The Public Policy/Worm and Remembrance
Elvin, W. J.
THE PUBLIC POLICY WORM AND REMEMBRANCE by W. J. Elvin "[Worm Gett'd doesn't comply with any safety code except one—the electric chair." —Overwrought testimony of William King, electrical...
...M any, of course, hoped that the Reagan Administration would halt the government's inclination to lump small businesses with child snatchers and burglars in its zeal to right the wrongs of the world...
...I don't believe a pro-business or anti-regulatory administration can help," Herold says, because it's impossible to control the independent agencies...
...I used to hate worms," Joyce Fulkerson told the Idaho Statesman, "but I've decided they're not so bad...
...Dye had his day in court in early November...
...They wrote to the CPSC asking if the agency would negotiate with Mr...
...Oh, that's the thing that kills people," he says customers tell him...
...Besides, says the CPSC, "It is not necessary to amass a body count to find that a consumer product poses a substantial risk of injury...
...Dye's 20-year career in the Army took him to Korea, Europe, and Vietnam...
...Senator McClure also asked the CPSC how much time and money they'd spent pursuing worm probe manufacturers...
...Since night crawlers, for reasons of their own, cannot be bred in captivity, harvesters gather up the critters from golf courses, farm fields, and school-yards...
...But Judge Callister "seriously questioned" the validity of those reports, which were based mainly on newspaper clippings, coroners' reports, and death certificates...
...It surprised me when the government I spent years defending turned against me," says Phil Dye, one half of the mom and pop P&M operation...
...Of course, I already know that, and you probably do, too, but out in Caldwell, Idaho, somewhere beyond the Beltway, it's news...
...District Judge Marion J. Callister found on August 31, there seems little evidence to back up the alarum...
...Joined by Senator Symms, he blocked passage of the continuing resolution that authorizes funding for the CPSC...
...Fulkerson and her husband, Ron, have paid for vacations and sent a kid to camp with the proceeds from worm electrification...
...But within a month of making the promise, investigators from the CPSC visited his largest customer, a fishing supply outfit in Missouri, and began inquiring about "safety problems" with the product...
...Strong words...
...Those who do so usually scavenge at night after a rain, armed with headlamps and a leather apron to protect themselves from the slime...
...According to CPSC staff, however, this doesn't even begin to describe the Worm Gett'r...
...Harvesters discovered that an electrified metal stake implanted in the ground induced hordes of night crawlers to come out of hiding...
...They retail for about $8 each, less in quantity...
...Overwrought testimony of William King, electrical engineering expert for the Consumer Product Safety Commission...
...This past year has been a disaster, driving worm prices to record highs...
...Dye's defense last spring...
...Dye, who will willingly latch on to the bare steel rod of an activated Worm Gett'r to demonstrate the mild tingle that results from not following the instructions provided with each device...
...Will he fight on, if need be...
...He has vowed to "hang tough" until the CPSC negotiates with Mr...
...Jim McClure, joined by home state colleague Sen...
...A recent newspaper account he sent along tells of a young farm couple fined by OSHA because they neglected to inform workers on a daily basis, among other rules, to "urinate as frequently as necessary...
...Dye's attorney that there would undoubtedly have been some complaints if only the inhabitants of the American outback were sophisticated enough to file them...
...And, as U.S...
...Only the dumb ones are coming to the surface," a worm broker told the Wall Street Journal...
...They even found one individual who claims to have been shocked by the Worm Gett'r specifically...
...CPSC officials had assured Mr...
...Dye's P&M Enterprises...
...In defending its action, the CPSC says there are alternatives to driving night crawlers from their lairs with electricity: chemicals, for example, that render the earth inhospitable for the worms and who knows what else...
...Dye that no customers would be contacted until a court hearing had taken place...
...Dye's problem is just one more nail in the coffin of free enterprise...
...They've got me thoroughly pissed...
...In Idaho alone, worming for night crawlers is a $5 million business annually, most of it done by individuals and families...
...Mrs...
...With the times I've been drunk using it, I should have been dead" —Testimony of veteran wormer James McGil, disputing the contention that Worm Gett'r is dangerous...
...A decision is expected sometime in January...
...Dye and his new wife, Marilyn, turned to "worm picking...
...T 've noticed in the course of several 1 interviews with Mr...
...Dye suspects he has sold about 30,000 of the devices in all...
...The FTC is still going after little people...
...There are about 100 night crawlers to the pound...
...Not so, says Mr...
...Dye's attorney said, "It's the only product he sells...
...Beneath the good-old-boy jests runs the anger of innocence lost...
...Hard up for a career, Mr...
...You better believe it...
...But, as Mr...
...Steve Symms, came to Mr...
...Mr...
...No consumer has ever filed a complaint against Worm Gett'r...
...Well, here's one voice raised in the hope that Mr...
...Dye says that now wholesale buyers stocking the sporting goods departments of major stores for next spring are shying away from the Worm Gett'r...
...Dye "instead of harassing him" and giving him "the world-class run-around...
...Out in Caldwell, Mr...
...Dye—here it comes—worms his way out of this one...
...The CPSC wrote back to inform Senator McClure that he must follow several formal stepsif he wished to participate in CPSC business...
...The device operates by placing the steel shafts into the earth and plugging it into an electrical outlet...
...The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is another example...
...Dye's attorney, Arthur Herold...
...The laws enabling extremes of federal intervention in the private sector are still on the books, he says...
...Thereafter, the steel shafts deliver an electric current into the ground, thus causing worms to surface...
...OSHA's largest civil fines have been in the last three or four years," he noted...
...Court documents describe them more exactly: This product is an electric worm harvesting device, the basic design consisting of wooden handles affixed to ten-inch bare steel shafts electrically connected with twenty inches of fourteen gauge insulated wire which is connected to one blade of an attached male plug...
...QED...
...He retired with a 100-percent disability and spent the next ten years in veterans' hospitals...
...Lies, says Mr...
...says Mr...
...I myself own a matched pair of Worm Gett'rs, which look to me like primitive forerunners of that popular crowd-control device, the cattle prod...
...CPSC's attorney, William Moore, told Mr...
...Dye, building on this fundamental insight, invented the Worm Gett'r...
...W J Elvin writes the "Inside the Beltway" column for the Washington Times...
...After that came a college degree, a heart attack, and open heart surgery...
...So far it's the healthy, hearty laugh of a happy warrior...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JANUARY 1989 31...
...One of my neighbors wormed his yard one year and took the family on a vacation with the money," proclaimed outdoor columnist Hugh Callow of the Idaho Press Tribune...
...Dye in mind...
...Of course, over the years science has brought certain improvements in technique...
...Dye that he laughs a lot...
...If you are possessed of moderate mobility and dexterity, you can make money picking worms...
...Bad news...
...And supplying wormers with probes is not exactly a get-rich-quick scheme either...
...And what else could a man feel when he finds himself selected for sacrifice by the inscrutable high priests of Washington's marble temples...
...They've gone after his heart...
...Not surprisingly, the Environmental Protection Agency says it is looking into complaints of health hazards and long-term 30 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JANUARY 1989 damage to the food chain resulting from the chemical technique...
...Night crawlers fetch as much as $3 a pound on the open market...
...Night crawlers come up naturally when it rains...
...Their words: it's "an inherently dangerous device" whose "design flies in the face of every electronic safety practice in the U.S.," a product that is "one of the most dangerous the CPSC has ever seen...
...I already hocked the farm...
...The CPSC says twenty-eight persons have been killed using generic worm probes...
...For, win or lose in the courts, the CPSC has already done a fairly good job of finishing off Mr...
...And the technical director of the Consumers Union, former CPSC board member R. David Pittle,has chimed in: "The product is patently and intentionally dangerous...
...W ashington is bonkers, a bureaucratic circus run amok...
...That's convenient for wormers except in severe drought years like 1988, when the little buggers burrow ever deeper in search of moisture...
...Idaho's Sen...
...But there's an edge to it when he says CPSC attorney Moore "is on a mission from God to rid the world of worm probes...
...Senator McClure has the interests of more than Mr...
...Regardless of the method, drunk or sober, worming remains a cold and clammy way to make a buck...
...Dye—who has made several offers to negotiate, and has also said he would lower the voltage and shield his product to meet CPSC demands...
...In early 1987 the Consumer Product Safety Commission, an independent government agency with deep pockets and the zeal of the righteous, overrode its chairman, Terrence Scanlon, to demand a total recall of the Worm Gett'r, an electronic worm probe manufactured by P&M Enterprises of Caldwell and used by thousands of worm harvesters as their primary tool...
...Oh yeah...
...That blew it as far as Senator McClure was concerned...
Vol. 22 • January 1989 • No. 1
