Seattle Dealers Deny the Great Yakima Potato Swindle

The letter published in the Post-Intelligencer last week from a Yakima farmer, who claimed that the commission merchants of this city sold inferior grades of potatoes as Yakima stock and that the same commission men were robbing the farmers of the same, has called forth considerable adverse criticism from the leading houses on the street.

The merchants in question do not claim that the selling of ordinary stock for Yakima stock is not carried on in this city, but they do claim that it is not carried on by houses of any standing in a business sense. The farmers, they say, in order to save a dollar, will patronize houses of no standing whatever — houses that send out flashy posters announcing that they will handle produce at a very small profit — and when they get “bit” blame every house on the street, whether it has any standing or not.

A Post-Intelligencer reporter visited several of the leading houses on the street and inquired as to the statements made by the farmer, who claimed that he visited all the houses and found out that they were willing to sell goods for whatever they could get, and they, as well as their employees, claim that no such man as described ever visited them to their recollection. The merchants say that the charge that they sell Sound and other potatoes for Yakima stock is absurd, as any dealer who has ever bought Yakima potatoes is not apt to be so badly fooled that he will allow common grades to be palmed off on him. The reporter was shown a check already made out and ready to be sent to a rancher in North Yakima for a consignment of potatoes, which netted him, after commission and freight charges had been taken out, a trifle over $9 per ton, which means about $14 a ton in this city.

The leading merchants feel that they have been done an injustice at the expense of a few cheap houses with no standing whatever.