Robert Watke

Robert F. Watke operated a grain warehouse in Farwell, Nebraska from 1898 to 1902 and challenged corporate grain elevator companies and the railroad companies as monopolies. His actions related to the grain system of the early 20th century became part of the testimony before the Interstate Commerce Commission in the fall of 1906.
Early life
On April 19, 1898 at the age of 32, he married Anna Clausen at St. Paul, Howard County, Nebraska.
Conflict with grain elevator monopolies
According to the sworn testimony given at the 1906 Interstate Commerce Commission hearing, Watke had established a grain warehouse at Farwell where he enabled local farmers to sell their grain. Henry Herbert Carr, of the commission house HH Carr & Co., a member of the Chicago Board of Trade, testified that the railroads discriminated against the farmers, not providing rail cars to transport their grain to market unless they went through a corporate grain elevator company.. Speaking of Watke's operation in 1902, he told the commission:

We had a man at Farwell, who was buying grain on track. He had a little warehouse, and he intended getting a site on the railroad there; consequently he built a little warehouse, and he hauled his grain across the road, across the track to the railway cars and loaded them and shipped them to me. He did this for a long time, and finally his competitors succeeded in driving him out of business. He had a car there on track for over forty days and the railroad would not pull it out, and finally they dumped that grain onto the track and took the car.

Henry Herbert Carr testified that he had written the Interstate Commerce Commission, President Theodore Roosevelt, and the Attorney General of Nebraska, Frank N. Prout, about this incident. However, the Attorney General had not responded. When Carr inquired about the lack of response from Prout, he was informed "that they couldn't expect anything from down there, because his (Prout's) relatives were in the service of the railroad."
Some time in mid 1902, it is alleged that Watke set the grain elevators at Farwell and Warsaw, Nebraska on fire. On Nov 7th, 1902, he allegedly set both the Barstow elevator and the E. G. Taylor elevator in Ashton, Nebraska on fire. The entire contents of 6,000 bushels of grain in the Barstow elevator was destroyed.

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