA. (Current page) All images courtesy
of Wikimedia Commons.
 Introduction to cereal grains, pseudocereals, oilseeds, and pulses Chapter | 1 3

FIGURE 1.1 cont’d

not a simple problem to address. Regional differences in
agricultural productivity, climate, and technology are often
complicated by economics, politics, and distribution issues.
In developing countries, increasing the production of cereal
grains is often seen as one approach to improving food
security. Ironically though, in many developed countries,
the increasing incidences of celiac disease, diabetes, cancer,
changing dietary attitudes and perceptions, and shifting
consumer choices have often led to a reduction in demand
for various cereals, at least for food products (especially
wheat and related grains) (McGill et al., 2015; Jones and
Sheats, 2016).
Fig. 1.4 shows the global production of key cereal
grains (wheat, maize, and rice) as well as various small
grains. Cereal grains are grown in every country, but to
differing extents. This is due in large part to where the
grains originated and thus historical practices, although this
has been changing as globalization has allowed for the
FIGURE 1.2 Rosentrater’s grandfather, mid-20th century. Farm tractors were a direct outcome of the Industrial Revolution, and helped increase
agricultural productivity in the 20th century.

12,000,000 World
Africa
Asia
10,000,000 Europe
Latin America and the Caribbean
Northern America
Population (x 1000)

8,000,000 Oceania

6,000,000

4,000,000

2,000,000

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050 2060 2070 2080 2090 2100

180 Africa
Asia
160
Europe

140 Latin America and the Caribbean

Population Density (people/km2)

Northern America
120 Oceania

100

80

60

40

20

0
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050 2060 2070 2080 2090 2100
FIGURE 1.3 Top: Global and regional populations over time. Bottom: Regional population densities over time. Predictions based upon data from U.N.
(2017). Throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century, Asian countries have experienced the highest population densities, but the rate of density
increase currently seen in many African countries has led to the projection that by the end of the 21st century, Africa will have the highest population
density on the planet.
 Introduction to cereal grains, pseudocereals, oilseeds, and pulses Chapter | 1 5

FIGURE 1.4 Top: Global wheat production in 2010. Second from top: Global maize production in 2010. Second from bottom: Global rice production in
2011. Bottom: Global small grain production. Available online: targetmap.com.
6 Storage of Cereal Grains and Their Products
FIGURE 1.5 Global distribution of yields for cereal grains. Note that many African countries have yields between 1 and 2 t/ha, while many more have
yields less than 1 t/hadmany opportunities to improve grain storage and preservation exist in this region, and coupled with the rates of population growth
throughout Africa (Fig. 1.3), it will be particularly important to focus on food security throughout the African continent. Ritchie, H., Roser, M. 2021.
Ourworldindata.org/crop-yields. Courtesy of Creative Commons BY License.
introduction and cultivation of various cereals in many
countries. Still, wheat, maize, and rice are key to many
countries’ agricultural economies. Fig. 1.5 illustrates global
distributions of overall cereal grain productivity. Note that
there are vast differences among countries in terms of grain
yields. Coupled with this is the fact that the grains, which
are grown in various countries, differ, and we see a
complex web of interrelationships vis-à-vis grain avail-
ability in each country.
Indeed, cereal grains still represent the bulk of calories
in the diets of many cultures. And there is growing demand
for use of cereals to manufacture biofuels, biochemicals,
bioplastics, and other bio-based productsdnot just in
developed countries but also in many developing countries
too. Unfortunately, there is not an unlimited supply of
arable, productive, or available land with which to continue
to expand grain supplies to meet so many competing de-
mands (Foley et al., 2011; Ray et al., 2012; Ausubel et al.,
2013).
Fig. 1.6 shows trends for the growth of agricultural
lands. Note that land devoted to agriculture has been
expanding in many countries over the years. Fig. 1.7,
however, shows that agricultural land per capita has been
declining in many parts of the world, even though agri-
cultural land has been growing. This is likely a function of
the rapidly growing global population.
Fig. 1.8 shows portions of agricultural lands according
to type of products grown. Note that historically the ma-
jority of agricultural lands have been used to produce cereal
grain (primarily wheat, rice, and maize), followed by other
small grains.
In this work, we will cover topics and issues related to
the handling, storage, and preservation of cereal grains and
grain products (including various derivative by-products
and coproducts). We will cover not only cereal grains but
also pseudocereals, oilseeds, and pulsesdagricultural
commodities that are in the form of kernels. Throughout the
book we may refer to grain in a more encompassing sense.
We will discuss fundamentals as well as applications and
industrial practices. We will address major trends and
how they are affecting the ability to store cereal-based
commodities and products. Design and operations of
facilities are key aspects to providing a safe and secure food
supply, so we have tried to infuse these topics throughout
the book. Previous editions of this book have emphasized
the need to identify and control both insects (Fig. 1.9) and
molds (Fig. 1.10). Humans have had to contend with these
pervasive antagonists since the cultivation and utilization of
cereals began. And both of these continue to be immense
challenges to a safe and secure grain supply chain
throughout the world, and therefore continue to be
emphasized in this edition as well.
 Introduction to cereal grains, pseudocereals, oilseeds, and pulses Chapter | 1 7

FIGURE 1.6 Historical trends show expansion of agricultural lands in many countries. Ritchie, H., Roser, M. 2021. Ourworldindata.org/crop-yields.
Courtesy of Creative Commons BY License.

FIGURE 1.7 Even though land area devoted to agriculture has grown in many countries (Fig. 1.5), historical trends show a drastic reduction in per capita
land devoted to agriculture in many parts of the worlddwhich is a direct result of growing populations. Ritchie, H., Roser, M. 2021. Ourworldindata.org/
crop-yields. Courtesy of Creative Commons BY License.
8 Storage of Cereal Grains and Their Products

FIGURE 1.8 Historical trends indicate that cereal grains have accounted for the majority of agricultural land use, with wheat, rice, and maize the three
leading cereal grains. Oilseeds, on the other hand, have continued to expand over the years and have shown, along with maize, the highest rates of growth
over the past decade. Ritchie, H., Roser, M. 2021. Ourworldindata.org/crop-yields. Courtesy of Creative Commons BY License.

FIGURE 1.9 Left unabated, a variety of insects can entirely consume cereal grains during storage, leading to severe economic and food security losses.

Although it cannot be completely exhaustive in nature,
this work should serve as a solid introduction and resource
base for practitioners for years to come. We feel it is of
critical importance to society to provide a work that can be
used to help train the next generation of professionals in the
cereal grains and affiliated industries, as well as to provide
a comprehensive reference for those already in the field.
Hopefully, we have succeeded in achieving all of these
aims.
The cultivation and use of cereal grains have, to a great
extent, both paralleled and facilitated humanity’s develop-
ment and will likely continue to do so for many years to
come. Grains and grain products continue to play a critical
role in the global food supply chain overall, but also in
 Introduction to cereal grains, pseudocereals, oilseeds, and pulses Chapter | 1 9

FIGURE 1.10 Problematic though microorganisms can be for safe storage and handling of cereal grains, Microbial Sunrise illustrates the microscopic
beauty of Aspergillus flavus (what appear to be flowers) and a yeast colony (which appears to be a rising sun). Image courtesy of Tracy Debenport,
Mycologist & Photomicrographer.

regional supply chainsdwhich arguably may have a
greater impact on food security. After all, in the words of
Daniel Webster, an American statesman: “Let us not forget
that the cultivation of the earth is the most important labor
of man. When tillage begins, other arts will follow.”
Truly, the challenges facing humanity during the next
several decades are profound. But we have great hope that
we can all rise to meet these challengesdthe current gen-
eration as well as coming generations. And the handling,
storage, and preservation of cereal grains will continue to
play a pivotal role in this regard.
Zaks, D.P.M., 2011. Solutions for a cultivated planet. Nature 478,
337e342.
Jones, J.M., Sheats, D.B., 2016. Consumer trends in grain consumption.
Ref. Mod. Food Sci. 1e6. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/
article/pii/B978008100596500072X.
Mcgill, C.R., Fulgoni III, V.L., Devareddy, L., 2015. Ten-year trends in
fiber and whole grain intakes and food sources for the United States
population: national health and nutrition examination survey
2001e2010. Nutrients 7, 1119e1130.
Moritz, L.A., 2002. Grain-Mills and Flour in Classical Antiquity. British
Academy, U.K.
Ray, D.K., Ramankutty, N., Mueller, N.D., West, P.C., Foley, J.A., 2012.
Recent patterns of crop yield growth and stagnation. Nat. Commun. 3,
1293.

References
Ausubel, J.H., Wernick, I.K., Waggoner, P.E., 2013. Peak farmland and
the prospect for land sparing. Popul. Dev. Rev. 38 (1), 221e242.
Foley, J.A., Ramankutty, N., Brauman, K.A., Cassidy, E.S., Gerber, J.S.,
Johnston, M., Mueller, N.D., O’connell, C., Ray, D.K., West, P.C.,
Balzer, C., Bennett, E.M., Carpenter, S., S, R., Hill, J., Monfreda, C.,
Polasky, S., Rockstro €M, J., Sheehan, J., Siebert, S., Tilman, D.,
Sinclair, T.R., 2010. Bread, Beer and the Seeds of Change: Agriculture’s
Imprint on World History. Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences
International, Oxfordshire, U.K.
Storck, J., Teague, W.D., 1952. Flour for Man’s Bread: A History of
Milling. University of Minnesota Press, MN, U.S.A.
U.N., 2017. 2015 Revision of World Population Prospects. United
Nations, Population Division. Available online. https://esa.un.org/
unpd/wpp/.
Chapter 2
A brief journey through history
Kurt A. Rosentrater
Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, United States
2.1 Storage in the ancient world
As we begin our discussion of grain storage approaches,
technologies, and best practices, it is instructive to pause for
a moment to briefly consider the historical roots of cereal
grains and their storage, as these have a direct bearing on
how we approach and utilize “modern” methods.
When discussing the Agricultural Revolution, US
educator and entertainer John Green stated in 2012 that,
“History reminds us that revolutions are not events so much
as they are processes, that for tens of thousands of years
people have been making decisions that irrevocably shaped
the world that we live in today. Just as today we are making
subtle, irrevocable decisions that people of the future will
remember as revolutions.”
In addition, Daniel Webster (b. 1782, d. 1852), US
Secretary of State (1850e52), was quoted as saying, “Let
us not forget that the cultivation of the earth is the most
important labor of man. When tillage begins, other arts will
follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of
civilization.”
Grain storage is as old as human civilization itself.
Archaeological evidence indicates that grain was grown
and stored in bulk more than 7000 years ago (Lee, 1960;
Roberts, 1976). Indeed, the field of archeobotany continues
to push the boundaries further back in time to reveal what
our ancestors ate and how they lived. For example,
Groman-Yaroslavski et al. (2016) excavated and analyzed
composite flint blades used for harvesting wild cereal grains
by hand and by sickle in northern Israel from nearly 23,000
years ago! In Jordan, evidence of bread consumption, made
from einkorn, has been dated to approximately 14,000
years ago (Arranz-Otaegui et al., 2018). Almost contem-
poraneously, evidence has been found in stone mortars in
northern Israel that approximately 13,700 years ago malted
barley and wheat were used to produce fermented beer
(Liu, 2018). In fact, it has been argued by various scientists
that plant domestication and cultivation, and thus the
Agricultural Revolution, may have occurred to produce
Storage of Cereal Grains and Their Products. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-812758-2.00020-9
Copyright © 2022 Cereals & Grains Association.
Published by Elsevier Inc. in cooperation with Cereals & Grains Association. All rights reserved.
more beer, to produce more food, or perhaps both!
Grinding stones, pestles, and grinding bowls (more than
7000, in fact) have been found, as have artifacts indicating
beer consumption, in southeastern Turkey from approxi-
mately 9000 B.C (Dietrich et al., 2019). Dental analysis
from graves in Sudan indicates that wheat, barley, millet,
and pulses were being consumed approximately 6500 years
ago (Madella et al., 2014). In an experimental archeology
trial, yeast from 4500-year-old Egyptian pottery was har-
vested, cultivated, and then successfully used to reproduce
bread using ingredients typical of the time (Daley, 2019).
Maize became a staple food in Central America between
4000 and 4700 years ago, as determined by analysis of
human skeletons in Belize (Kennett et al., 2020).
Indeed, the seeds of wild grasses native to the Great Rift
Valley throughout Eastern Africa (which is believed to be
the origin of the human species; Hadingham, 2015), the
Orient (including China, the Indus River Valley, and areas
throughout South East Asia), the Fertile Crescent (Meso-
potamia), Egypt, and Central and South America (in the
Andes) began to provide supplementary food supplies for
the populations of nomadic peoples. At some point in time,
people began to select and cultivate certain wild grasses
(the progenitors to cereal grains), which ultimately led to
the formation of permanent or semipermanent agricultural
populations (Roberts, 1976) long before the great civiliza-
tions of the ancient Orient or Mesopotamia arose.
Many historians believe that the first permanent, agri-
cultural communities developed not in highlands or humid
tropics, but where rivers coursed through arid or semiarid
zones. In those river valleys, the early agriculturalists
encountered fertile soil, a low incidence of insects and
diseases, and stable water supplies required by the incipient
techniques that they used.
The lack of rainfall in many of these regions necessi-
tated that crops had to be irrigated, which, in turn,
demanded both permanence and a high degree of cooper-
ation among neighbors (Gruber, 1948). It is presumed that
11
12 Storage of Cereal Grains and Their Products
the social mechanisms that developed to meet these needs
gave rise to organized societies, that the forced permanence
promoted the construction of large numbers of solid dwell-
ings, and that increased food production eventually sup-
ported large nonagricultural sectors within these
communities (Masefield, 1950). Only after this series of
developments had occurred did the often-heralded civiliza-
tions of the ancient world flourish. An important contribution
of the dry climatedone apparently overlooked by
historiansdcertainly must have been that grain supplies were
easier to maintain in arid rather than in humid environments.
Grain production, harvesting, storage, and processing in
ancient times (and even up through modern times, actually)
have been described in many records such as written tab-
lets, sculptures, paintings, and other forms of art, including
poetry and song. Why? Because food was vital to daily life
(as well as the afterlife in the case of Egypt), and the ma-
jority of people were mostly occupied with production and
preparation pursuits each day. Moreover, across many
cultures, grains were seen as a gift from the gods, as they
provided life-given sustenance to humans.
For example, Fig. 2.1 illustrates the importance of grain
to ancient Egyptian life in a burial tomb painting, which
would then help feed the official in the afterlife (as the
painting imparted the essence). Fig. 2.2 is a sculpture of an
Egyptian grinding grain into flour using a quern; this would
also have been a funerary token. Fig. 2.3 shows a Meso-
potamian cylinder seal and the impression on clay from its
use; it shows the king feeding the livestock grain. Further,
Katz et al. (1991) describe a translation of the Hymn to
Ninkasi, which is a Sumerian poem to the goddess of beer
(as well as the world’s first written beer recipe).
The harvesting of wheat and barley in early Sumeria
(2000e1000 B.C.) was recorded as a three-person operation
(Jones, 1952). As described in this account, one person cut
the stalks with a sickle, while another gathered bundles and
carried them to the threshing floor. The third worker tied
the bundles and stacked them to dry. Threshing was
accomplished by driving animals or carts over the plants. A
portion of the grain was then transported in bulk by small
ships to a main granary some distance from the production
area. This account mentions both granaries and storage pits.
Ancient Egyptian records also describe storage of small
grains in pits lined with straw (Lee, 1960).
By 2800 B.C., permanent agricultural populations were
established as far south as Sudan, as far west as Wales, and
as far north as Norway (Roberts, 1976). From an archeo-
logical site in the center of this area comes evidence that the
mud houses constructed as early as 5000 B.C. contained
grain bins and grinding areas (Mellaart, 1961, 1964).
In India, mudbrick villages inhabited 2500 years ago
included communal granaries.
Many other ancient cultures also used pits in the ground
for grain storage, such as those found in Israel (Fig. 2.4).
One of the oldest grain storage structures (Fig. 2.5) is a
granary excavated in Jordan and it dates to about 11,000
years ago. This was unique in that the floor was elevated for
rodent protection, and the grain was stored in clay pots. Not
only do records and artifacts show that ancient cultures
were cultivating, harvesting, and storing grain throughout
much of the world, they were also milling it into flour for
food and beer. And milling was not always done by hand,
as is shown in Fig. 2.2. Fig. 2.6 shows a wind-powered
flour mill developed in ancient Persia.
As the cultivation and storage of cereals (especially
wheat and barley) spread to the cooler, wetter areas of the
Mediterranean and Europe, the problem of grain drying was
encountered. Grain dryers built of clay and used by Celtic
villagers about 300 B.C. have been discovered in present-
day Britain (Wainwright, 1977).
In the Western Hemisphere during the same time period
(5000e100 B.C.), pre-Mayan and Mayan civilizations,
based in part on the cultivation of beans and maize, were
developing (Sabloff and Rathje, 1975). There must have
been a considerable amount of commercial agriculture
during that time, since fairly large segments of these
communities devoted themselves to trade, religion, gov-
ernment, and other nonagricultural endeavors. Crops were
probably harvested and stored then much as they are today
in remote areas of Mexico and Central America. For maize,
this would have included several weeks of field drying
followed by postharvest drying on patios, roofs, or plat-
forms. Storage was in pits, woven baskets, or structures of
wood or mud.
Throughout the Greek, and subsequently, Roman
world, grain was still viewed as a gift from the gods.
Demeter was the Greek life-giving goddess of grain
(Fig. 2.7), and she was eventually supplanted by her Roman
personage Ceres (Fig. 2.8)dwhich is the root of the Latin
“cerealis,” from which the English word “cereal” has
evolved. Thus, Ceres was the goddess of grain!
By 500 B.C., grain cultivation, harvest, drying, and
storage techniques were well developed throughout most of
the populated world. The unifying influence of the Roman
Empire (300 B.C. to 500 A.D.), with its standard technolo-
gies, government, culture, and language, as well as infra-
structure such as roads, ships, and currency, must have
spread successful grain handling and storage techniques
through much of the old world. The Far East, Africa, and
the Western Hemisphere, being largely unaffected by the
accomplishments of either the Roman or the Ottoman
Empire (1200e1700 A.D.), probably witnessed little change
in grain postharvest techniques until contact with the Eu-
ropeans in the 17th and 18th centuries A.D.

FIGURE 2.1 Burial painting on the tomb of Nakht, ca. 1500 B.C., showing depictions of tillage, grain threshing, separating, and bread (Wikimedia
Commons; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tomb_of_Nakht_(2).jpg).
Archeological evidence suggests that by the first centuries
A.D.,storage structures were either incorporated into dwell-
ings or, if separate, mimicked the dominant architectural style
of the area. In dry areas, pit storage was used, as were gra-
naries of mud or mudbrick. Warehouses of stone or mudbrick
must have been common throughout much of the Roman
world, and wooden structures with sod roofs must have been
used in western and northern parts of the old world.
Even where little archaeological evidence exists, the
nature of grain storage structures can be surmised using the
A brief journey through history Chapter | 2 13
classification scheme provided by Fitch and Branch (1960).
They noted that in Arctic areas, domes were the dominant
architectural forms of early peoples, whereas in the conti-
nental steppes, temporary structures were used by peoples
who had not yet adopted permanent agriculture. In arid
regions, flat-roofed mud or mudbrick structures were
erected, and in the humid tropics, raised-frame structures
with thatched roofs were most common.
Since grains are not grown in Arctic areas, it is unlikely
that domes were used for grain storage until relatively
FIGURE 2.2 Egyptian statue showing the milling of grain into flour, ca. 2400 B.C. (Wikimedia Commons; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:
Ancient_egyptian_statuette_of_a_woman_grinding_grain_1.jpg).

FIGURE 2.3 Sumerian cylinder scroll and impression in clay showing the feeding of grain to livestock, ca. 3200 B.C. (Wikimedia Commons; https://
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cylinder_seal_king_Louvre_AO6620.jpg).

FIGURE 2.4 Reconstruction of grain storage pits in southern Israel, dating from ca. 800-700 B.C. (Wikimedia Commons; https://commons.wikimedia.
org/wiki/File:Derech_Hadorot_3.JPG).
 A brief journey through history Chapter | 2 15

FIGURE 2.5 Grain and food storage structure in Jordan from 11,000 years ago was constructed of mud walls with an elevated floor for protection from
rodents. Excavation photo (above) and artist’s rendering (below). Courtesy Kuijt, I., Finlayson, B., 2009. Evidence for food storage and predomestication
granaries 11,000 years ago in the Jordan Valley. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. Unit. States Am. 106 (27), 10966e10970.

FIGURE 2.6 Windmills near Nashtifan, Iran, have been used to mill grain for at least 1000 years and are actually still operational (Wikicommons;
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:‫ﺁﺱﺏﺍﺩ_ﻥﺵﺕﯼﻑﺍﻥ‬.jpg).

modern times. The continental steppes were occupied in
ancient times either by nomadic peoples, who probably did
not produce much grain, or by peoples with knowledge of
the common agricultural techniques of the day. The latter
would have stored grain in the structures described above.
In the humid tropics of Africa and the Americas, grain was
undoubtedly stored in raised, thatched roof structures,
whereas in dry areas, pits and thatched or mud structures
were probably employed.
2.2 Storage in the Middle Ages
The story of grain storage now shifts to Europe where, after
1000 A.D., innovations in crop production and postharvest
16 Storage of Cereal Grains and Their Products
FIGURE 2.7 Demeter was the Greek goddess of agriculture who gifted cereal grains to human. This painting was on a vase (hydria) ca. 340 A.D.
(Wikimedia Commons; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eleusinian_hydria_Antikensammlung_Berlin_1984.46_n2.jpg).
FIGURE 2.8 Ceres was the Roman incarnation of Demeter, goddess of
agriculture. This painting was a fresco ca. 1 A.D. (Wikimedia Commons;
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Склеп_Деметры.JPG).
techniques gradually increased the amount of food avail-
able to both the agricultural and nonagricultural sectors of
the population. Writers of the Middle Ages described
manors with barns for wheat, oats, barley, and other grains
(Brien Gras, 1925). These strong timber barns were often
built several stories tall and were well ventilated to facilitate
winnowing and drying. Bulk grain was moved by gravity
to lower floors during conditioning and for shipment
(Anonymous, 1667).
During the Middle Ages, water and animal power were
being harnessed with ever-increasing efficiency to the work
of agriculture, communication, and exploration. The ex-
plorations facilitated the transfer of grains to new areas.
From its native Asia, for example, rice was transplanted to
Italy by the 1400s (Roberts, 1976), and excess production
was exported from North America by the late 1600s
(Schoeff, 1988). Maize, potatoes, groundnuts, and other
non-native crops were introduced to new colonies and to
the seats of imperial power in Europe. These changes
placed renewed emphasis on the commercialization of
agriculture, which, in turn, created a greater need for ways
to maintain quality during the transport and storage of large
amounts of grain and other agricultural commodities. An
account from mid-17th century Britain, for example,
describes elaborate and labor-intensive conditioning, oven-
drying, and storage procedures for wheat (Anonymous,
1667). Because grain was such an important aspect of daily
life, it continued to be a common theme for art throughout
the Middle Ages (Fig. 2.9). Many other examples of similar
art exist in museums around the world.
 A brief journey through history Chapter | 2 17

FIGURE 2.9 Painting from Pietro de’ Crescenzi’s monthly calendar of agricultural tasks, which was part of his manuscript Ruralia commoda, written in
Italy ca. 1306 (Wikimedia Commons; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Crescenzi_calendar.jpg).

2.3 Effects of colonization and
industrialization
From the collapse of the Roman Empire until the reestab-
lishment (w1700s) of vast trading networks, there had
probably been little incentive for the European farmer to
produce quantities of grain much in excess of consumption
needs. Subsistence agriculture, often of the shifting or
modified shifting type, was practiced by early Germans and
was common as recently as the 1700s and early 1800s in
Scotland and Ireland (Brien Gras, 1925).
In the late 1700s, however, due in large measure to the
Industrial Revolution, people began to forsake agriculture
in ever-increasing numbers for the shops and factories of
emerging industries. By 1800, subsistence agriculture was
no longer dominant in Europe and North America
(Symons, 1978). The burgeoning urban population created
a huge demand for food, assuring favorable grain prices for
the shrinking agricultural sector.
In 1783, Oliver Evans (b. 1755, d. 1819) helped his
brothers build a grist flour mill in Delaware, USA. He
revolutionized flour milling (and grain storage in general)
by incorporating bucket elevators, conveyors, hopper col-
lections, and a series of other mechanizations in order to
reduce labor and automate the mill. His machines became
widely adopted throughout the New England area. He then
18 Storage of Cereal Grains and Their Products
began to write design guides for millers, culminating in The
Young Mill-wright and Miller’s Guide (Fig. 2.10 shows an
illustration of his automated flour mill), which was the first
engineering design document for grain storage or milling. It
was so successful that he wrote 14 subsequent editions of
the book, and subscribers included influential people such
as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and several
other key members of the American Revolution.
Contemporaneously, the trading fairs of medieval
Europe had long since given way to organized exchanges.
In Holland and Britain, for example, the marketing of
agricultural commodities was handled at permanent
exchanges by the late 1600s (Petersen, 1933). In North
America too, the mechanisms of commerce were suffi-
ciently advanced that grain was marketed about as fast as it
could be harvested and transported. By the mid-1800s,
advances in both water and land transport had overcome
many of the difficulties of moving grain from production
areas to the consumer.
FIGURE 2.10 Oliver Evan’s The Young Mill-wright and Miller’s Guide was the first design guide for grain storage and milling. The incorporation of
automation and conveyors revolutionized the grain industry of the time and has influenced design up to modern times (Wikimedia Commons; https://
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oliver_Evans_-_Automated_mill.jpg).
Meanwhile, the quantity of grain being produced was
increasing rapidly. One reason was the availability, espe-
cially after 1800, of large amounts of uncultivated, fertile
land in the United States and other countries. Also, about
this time, there was a series of innovations in crop pro-
duction technology. By the first decade of the 1800s, tillage
technology, in the form of cast iron implements with
replaceable interlocking parts, provided an efficient method
of preparing the soil for planting (Ebeling, 1979). The
moldboard steel plow, introduced in the 1836 by John
Deere, was even more popular, and subsequently planters,
cultivators, grain drills, and other tillage equipment became
increasingly popular on farms throughout the United States
(Drache, 1976). Indeed, all of agriculture experienced me-
chanical dynamism during the next several decades
encompassing all aspects of production. Many novel in-
ventions have been cataloged in publications such as Hurt
(1982), Johnson (1976), Karolevitz (1970), McKinley
(1980), and many others. For the reader who may be

interested in learning more, a section later in this chapter
catalogs several history books that provide a wealth of
additional information.
By the third decade of the 19th century, several factors
necessitated changes in grain postharvest techniques. First,
a strong, consistent demand for grain kept prices high.
Second, the transportation and trading mechanisms serving
the urban market were much improved. Finally, advances
in crop production technology had created the potential for
a much larger grain supply. However, the basic techniques
of harvesting, threshing, and storage had scarcely advanced
from those of the ancient Sumerians, Egyptians, or even
Romans. For the most part, small grains were still harvested
by hand using a scythe (Fig. 2.11) (corn, however, was
picked by hand), removed from the field by animal-
powered carts or wagons, slowly air-dried, and labori-
ously transported in bags. But these were soon to change as
engineering, technology, and manufacturing came to play
an increasing role in agricultural mechanization.
2.4 The development of modern
storage
North America became a battleground for technological
developments. This was led, to a large degree, by Cyrus
Hall McCormick (as well as others) in the 1830s. Subse-
quent developments in grain handling and storage tech-
niques began to occur with such regularity that our story,
which has thus far unfolded in units of millennia and
centuries, must now be told in units of decades or even
years.
Cyrus Hall McCormick (b. 1809, d.1884) (Fig. 2.12)
has been credited with inventing the mechanical reaper; his
version was patented in 1834, and was the result of his
design efforts, but to a large degree from his father and
several others. In fact, even though McCormick was very
dynamic and assertive, his was not the first mechanical
FIGURE 2.11 Scythes were used to harvest small grains by hand until
the late 1800s, when the mechanical reaper was invented.
A brief journey through history Chapter | 2 19
reaper. Instead, it was Obed Hussey (b. 1792, d.1860)
(Fig. 2.13) who patented a reaper in 1833 (Fig. 2.14). John
Henry Manny (b. 1825, d. 1856) was also working on
reaper development at this time. For the next few decades,
several lawsuits arose among the parties and were known as
the “War of the Reapers.”
The McCormick and other reapers mechanically cut
small grains and allowed them to be placed into windrows
for binding. The widespread use of mechanical reapers
was followed quickly by the adoption of those magnifi-
cent, lumbering monsters that were the early threshers.
Threshing machines were first built in the late 1830s
(Drache, 1976) and were produced in large numbers in the
1840 and 1850s, when they were powered by animals
(Cochrane, 1979). Combined with mobile steam power in
the 1860 and 1870s and operated mostly by custom crews
through the last half of the 19th century, threshing ma-
chines were much faster and more efficient than the hand
flail or the small, animal-powered contraptions previously
used. The combination of reaper and thresher allowed
farmers to inject larger volumes of wheat, oats, rye, and
barley into the market in a shorter period of time than ever
before. The harvest time glut of grain, in turn, over-
whelmed the previously adequate transportation and
handling systems, creating new challenges for grain
traders and warehousers.
It should be noted, however, that Pliny the Elder (d. 79
A.D.) discussed a grain harvesting machine that was used
in Gall (modern France) was pushed by horses and de-
tached the heads of the grain from the straw. Looking at
Fig. 2.15, it bears a striking resemblance to Hussey’s device
(without the reciprocating knives). Apparently it fell out us
use prior to 400 A.D.
In 1842, a wooden grain elevator was built in Buffalo,
New York, by Joseph Dart and Robert Dunbar (Lee, 1937).
Though the mechanical principles used in Dart’s elevator
were nothing extraordinary, being identical to those used
for irrigation in ancient times and for power transmission in
the mills and factories of the day, the effect on grain trading
was dramatic. This grain elevator integrated the vertical
transport capability of the bucket elevator with the power
and dependability of the steam engine, and this combina-
tion eliminated the grain handling bottleneck of manual
movement of grain for filling and emptying ships. It could
move approximately 2000 bu/h. Unfortunately, because it
was made of wood, it was susceptible to fire, and it burned
down in approximately 1862. Dunbar helped design the
replacement elevator, which was built on the same location
in 1864, also made of wood, and was known as the Bennett
Elevator (Fig. 2.16). Buffalo would soon become a global
transfer point for grain, as many new elevators would be
constructed there.
20 Storage of Cereal Grains and Their Products

FIGURE 2.12 Cyrus Hall McCormick (above) (Wikimedia Commons; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cyrus_McCormick_engraving.png);

the patent for his reaper (below) was issued in 1834 (US Patent Office).

Quickly imitated and improved upon at the larger
trading centers of North America, the elevator (buckets on a
vertical belt and associated transport equipment and storage
bins) increased grain storage and handling capacities many
times in only a few decades. In Chicago, Illinois, for
example, about six million bushels of grain and flour were
shipped annually between 1850 and 1855. Thirty years
later, 150 million bushels per annum were handled (Lee,
1937). Before the advent of grain elevators and port
terminals, a good crew could load a grain ship (7000 bu) in
1 day by carrying the bagged commodity on heads,
shoulders, or dollies. The same ship could be loaded in an
hour by a single operator using elevator equipment (Lee,
1937). The grain storage capacity of Chicago doubled
about every 10 years through the last half of the 19th
century.
The huge increases in volume handled at the grain
centers of North America forced traders to develop a new
way of determining the value of the commodity. Since they
were now obliged to mix various producers’ grain by
placing it all in a single container, traders could no longer
buy and sell based on grain samples. Sample-based sales
had been used for grain and other agricultural commodities
(coffee, cotton, etc.) since the end of the previous century
(Petersen, 1933), but now necessity dictated that grain
quality be determined and reported quickly and objectively
because often neither buyer nor seller could be present at
the inspection.

FIGURE 2.13 Obed Hussey (above) and an advertisement for his me-
chanical reaper (below) (Wikimedia Commons; https://commons.
wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Obedhussey.jpg; https://commons.wikimedia.org/
wiki/File:Hussey%27s_Reaping_Machine_-_Project_Gutenberg_etext_
19547.jpg).
In search of a uniform method of grain inspection and
quality certification, grain exchanges hired inspectors, who
applied tests based on perceived quality factors. Grain that
met the minimum characteristics of a number of quality
parameters was assigned a numerical designation termed an
“official grade.” Numerical grades appeared on weight
certificates issued by the Chicago Board of Trade in 1857,
A brief journey through history Chapter | 2 21
and by the following year, they were routinely determined
and reported in corn, oats, and barley (Hoffman and Hill,
1976). This allowed traders to obtain information about the
grain they were trading without the time-consuming
process of viewing samples.
In Europe and much of rest of the industrializing world,
North American innovations in grain harvesting, handling,
storage and preservation, and marketing (elevators, boards
of trade, inspection, and certification systems) were adopted
as a ready-made package shortly after the techniques were
developed in the 1880s (Lee, 1937). Meanwhile, grain
production techniques were adopted back and forth across
the oceans in a continuous process interrupted only by the
world wars.
Grain storage in North America and parts of Europe at
this time consisted mostly of wooden structures, which
were often metal clad for durability. Square or rectangular
bulk bins, either freestanding or built into barns, stored
most small grains. For corn, a variety of criblike and
houselike structures, which were modifications of earlier
log barns, were common for ear corn storage (Roe, 1988).
Throughout the remainder of the 19th century, in-
novations in grain production, harvesting, and threshing
resulted in ever-greater quantities of grain. Animal-
powered mechanical planters and drills were used after
the 1840s, when the mechanization of postharvest opera-
tions made the cultivation of larger farms feasible, though
further advances awaited the development of a more
efficient power source.
An adaptation of the reaper, in which grain was cut and
handbound in a single operation, was adopted by many
farmers but was soon made obsolete by mechanical binders
(Ebeling, 1979). Machines that combined the cutting and
threshing operations were built and operated on a custom
basis in some states through the last half of the 19th century
(Higgins, 1958). However, they were generally too large
and required too much power to be widely accepted in
North America until the advent of the small tractor.
Steam tractors were used to power threshing machines,
to break sod and pull combines, and for certain specialty
applications beginning about 1850 (Drache, 1976) but were
not efficient enough for general farm work. Therefore,
animals supplied most of the power on North American
farms until the 1930s/1940s.
By 1910, several manufacturers had begun the pro-
duction of small, gasoline-powered tractors for drawbar
work, and the population of draft animals peaked in the
United States in about 1920 (Drache, 1976). By that time,
combine harvesters for small grains were common in
Australia and were gaining a foothold in Canada. In the
United States, only 5% of the wheat crop was harvested by
combines in 1920, but by 1939, more than half of the crop
was combine harvested (Kifer et al., 1940). Video footage
from newsreels during World War II shows that grain was
22 Storage of Cereal Grains and Their Products

FIGURE 2.14 Obed Hussey’s patent for the mechanical reaper was issued in 1833, but is not available via the US Patent Office. Pictured here is the
patent for an improvement on the reaper’s reciprocating sickle knives, which was issued in 1857 (US Patent Office).

FIGURE 2.15 Relief sculpture showing the Roman harvesting machine (Wikimedia Commons; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:
Mähmaschine.jpg).

FIGURE 2.16 The Bennett Elevator sat on the site of the original Dart Elevator (after it burned down) in Buffalo, New York (Wikimedia Commons;
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bennett_Elevator_1912.jpg). It was constructed in 1864, but demolished in 1912.
harvested by horse-drawn combines which cut, threshed,
separated, and bagged wheat, which would then be sent to
the overseas US war effort (Fig. 2.17). The gradual
acceptance of the gasoline-powered, and eventually diesel-
powered, combine harvester signaled the end of bagged
grain handling and storage in the United States, as has
subsequently happened in many other countries.
The harvesting of maizedhistorically a major crop in
North Americadtook longer to mechanize (Kemmerer,
1949). This was due in part to the fact that, compared with
small grains, which could be damaged or lost by inclement
weather if not harvested quickly, corn harvest could
continue into the winter without seriously affecting grain
quality. In the late 1700s, corn was harvested by cutting
and binding it into bundles. Since the stalks were an
important commodity, especially in the northern corn-
producing regions, the entire plant was often transported
to the farmstead before the ears were removed. In the 1850
and 1860s, various mechanical pickers were introduced but
were not widely accepted because they broke stalks and lost
too much grain (Roe, 1988).
Cutter-bar harvesters similar to those previously used
for small grains and cutterebinder combinations were
popular in the United States after their introduction in the
1890s. By that time, some farmers were storing corn for
animal feed in the form of whole-plant ensilage, so bundles
were transported to the farmstead, where a power cutter
was used to chop the stalks and fill the silo. Producers who
wanted only the dry grain often harvested corn ears by field
husking, a technique wherein workers walked through
A brief journey through history Chapter | 2 23
fields stripping ears from the stalk wearing a husking glove,
which contained a hook and various metal reinforcings
(Fig. 2.18), and throwing them into specially equipped
wagons. Horse-drawn corn pickers were introduced in 1910
(Edwards, 1940). However, many farmers were slow to
adopt new corn harvest technology partially because the
husking bee had become such a popular social event. For
this and other reasons, most US corn intended for grain
production continued to be harvested and shelled by hand
(Fig. 2.19) until the 1940s (Roe, 1988).
Even in the 1940s, most ear corn in the United States
was still being stored in cribs. These cribs closely resem-
bled the rustic buildings of colonial America but had been
enlarged to meet the demands of large-scale commercial
agriculture. About 1910, the adoption of bucket elevators
and portable drag chain conveyors brought important
changes in the design of corn cribs. Whereas the crib’s
dimensions had previously been restricted by a person’s
ability to load it from a wagon, the cribs built after 1920
had no such limitation. Between 1930 and 1965, hundreds
of cribs of various designsdsome available as kits from
catalogsdwere built. In each case, the intent was to
maximize the amount of storage, minimize the cost, and
provide adequate ventilation to retard spoilage (Roe, 1988)
(Fig. 2.20).
In 1939, more than half of the US wheat crop was
harvested with combines (a third-generation technology),
whereas only 13% of the corn crop was mechanically
harvested (Kifer et al., 1940). In Australia, where the crop
was drier at maturity than in North America, field shelling
24 Storage of Cereal Grains and Their Products

FIGURE 2.17 A horse-drawn combine cuts, threshes, separates, and bags wheat in Washington, USA, in the early 1940s (YouTube; https://www.
youtube.com/watch?v¼SmEVhdD0gRI).

FIGURE 2.18 Example of a husking glove for harvesting ear corn by hand, to both protect the farmer and make separating from the stalk more efficient.
There were several designs.
 FIGURE 2.19 One example of a hand-powered corn sheller. There were several designs.

FIGURE 2.20 Wooden corn crib from the early 20th century. This is one of many designs that were common on farms. Note the portable drag chain
conveyor (known as an “elevator”) used to fill the crib.
26 Storage of Cereal Grains and Their Products

machines had been used successfully through the 1920 and

1930s. But in the North American corn belt, agronomic,
political, and economic factors discouraged adoption of the
field sheller until after the World War II.
In the 1950 and 1960s, cheap energy for drying, hybrid
varieties with their more uniform ear height and size, and
the availability of chemical fertilizers produced conditions
wherein field shellers (i.e., corn combines) were finally
economical. The sale of corn pickers peaked in 1959
(Quick and Buchele, 1978). By 1965, about half the US
corn crop was combine harvested, and in 1972, the pro-
portion had increased to two-thirds (Roe, 1988). Corn cribs
then joined wooden granaries as picturesque but outdated
features of the rural North American landscape.
At the commercial level, meanwhile, technological ad-
vances led to more efficient grain handling and storage.
During the last half of the 19th century, lateral conveyors
(e.g., drag, belt, paddle) were added to elevating equip-
ment, providing rapid and efficient movement of grain. By
the 1890s, Europeans were beginning to replace wooden
storage with concrete and steel structuresdas a means of
fireproofing storage structures and building larger capac-
ities. Facilities of 100% concrete construction were oper-
ating in Romania by 1892 (Rollins, 1900), but these were
hexagonal or rectangular in form. The success of these
ventures encouraged Frank Peavey (a grain merchant in
Minneapolis, MN) to hire Charles Haglin to construct an
experimental circular concrete silo to store grain in St.
Louis Park, MN, in 1899. Known as “Peavey’s Folly,” a
jumpform/slipform technique was used to construct a
FIGURE 2.21 Peavey’s Folly was the first circular concrete silo con-
reinforced concrete silo, which had a 20 ft inner diameter structed in the United States in 1899; it still stands today, but no longer
and height of 68 ft (Fig. 2.21). To the surprise of an stores grain (Wikimedia Commons; https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/
onlooking crowd, the silo was emptied in the spring of index.php?curid¼49942850).
1900 but did not collapse. This marked the first circular
concrete silo in the United States (Heffelfinger, 1960), and
marked a turning point for commercial grain storage con- included the largest grain elevator in the world at the time,
struction. Peavey then hired Haglin to construct a grain the Concrete-Central Elevator (Fig. 2.23). This facility
elevator in Duluth, MN, which became one of many sub- could store approximately 4.6 million bu of grain and was
sequently constructed at this key port on Lake Superior. built on an island in the harbor due to worries about
Shortly thereafter, James MacDonald of MacDonald sabotage during World War I. The facility continued to
Engineering, Chicago, IL, developed new techniques for operate until 1966.
slipform construction of circular silos as well as many other Only a handful of the tall, round, or hexagonal concrete
industrial concrete structures, and his company built many commercial storage structures so common today were built
grain elevator facilities. He wrote papers on this new before World War I though. Wooden structures continued
method of construction, including “Moving Forms for to dominate until after the World War II, especially for
Reinforced Concrete Storage Bins” (MacDonald, 1910) medium and small facilities. But, from the 1950s through to
whereby he detailed the continuous pouring of concrete, the present day, hundreds of concrete facilities were built
which thus resulted in no seams between pours. In 1917, throughout the United States, all but replacing other types
he patented a jack for continuous slipforming of silo walls of structures for commercial grain storage in the United
(US Patent #1,223,410, Fig. 2.22). States, parts of Europe, and as port facilities throughout the
During 1915e17, Harry Wait of Monarch Engineering world. Only in the northern extremes of the world’s grain-
Company followed suite and designed several concrete producing areas are wooden structures still common.
grain elevators for the port of Buffalo, NY, which was at a Fig. 2.24 shows the first concrete grain elevator constructed
key intersection between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. This in Iowa, which was built during World War II.
FIGURE 2.22 James MacDonald’s patent for a slipform jack was issued in 1917 (US Patent Office) and permitted the continuous upward movement of
concrete forms, thus allowing slipform construction to occur, rather than jumpform construction.

FIGURE 2.23 The Concrete-Central Grain elevator in Buffalo, NY, was built in 1917 but abandoned in 1975 (Wikimedia Commons; https://com-
mons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid ¼ 7452604; Google Earth). Note the clustering of other concrete grain elevators nearby on the Buffalo River; they
were all constructed at roughly the same time. Overall, there have been more than 122 wood, steel, and concrete grain elevators constructed in Buffalo
over the years.
28 Storage of Cereal Grains and Their Products
FIGURE 2.24 The first concrete grain elevator constructed in Iowa is
located in Belmond. It was constructed during World War II using German
prisoners of war and is still in use today.
At the farm scale, the 20th century saw the development
and widespread deployment of steel grain bins. Round,
overlapping corrugated galvanized steel bins were devel-
oped by the Butler Manufacturing Company in Kansas
City, MO, in 1908 (patented in 1910, US Patent #952,133,
Fig. 2.25) and were 12 ft in diameter (although the com-
pany originally began by manufacturing livestock water
tanks and car garages) (www.butlermfg.com). It can be
argued, however, that Lyman Smith (also from Kansas
City, MO) developed the steel grain bin. He was issued a
patent (US Patent #355,480) in 1887 for a grain silo made
of iron, which could hold up to 200,000 bu of grain
(Fig. 2.26). Both of these developments ushered in the age
of steel grain bins.
Grain bins did not begin to ubiquitously replace other
structures for grain storage on farms and other small-scale
sites until after World War II. These bolted steel struc-
tures became popular, especially for midsized commercial
facilities, at about the same time.
Meanwhile, during the early 20th century, the me-
chanical harvesting of small grains had generally improved
the physical characteristics of the threshed products.
Combine harvesting had resulted in less weather-damaged
grain and less contamination by dirt and plant parts.
However, when the majority of the North American corn
crop became combine harvested, the effect on grain quality
was less positive. Mechanically harvested and threshed
corn was usually wetter, more damaged, and dirtier than
picked, shelled ear corn had been. Corn producers and grain
traders, therefore, were forced to increase their cleaning and
drying capabilities. These changes have helped improve the
subsequent quality of all grains.
Although grain driers had long been used in certain
locations, they were not common everywhere, and they
certainly were not common on farms. One of the first farm-
scale dryers in Iowa was developed by the Kundel brothers
near Davenport (Fig. 2.27). They used a diesel-powered
burner and fan and a diesel-powered tractor to blow
whole ear corn into a 600-bu shed. After drying, the corn
was shelled and placed into storage.
Grain dryers increased in direct proportion to the
number of corn combines. The widespread use of forced
aeration to cool stored grain also grew in response to the
large amounts of higher-moisture grain stored after the
early 1960s. Nowadays grain dryers are ubiquitous at most
grain storage facilities, including many farms.
Even though grain storage and handling facilities today
use methods and equipment that have been developed and
refined over many generations of human history, the story
is not yet complete. Many new technologies are developed
and commercialized every year, and the industry continues
to evolvedfor both on-farm storage and commercial stor-
age systems. And more facilities continue to be built around
the world. These facilities include concrete, steel bins, flat
storage bins, and covered ground piles. More will be dis-
cussed about each of these in subsequent chapters.
In recent years, the steel bin manufacturers have been
designing and constructing larger and larger bins. At the
time of this publication, the largest freestanding steel bins
ever have been built by the Sukup Manufacturing Company
(www.sukup.com) at the Elite Octane ethanol plant in
Atlantic, Iowa (https://www.eliteoctane.net). Two bins
were constructed to hold corn, each having a diameter of
156 ft (47.6 m), a height of 149 ft (36.5 m), and each have a
two million bushel storage capacity.
The largest concrete grain elevator in the world
(Fig. 2.28), however, is located in Haysville, KS. It was
originally owned by Garvey Grain Company, but is
currently owned by Gavilon. It was built in 1954 and is
2717 ft (828 m) long, with 246 individual concrete silos,
which are 30 ft (9.1 m) in diameter by 120 ft (36.6 m) tall,
with an overall storage capacity of more than 22 million bu.

FIGURE 2.25 Emanuel Norquist’s patent for a lapped sheet metal grain bin was issued in 1910 (US Patent Office).
2.5 Historic storage structures in use
today
The changes in agricultural and grain handling technologies
experienced in many industrialized countries after w1850
have been slow to be ubiquitously adopted around the
world. Throughout many developing countries, agricultural
techniques remain, today, much as they were hundreds of
years ago. In some countries, agriculture is changing more
rapidly near the urban centers than in more remote regions,
thus creating an interesting juxtaposition of traditional and
modern techniques, as well as hybridized/modified sys-
tems. Therefore, grain storage structures, handling systems,
and processing techniques observed in different parts of the
world today range from those common in ancient times to
those developed just recently. And, in some places, modern
facilities have even been abandoned in favor of traditional
or historic methods.
Since contemporary storage technologies will be dis-
cussed in other chapters, in this section, we will concentrate
on more historic grain storage and handling techniques,
which are still used in many parts of the world today. Thus
we have a window to history. Many of the traditional
African structures have been described in Britain’s Tropical
Stored Products Information series, published between
1965 and 1984 (Tropical Stored Products Centre, Slough,
A brief journey through history Chapter | 2 29
Berkshire, England). Hall (1970) characterized these
structures, wherein 7 types of stores without covers and 16
traditional structures with some type of roof or cover are
listed.
Among the most ancient forms of grain storage still in
use today is pit storage; this is still fairly common at the
farm level in many dry areas of the Middle East and Africa
(Gilman and Boxall, 1974), but has nearly disappeared in
the Americas. Pits can be excavated to be wide at the
bottom and taper to a small opening at the surface, or vice
versa. They are often lined with straw or stover, which,
being more hygroscopic than the grain, tends to hold soil
moisture away from the grain mass.
Stone, brick, or mud warehouses have long been used
for grain storage. The Jordanian farm store shown in
Fig. 2.29a is probably more typical of 3000 years ago than
of today, although these are still used in some locales.
Certain grain stores have obviously resulted from the
incorporation of advanced, modern materials into tradi-
tional structures. For example, raised frame cribs made of
sawn lumber with corrugated metal roofs (Fig. 2.29b) are
typical of farm level storage throughout Central America
and the Caribbean. They are obviously an adaptation of the
bamboo crib undoubtedly used for centuries in tropical
jungle areas, which is a crib still used by the Maya for field
30 Storage of Cereal Grains and Their Products

FIGURE 2.26 Lyman Smith’s patent for an iron grain silo was issued in 1887 (US Patent Office).

FIGURE 2.27 Whole ear corn dryer shed developed near Davenport, IA (Courtesy of Colby Lafrenz).
 A brief journey through history Chapter | 2 31

FIGURE 2.28 The largest concrete grain elevator in the world, Gavilon’s facility in Haysville, KS. In 1998, a severe dust explosion killed seven people
and caused significant damage to the facility (Google Earth; Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grain_silo_explosion.jpg).

storage (Fig. 2.29c). Another common type of raised stor-
age in moist climates is loft or “attic” storage located above
kitchens or living quarters. Large boxes used for grain
storage in many parts of the world may also be of natural,
unprocessed (Fig. 2.29d) or more advanced industrial-
processed materials (Fig. 2.29e).
Storage on raised platforms or in overhead areas is a
common practice throughout the world. Some such storage
places occur naturally (Fig. 2.29f), but when natural stores
are not available, several styles of human-made substitutes
are constructed. Some are covered (Fig. 2.30a). Others
remain uncovered through the long dry season (Fig. 2.30b),
at which time the grain supply has either been consumed or
is moved to covered structures.
The basket is another common storage structure his-
torically used on several continents and among cultures.
Baskets are woven from grasses, leaves, bark, or strips of
wood. Most are placed on short platforms or hung from
poles (Fig. 2.30c) to discourage rodent entry and to prevent
the uptake of soil moisture. Although the structure in
Fig. 2.30c is Asian (i.e., from Nepal), storage in oversize
baskets is also common in Africa, where millets and certain
32 Storage of Cereal Grains and Their Products

FIGURE 2.29 (a) Bagged grain warehouse, Jordan, ca. 1969. This Roman-era structure is still being used as a farm granary. (b) Permanent crib, Haiti,
ca. 1978. The steep, corrugated metal roof and raised pillars are typical of high-rainfall areas . (c) Temporary crib for field storage, Belize, ca. 1985. The
shifting agriculture practiced in this tropical lowland often results in fields being far from the farmstead. The maize will be transferred as needed to the
house. (d) Storage box, Cameroon, ca. 1981. This structure of sticks and heavy twine is used for the storage of rough rice . (e) Storage box, Guatemala, ca.
1984. This large box has been used for many years for storing beans and threshed maize. It is elevated on stones to facilitate inspection for signs of rodent
activity. (f) Ear maize in trees, Haiti, ca. 1985. Ears of unhusked maize are hung with the tip downward to prevent moisture entry, a technique used
throughout the world . (a, b and d) Courtesy J. R. Pedersen. (f) Courtesy E. Haque.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
one of the last legislatures, who might have come out of one of
Lever’s novels. He was undoubtedly a bad case, but had a genuine
sense of humor, and his “bulls” made him the delight of the house.
One day I came in late, just as a bill was being voted on, and
meeting my friend, hailed him, “Hello, Pat, what’s up? what’s this
they’re voting on?” to which Pat replied, with contemptuous
indifference to the subject, but with a sly twinkle in his eye, “Oh,
some unimportant measure, sorr; some local bill or other—a
constitutional amendment!”
The old Dublin Parliament never listened to a better specimen of a
bull than was contained in the speech of a very genial and pleasant
friend of mine, a really finished orator, who, in the excitement
attendant upon receiving Governor Cleveland’s message vetoing the
five-cent-fare bill, uttered the following sentence: “Mr. Speaker, I
recognize the hand that crops out in that veto; I have heard it
before!”
One member rather astonished us one day by his use of the word
“shibboleth.” He had evidently concluded that this was merely a
more elegant synonym of the good old word shillalah, and in
reproving a colleague for opposing a bill to increase the salaries of
public laborers, he said, very impressively, “The throuble wid the
young man is, that he uses the wurrd economy as a shibboleth,
wherewith to strike the working man.” Afterwards he changed the
metaphor, and spoke of a number of us as using the word “reform”
as a shibboleth, behind which to cloak our evil intentions.
A mixture of classical and constitutional misinformation was
displayed a few sessions past in the State Assembly when I was a
member of the Legislature. It was on the occasion of that annual
nuisance, the debate upon the Catholic Protectory item of the Supply
Bill. Every year some one who is desirous of bidding for the Catholic
vote introduces this bill, which appropriates a sum of varying
dimensions for the support of the Catholic Protectory, an excellent
institution, but one which has no right whatever to come to the State
for support; each year the insertion of the item is opposed by a small
number of men, including the more liberal Catholics themselves, on
proper grounds, and by a larger number from simple bigotry—a fact
which was shown two years ago, when many of the most bitter
opponents of this measure cheerfully supported a similar and equally
objectionable one in aid of a Protestant institution. On the occasion
referred to there were two assemblymen, both Celtic gentlemen, who
were rivals for the leadership of the minority; one of them a stout,
red-faced man, who may go by the name of the “Colonel,” owing to
his having seen service in the army; while the other was a dapper,
voluble fellow, who had at one time been a civil justice and was
called the “Judge.” Somebody was opposing the insertion of the item
on the ground (perfectly just, by the way) that it was unconstitutional,
and he dwelt upon this objection at some length. The Judge, who
knew nothing of the constitution, except that it was continually being
quoted against all of his favorite projects, fidgeted about for some
time, and at last jumped up to know if he might ask the gentleman a
question. The latter said, “Yes,” and the Judge went on, “I’d like to
know if the gintleman has ever personally seen the Catholic
Protectoree?” “No, I haven’t,” said his astonished opponent. “Then,
phwat do you mane by talking about its being unconstitootional? It’s
no more unconstitootional than you are!” Then, turning to the house,
with slow and withering sarcasm, he added, “The throuble wid the
gintleman is that he okkipies what lawyers would call a kind of a
quasi-position upon this bill,” and sat down amid the applause of his
followers.
His rival, the Colonel, felt he had gained altogether too much glory
from the encounter, and after the nonplussed countryman had taken
his seat, he stalked solemnly over to the desk of the elated Judge,
looked at him majestically for a moment, and said, “You’ll excuse my
mentioning, sorr, that the gintleman who has just sat down knows
more law in a wake than you do in a month; and more than that,
Mike Shaunnessy, phwat do you mane by quotin’ Latin on the flure of
this House, when you don’t know the alpha and omayga of the
language!” and back he walked, leaving the Judge in humiliated
submission behind him.
The Judge was always falling foul of the Constitution. Once, when
defending one of his bills which made a small but wholly indefensible
appropriation of State money for a private purpose, he asserted “that
the Constitution didn’t touch little things like that”; and on another
occasion he remarked to me that he “never allowed the Constitution
to come between friends.”
The Colonel was at that time chairman of a committee, before
which there sometimes came questions affecting the interests or
supposed interests of labor. The committee was hopelessly bad in its
composition, most of the members being either very corrupt or
exceedingly inefficient. The Colonel generally kept order with a good
deal of dignity; indeed, when, as not infrequently happened, he had
looked upon the rye that was flavored with lemon-peel, his sense of
personal dignity grew till it became fairly majestic, and he ruled the
committee with a rod of iron. At one time a bill had been introduced
(one of the several score of preposterous measures that annually
make their appearance purely for purposes of buncombe), by whose
terms all laborers in the public works of great cities were to receive
three dollars a day—double the market price of labor. To this bill, by
the way, an amendment was afterwards offered in the house by
some gentleman with a sense of humor, which was to make it read
that all the inhabitants of great cities were to receive three dollars a
day, and the privilege of laboring on the public works if they chose;
the original author of the bill questioning doubtfully if the amendment
“didn’t make the measure too sweeping.” The measure was, of
course, of no consequence whatever to the genuine laboring men,
but was of interest to the professional labor agitators; and a body of
the latter requested leave to appear before the committee. This was
granted, but on the appointed day the chairman turned up in a
condition of such portentous dignity as to make it evident that he had
been on a spree of protracted duration. Down he sat at the head of
the table, and glared at the committeemen, while the latter, whose
faces would not have looked amiss in a rogues’ gallery, cowered
before him. The first speaker was a typical professional laboring
man; a sleek, oily little fellow, with a black mustache, who had never
done a stroke of work in his life. He felt confident that the Colonel
would favor him,—a confidence soon to be rudely shaken,—and
began with a deprecatory smile:
“Humble though I am——”
 Rap, rap, went the chairman’s gavel, and the following dialogue
occurred:
Chairman (with dignity). “What’s that you said you were, sir?”
Professional Workingman (decidedly taken aback). “I—I said I was
humble, sir?”
Chairman (reproachfully). “Are you an American citizen, sir?”
P. W. “Yes, sir.”
Chairman (with emphasis). “Then you’re the equal of any man in
this State! Then you’re the equal of any man on this committee!
Don’t let me hear you call yourself humble again! Go on sir!”
After this warning the advocate managed to keep clear of the
rocks until, having worked himself up to quite a pitch of excitement,
he incautiously exclaimed, “But the poor man has no friends!” which
brought the Colonel down on him at once. Rap, rap, went his gavel,
and he scowled grimly at the offender while he asked with deadly
deliberation:
“What did you say that time, sir?”
P. W. (hopelessly). “I said the poor man had no friends, sir.”
Chairman (with sudden fire). “Then you lied, sir! I am the poor
man’s friend! so are my colleagues, sir!” (Here the rogues’ gallery
tried to look benevolent.) “Speak the truth, sir!” (with sudden change
from the manner admonitory to the manner mandatory). “Now, you
sit down quick, or get out of this somehow!”
This put an end to the sleek gentleman, and his place was taken
by a fellow-professional of another type—a great, burly man, who
would talk to you on private matters in a perfectly natural tone of
voice, but who, the minute he began to speak of the Wrongs (with a
capital W) of Labor (with a capital L), bellowed as if he had been a
bull of Bashan. The Colonel, by this time pretty far gone, eyed him
malevolently, swaying to and fro in his chair. However, the first effect
of the fellow’s oratory was soothing rather than otherwise, and
produced the unexpected result of sending the chairman fast asleep
sitting bolt upright. But in a minute or two, as the man warmed up to
his work, he gave a peculiarly resonant howl which waked the
Colonel up. The latter came to himself with a jerk, looked fixedly at
the audience, caught sight of the speaker, remembered having seen
him before, forgot that he had been asleep, and concluded that it
must have been on some previous day. Hammer, hammer, went the
gavel, and—
“I’ve seen you before, sir!”
“You have not,” said the man.
“Don’t tell me I lie, sir!” responded the Colonel, with sudden
ferocity. “You’ve addressed this committee on a previous day!”
“I’ve never—” began the man; but the Colonel broke in again:
“Sit down, sir! The dignity of the chair must be preserved! No man
shall speak to this committee twice. The committee stands
adjourned.” And with that he stalked majestically out of the room,
leaving the committee and the delegation to gaze sheepishly into
each other’s faces.

OUTSIDERS.
After all, outsiders furnish quite as much fun as the legislators
themselves. The number of men who persist in writing one letters of
praise, abuse, and advice on every conceivable subject is appalling;
and the writers are of every grade, from the lunatic and the criminal
up. The most difficult to deal with are the men with hobbies. There is
the Protestant fool, who thinks that our liberties are menaced by the
machinations of the Church of Rome; and his companion idiot, who
wants legislation against all secret societies, especially the Masons.
Then there are the believers in “isms,” of whom the women-
suffragists stand in the first rank. Now I have always been a believer
in woman’s rights, but I must confess I have never seen such a
hopelessly impracticable set of persons as the woman-suffragists
who came up to Albany to get legislation. They simply would not
draw up their measures in proper form; when I pointed out to one of
them that their proposed bill was drawn up in direct defiance of
certain of the sections of the Constitution of the State he blandly
replied that he did not care at all for that, because the measure had
been drawn up so as to be in accord with the Constitution of Heaven.
There was no answer to this beyond the very obvious one that
Albany was in no way akin to Heaven. The ultra-temperance people
—not the moderate and sensible ones—are quite as impervious to
common sense.
A member’s correspondence is sometimes amusing. A member
receives shoals of letters of advice, congratulation, entreaty, and
abuse, half of them anonymous. Most of these are stupid; but some
are at least out of the common.
I had some constant correspondents. One lady in the western part
of the State wrote me a weekly disquisition on woman’s rights. A
Buffalo clergyman spent two years on a one-sided correspondence
about prohibition. A gentleman of Syracuse wrote me such a stream
of essays and requests about the charter of that city that I feared he
would drive me into a lunatic asylum; but he anticipated matters by
going into one himself. A New Yorker at regular intervals sent up a
request that I would “reintroduce” the Dongan charter, which had
lapsed two centuries before. A gentleman interested in a proposed
law to protect primaries took to telegraphing daily questions as to its
progress—a habit of which I broke him by sending in response
telegrams of several hundred words each, which I was careful not to
prepay.
There are certain legislative actions which must be taken in a
purely Pickwickian sense. Notable among these are the resolutions
of sympathy for the alleged oppressed patriots and peoples of
Europe. These are generally directed against England, as there
exists in the lower strata of political life an Anglophobia quite as
objectionable as the Anglomania of the higher social circles.
As a rule, these resolutions are to be classed as simply bouffe
affairs; they are commonly introduced by some ambitious legislator
—often, I regret to say, a native American—who has a large foreign
vote in his district. During my term of service in the Legislature,
resolutions were introduced demanding the recall of Minister Lowell,
assailing the Czar for his conduct towards the Russian Jews,
sympathizing with the Land League and the Dutch Boers, etc., etc.;
the passage of each of which we strenuously and usually
successfully opposed, on the ground that while we would warmly
welcome any foreigner who came here, and in good faith assumed
the duties of American citizenship, we had a right to demand in
return that he should not bring any of his race or national antipathies
into American political life. Resolutions of this character are
sometimes undoubtedly proper; but in nine cases out of ten they are
wholly unjustifiable. An instance of this sort of thing which took place
not at Albany may be cited. Recently the Board of Aldermen of one
of our great cities received a stinging rebuke, which it is to be feared
the aldermanic intellect was too dense fully to appreciate. The
aldermen passed a resolution “condemning” the Czar of Russia for
his conduct towards his fellow-citizens of Hebrew faith, and
“demanding” that he should forthwith treat them better; this was
forwarded to the Russian Minister, with a request that it be sent to
the Czar. It came back forty-eight hours afterwards, with a note on
the back by one of the under-secretaries of the legation, to the effect
that as he was not aware that Russia had any diplomatic relations
with this particular Board of Aldermen, and as, indeed, Russia was
not officially cognizant of their existence, and, moreover, was wholly
indifferent to their opinions on any conceivable subject, he herewith
returned them their kind communication.[7]
In concluding I would say, that while there is so much evil at
Albany, and so much reason for our exerting ourselves to bring
about a better state of things, yet there is no cause for being
disheartened or for thinking that it is hopeless to expect
improvement. On the contrary, the standard of legislative morals is
certainly higher than it was fifteen years ago or twenty-five years
ago. In the future it may either improve or retrograde, by fits and
starts, for it will keep pace exactly with the awakening of the popular
mind to the necessity of having honest and intelligent
representatives in the State Legislature.[8]
I have had opportunity of knowing something about the workings
of but a few of our other State legislatures: from what I have seen
and heard, I should say that we stand about on a par with those of
Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Illinois, above that of Louisiana, and
below those of Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and
Wyoming, as well as below the national legislature at Washington.
But the moral status of a legislative body, especially in the West,
often varies widely from year to year.

FOOTNOTES:
[6] The Century, January, 1885.
[7] A few years later a member of the Italian Legation “scored”
heavily on one of our least pleasant national peculiarities. An
Italian had just been lynched in Colorado, and an Italian paper in
New York bitterly denounced the Italian Minister for his supposed
apathy in the matter. The member of the Legation in question
answered that the accusations were most unjust, for the Minister
had worked zealously until he found that the deceased “had taken
out his naturalization papers, and was entitled to all the privileges
of American citizenship.”
[8] At present, twelve years later, I should say that there was
rather less personal corruption in the Legislature; but also less
independence and greater subservience to the machine, which is
even less responsive to honest and enlightened public opinion.
 VI
MACHINE POLITICS IN NEW YORK CITY[9]

In New York city, as in most of our other great municipalities, the

direction of political affairs has been for many years mainly in the
hands of a class of men who make politics their regular business and
means of livelihood. These men are able to keep their grip only by
means of the singularly perfect way in which they have succeeded in
organizing their respective parties and factions; and it is in
consequence of the clock-work regularity and efficiency with which
these several organizations play their parts, alike for good and for
evil, that they have been nicknamed by outsiders “machines,” while
the men who take part in and control, or, as they would themselves
say, “run” them, now form a well-recognized and fairly well-defined
class in the community, and are familiarly known as machine
politicians. It may be of interest to sketch in outline some of the
characteristics of these men and of their machines, the methods by
which and the objects for which they work, and the reasons for their
success in the political field.
The terms machine and machine politician are now undoubtedly
used ordinarily in a reproachful sense; but it does not at all follow
that this sense is always the right one. On the contrary, the machine
is often a very powerful instrument for good; and a machine politician
really desirous of doing honest work on behalf of the community, is
fifty times as useful an ally as is the average philanthropic outsider.
Indeed, it is of course true, that any political organization (and
absolutely no good work can be done in politics without an
organization) is a machine; and any man who perfects and uses this
organization is himself, to a certain extent, a machine politician. In
the rough, however, the feeling against machine politics and
politicians is tolerably well justified by the facts, although this
statement really reflects most severely upon the educated and
honest people who largely hold themselves aloof from public life, and
show a curious incapacity for fulfilling their public duties.
The organizations that are commonly and distinctively known as
machines are those belonging to the two great recognized parties, or
to their factional subdivisions; and the reason why the word machine
has come to be used, to a certain extent, as a term of opprobrium is
to be found in the fact that these organizations are now run by the
leaders very largely as business concerns to benefit themselves and
their followers, with little regard to the community at large. This is
natural enough. The men having control and doing all the work have
gradually come to have the same feeling about politics that other
men have about the business of a merchant or manufacturer; it was
too much to expect that if left entirely to themselves they would
continue disinterestedly to work for the benefit of others. Many a
machine politician who is to-day a most unwholesome influence in
our politics is in private life quite as respectable as anyone else; only
he has forgotten that his business affects the state at large, and,
regarding it as merely his own private concern, he has carried into it
the same selfish spirit that actuates in business matters the majority
of the average mercantile community. A merchant or manufacturer
works his business, as a rule, purely for his own benefit, without any
regard whatever for the community at large. The merchant uses all
his influence for a low tariff, and the manufacturer is even more
strenuously in favor of protection, not at all from any theory of
abstract right, but because of self-interest. Each views such a
political question as the tariff, not from the standpoint of how it will
affect the nation as a whole, but merely from that of how it will affect
him personally. If a community were in favor of protection, but
nevertheless permitted all the governmental machinery to fall into the
hands of importing merchants, it would be small cause for wonder if
the latter shaped the laws to suit themselves, and the chief blame,
after all, would rest with the supine and lethargic majority which
failed to have enough energy to take charge of their own affairs. Our
machine politicians, in actual life act in just this same way; their
actions are very often dictated by selfish motives, with but little
regard for the people at large though, like the merchants, they often
hold a very high standard of honor on certain points; they therefore
need continually to be watched and opposed by those who wish to
see good government. But, after all, it is hardly to be wondered at
that they abuse power which is allowed to fall into their hands owing
to the ignorance or timid indifference of those who by rights should
themselves keep it.
In a society properly constituted for true democratic government—
in a society such as that seen in many of our country towns, for
example—machine rule is impossible. But in New York, as well as in
most of our other great cities, the conditions favor the growth of ring
or boss rule. The chief causes thus operating against good
government are the moral and mental attitudes towards politics
assumed by different sections of the voters. A large number of these
are simply densely ignorant, and, of course, such are apt to fall
under the influence of cunning leaders, and even if they do right, it is
by hazard merely. The criminal class in a great city is always of
some size, while what may be called the potentially criminal class is
still larger. Then there is a great class of laboring men, mostly of
foreign birth or parentage, who at present both expect too much from
legislation and yet at the same time realize too little how powerfully
though indirectly they are affected by a bad or corrupt government.
In many wards the overwhelming majority of the voters do not realize
that heavy taxes fall ultimately upon them, and actually view with
perfect complacency burdens laid by their representatives upon the
tax-payers, and, if anything, approve of a hostile attitude towards the
latter—having a vague feeling of animosity towards them as
possessing more than their proper proportion of the world’s good
things, and sharing with most other human beings the capacity to
bear with philosophic equanimity ills merely affecting one’s
neighbors. When powerfully roused on some financial, but still more
on some sentimental question, this same laboring class will throw its
enormous and usually decisive weight into the scale which it
believes inclines to the right; but its members are often curiously and
cynically indifferent to charges of corruption against favorite heroes
or demagogues, so long as these charges do not imply betrayal of
their own real or fancied interests. Thus an alderman or
assemblyman representing certain wards may make as much money
as he pleases out of corporations without seriously jeopardizing his
standing with his constituents; but if he once, whether from honest or
dishonest motives, stands by a corporation when the interests of the
latter are supposed to conflict with those of “the people,” it is all up
with him. These voters are, moreover, very emotional; they value in a
public man what we are accustomed to consider virtues only to be
taken into account when estimating private character. Thus, if a man
is open-handed and warm-hearted, they consider it as a fair offset to
his being a little bit shaky when it comes to applying the eighth
commandment to affairs of state. I have more than once heard the
statement, “He is very liberal to the poor,” advanced as a perfectly
satisfactory answer to the charge that a certain public man was
corrupt. Moreover, working men, whose lives are passed in one
unceasing round of narrow and monotonous toil, are not unnaturally
inclined to pay heed to the demagogues and professional labor
advocates who promise if elected to try to pass laws to better their
condition; they are hardly prepared to understand or approve the
American doctrine of government, which is that the state cannot
ordinarily attempt to better the condition of a man or a set of men,
but can merely see that no wrong is done him or them by anyone
else, and that all alike have a fair chance in the struggle for life—a
struggle wherein, it may as well at once be freely though sadly
acknowledged, very many are bound to fail, no matter how ideally
perfect any given system of government may be.
Of course it must be remembered that all these general
statements are subject to an immense number of individual
exceptions; there are tens of thousands of men who work with their
hands for their daily bread and yet put into actual practice that
sublime virtue of disinterested adherence to the right, even when it
seems likely merely to benefit others, and those others better off
than they themselves are; for they vote for honesty and cleanliness,
in spite of great temptation to do the opposite, and in spite of their
not seeing how any immediate benefit will result to themselves.
 REASONS FOR THE NEGLECT OF PUBLIC
DUTIES BY RESPECTABLE MEN IN EASY
CIRCUMSTANCES.
This class is composed of the great bulk of the men who range
from well-to-do up to very rich; and of these the former generally and
the latter almost universally neglect their political duties, for the most
part rather pluming themselves upon their good conduct if they so
much as vote on election day. This largely comes from the
tremendous wear and tension of life in our great cities. Moreover, the
men of small means with us are usually men of domestic habits; and
this very devotion to home, which is one of their chief virtues, leads
them to neglect their public duties. They work hard, as clerks,
mechanics, small tradesmen, etc., all day long, and when they get
home in the evening they dislike to go out. If they do go to a ward
meeting, they find themselves isolated, and strangers both to the
men whom they meet and to the matter on which they have to act;
for in the city a man is quite as sure to know next to nothing about
his neighbors as in the country he is to be intimately acquainted with
them. In the country the people of a neighborhood, when they
assemble in one of their local conventions, are already well
acquainted, and therefore able to act together with effect; whereas in
the city, even if the ordinary citizens do come out, they are totally
unacquainted with one another, and are as helplessly unable to
oppose the disciplined ranks of the professional politicians as is the
case with a mob of freshmen in one of our colleges when in danger
of being hazed by the sophomores. Moreover, the pressure of
competition in city life is so keen that men often have as much as
they can do to attend to their own affairs, and really hardly have the
leisure to look after those of the public. The general tendency
everywhere is toward the specialization of functions, and this holds
good as well in politics as elsewhere.
The reputable private citizens of small means thus often neglect to
attend to their public duties because to do so would perhaps
interfere with their private business. This is bad enough, but the case
is worse with the really wealthy, who still more generally neglect
these same duties, partly because not to do so would interfere with
their pleasure, and partly from a combination of other motives, all of
them natural but none of them creditable. A successful merchant,
well dressed, pompous, self-important, unused to any life outside of
the counting-room, and accustomed because of his very success to
be treated with deferential regard, as one who stands above the
common run of humanity, naturally finds it very unpleasant to go to a
caucus or primary where he has to stand on an equal footing with his
groom and day-laborers, and indeed may discover that the latter,
thanks to their faculty for combination, are rated higher in the scale
of political importance than he is himself. In all the large cities of the
North the wealthier, or, as they would prefer to style themselves, the
“upper” classes, tend distinctly towards the bourgeois type; and an
individual in the bourgeois stage of development, while honest,
industrious, and virtuous, is also not unapt to be a miracle of timid
and short-sighted selfishness. The commercial classes are only too
likely to regard everything merely from the standpoint of “Does it
pay?” and many a merchant does not take any part in politics
because he is short-sighted enough to think that it will pay him better
to attend purely to making money, and too selfish to be willing to
undergo any trouble for the sake of abstract duty; while the younger
men of this type are too much engrossed in their various social
pleasures to be willing to give their time to anything else. It is also
unfortunately true, especially throughout New England and the
Middle States, that the general tendency among people of culture
and high education has been to neglect and even to look down upon
the rougher and manlier virtues, so that an advanced state of
intellectual development is too often associated with a certain
effeminacy of character. Our more intellectual men often shrink from
the raw coarseness and the eager struggle of political life as if they
were women. Now, however refined and virtuous a man may be, he
is yet entirely out of place in the American body-politic unless he is
himself of sufficiently coarse fibre and virile character to be more
angered than hurt by an insult or injury; the timid good form a most
useless as well as a most despicable portion of the community.
Again, when a man is heard objecting to taking part in politics
because it is “low,” he may be set down as either a fool or a coward:
it would be quite as sensible for a militiaman to advance the same
statement as an excuse for refusing to assist in quelling a riot. Many
cultured men neglect their political duties simply because they are
too delicate to have the element of “strike back” in their natures, and
because they have an unmanly fear of being forced to stand up for
their own rights when threatened with abuse or insult. Such are the
conditions which give the machine men their chance; and they have
been able to make the most possible out of this chance,—first,
because of the perfection to which they have brought their
machinery, and, second, because of the social character of their
political organizations.

ORGANIZATION AND WORK OF THE MACHINES.

The machinery of any one of our political bodies is always rather
complicated; and its politicians invariably endeavor to keep it so,
because, their time being wholly given to it, they are able to become
perfectly familiar with all its workings, while the average outsider
becomes more and more helpless in proportion as the organization
is less and less simple. Besides some others of minor importance,
there are at present in New York three great political organizations,
viz., those of the regular Republicans, of the County Democracy,[10]
and of Tammany Hall, that of the last being perhaps the most
perfect, viewed from a machine standpoint. Although with wide
differences in detail, all these bodies are organized upon much the
same general plan; and one description may be taken in the rough,
as applying to all. There is a large central committee, composed of
numerous delegates from the different assembly districts, which
decides upon the various questions affecting the party as a whole in
the county and city; and then there are the various organizations in
the assembly districts themselves, which are the real sources of
strength, and with which alone it is necessary to deal. There are
different rules for the admission to the various district primaries and
caucuses of the voters belonging to the respective parties; but in
almost every case the real work is done and the real power held by a
small knot of men, who in turn pay a greater or less degree of fealty
to a single boss.
The mere work to be done on election day and in preparing for it
forms no slight task. There is an association in each assembly or
election district, with its president, secretary, treasurer, executive
committee, etc.; these call the primaries and caucuses, arrange the
lists of the delegates to the various nominating conventions, raise
funds for campaign purposes, and hold themselves in
communication with their central party organizations. At the primaries
in each assembly district a full set of delegates is chosen to
nominate assemblymen and aldermen, while others are chosen to
go to the State, county, and congressional conventions. Before
election day many thousands of complete sets of the party ticket are
printed, folded, and put together, or, as it is called, “bunched.” A
single bundle of these ballots is then sent to every voter in the
district, while thousands are reserved for distribution at the polls. In
every election precinct—there are probably twenty or thirty in each
assembly district—a captain and from two to a dozen subordinates
are appointed.[11] These have charge of the actual giving out of the
ballots at the polls. On election day they are at their places long
before the hour set for voting; each party has a wooden booth,
looking a good deal like a sentry-box, covered over with flaming
posters containing the names of their nominees, and the “workers”
cluster around these as centres. Every voter as he approaches is
certain to be offered a set of tickets; usually these sets are “straight,”
that is, contain all the nominees of one party, but frequently crooked
work will be done, and some one candidate will get his own ballots
bunched with the rest of those of the opposite party. Each captain of
a district is generally paid a certain sum of money, greater or less
according to his ability as a politician or according to his power of
serving the boss or machine. Nominally this money goes in paying
the subordinates and in what are vaguely termed “campaign
expenses,” but as a matter of fact it is in many instances simply
pocketed by the recipient; indeed, very little of the large sums of
money annually spent by candidates to bribe voters actually reaches
the voters supposed to be bribed. The money thus furnished is
procured either by subscriptions from rich outsiders, or by
assessments upon the candidates themselves; formerly much was
also obtained from office-holders, but this is now prohibited by law. A
great deal of money is also spent in advertising, placarding posters,
paying for public meetings, and organizing and uniforming members
to take part in some huge torchlight procession—this last particular
form of spectacular enjoyment being one peculiarly dear to the
average American political mind. Candidates for very lucrative
positions are often assessed really huge sums, in order to pay for
the extravagant methods by which our canvasses are conducted.
Before a legislative committee of which I was a member, the
Register of New York County blandly testified under oath that he had
forgotten whether his expenses during his canvass had been over or
under fifty thousand dollars. It must be remembered that even now—
and until recently the evil was very much greater—the rewards paid
to certain public officials are out of all proportion to the services
rendered; and in such cases the active managing politicians feel that
they have a right to exact the heaviest possible toll from the
candidate, to help pay the army of hungry heelers who do their
bidding. Thus, before the same committee the County Clerk testified
that his income was very nearly eighty thousand a year, but with
refreshing frankness admitted that his own position was practically
merely that of a figure-head, and that all the work was done by his
deputy, on a small fixed salary. As the County Clerk’s term is three
years, he should nominally have received nearly a quarter of a
million dollars; but as a matter of fact two thirds of the money
probably went to the political organizations with which he was
connected. The enormous emoluments of such officers are, of
course, most effective in debauching politics. They bear no relation
whatever to the trifling quantity of work done, and the chosen
candidate readily recognizes what is the exact truth,—namely, that
the benefit of his service is expected to enure to his party allies, and
not to the citizens at large. Thus, one of the county officers who
came before the above-mentioned committee, testified with a naïve
openness which was appalling, in answer to what was believed to be
a purely formal question as to whether he performed his public
duties faithfully, that he did so perform them whenever they did not
conflict with his political duties!—meaning thereby, as he explained,
attending to his local organizations, seeing politicians, fixing
primaries, bailing out those of his friends (apparently by no means
few in number) who got hauled up before a justice of the peace, etc.,
etc. This man’s statements were valuable because, being a truthful
person and of such dense ignorance that he was at first wholly
unaware his testimony was in any way remarkable, he really tried to
tell things as they were; and it had evidently never occurred to him
that he was not expected by everyone to do just as he had been
doing,—that is, to draw a large salary for himself, to turn over a still
larger fund to his party allies, and conscientiously to endeavor, as far
as he could, by the free use of his time and influence, to satisfy the
innumerable demands made upon him by the various small-fry
politicians.[12]

“HEELERS.”
The “heelers,” or “workers,” who stand at the polls, and are paid in
the way above described, form a large part of the rank and file
composing each organization. There are, of course, scores of them
in each assembly district association, and, together with the almost
equally numerous class of federal, State, or local paid office-holders
(except in so far as these last have been cut out by the operations of
the civil-service reform laws), they form the bulk of the men by whom
the machine is run, the bosses of great and small degree chiefly
merely oversee the work and supervise the deeds of their
henchmen. The organization of a party in our city is really much like
that of an army. There is one great central boss, assisted by some
trusted and able lieutenants; these communicate with the different
district bosses, whom they alternately bully and assist. The district
boss in turn has a number of half-subordinates, half-allies, under
him; these latter choose the captains of the election districts, etc.,
and come into contact with the common heelers. The more stupid
and ignorant the common heelers are, and the more implicitly they
obey orders, the greater becomes the effectiveness of the machine.
An ideal machine has for its officers men of marked force, cunning
and unscrupulous, and for its common soldiers men who may be
either corrupt or moderately honest, but who must be of low
intelligence. This is the reason why such a large proportion of the
members of every political machine are recruited from the lower
grades of the foreign population. These henchmen obey
unhesitatingly the orders of their chiefs, both at the primary or
caucus and on election day, receiving regular rewards for so doing,
either in employment procured for them or else in money outright. Of
course it is by no means true that these men are all actuated merely
by mercenary motives. The great majority entertain also a real
feeling of allegiance towards the party to which they belong, or
towards the political chief whose fortunes they follow; and many
work entirely without pay and purely for what they believe to be right.
Indeed, an experienced politician always greatly prefers to have
under him men whose hearts are in their work and upon whose
unbribed devotion he can rely; but unfortunately he finds in most
cases that their exertions have to be seconded by others which are
prompted by motives far more mixed.
All of these men, whether paid or not, make a business of political
life and are thoroughly at home among the obscure intrigues that go
to make up so much of it; and consequently they have quite as much
the advantage when pitted against amateurs as regular soldiers
have when matched against militiamen. But their numbers, though
absolutely large, are, relatively to the entire community, so small that
some other cause must be taken into consideration in order to
account for the commanding position occupied by the machine and
the machine politicians in public life. This other determining cause is
to be found in the fact that all these machine associations have a
social as well as a political side, and that a large part of the political
life of every leader or boss is also identical with his social life.

THE SOCIAL SIDE OF MACHINE POLITICS.

The political associations of the various districts are not organized
merely at the approach of election day; on the contrary, they exist
throughout the year, and for the greater part of the time are to a
great extent merely social clubs. To a large number of the men who
belong to them they are the chief social rallying-point. These men
congregate in the association building in the evening to smoke, drink
beer, and play cards, precisely as the wealthier men gather in the
clubs whose purpose is avowedly social and not political—such as
the Union, University, and Knickerbocker. Politics thus becomes a
pleasure and relaxation as well as a serious pursuit. The different
members of the same club or association become closely allied with
one another, and able to act together on occasions with unison and
esprit de corps; and they will stand by one of their own number for
reasons precisely homologous to those which make a member of
one of the upper clubs support a fellow-member if the latter happens
to run for office. “He is a gentleman, and shall have my vote,” says
the swell club man. “He’s one of the boys, and I’m for him,” replies
the heeler from the district party association. In each case the feeling
is social rather than political, but where the club man influences one
vote the heeler controls ten. A rich merchant and a small tradesman
alike find it merely a bore to attend the meetings of the local political
club; it is to them an irksome duty which is shirked whenever
possible. But to the small politicians and to the various workers and
hangers-on, these meetings have a distinct social attraction, and the
attendance is a matter of preference. They are in congenial society
and in the place where by choice they spend their evenings, and
where they bring their friends and associates; and naturally all the
men so brought together gradually blend their social and political
ties, and work with an effectiveness impossible to the outside
citizens whose social instincts interfere, instead of coinciding with
their political duties. If an ordinary citizen wishes to have a game of
cards or a talk with some of his companions, he must keep away
from the local headquarters of his party; whereas, under similar
circumstances, the professional politician must go there. The man
who is fond of his home naturally prefers to stay there in the
evenings, rather than go out among the noisy club frequenters,
whose pleasure it is to see each other at least weekly, and who
spend their evenings discussing neither sport, business, nor scandal,
as do other sections of the community, but the equally monotonous
subject of ward politics.