HIS LIFE AND WORK 



A wheat Exchange is to-day much more than 

 a meeting-place for brokers. It is a mechan- 

 ism. It is a news bureau a parliament 

 a part of the whispering-gallery of the world. 

 It not only provides a market where wheat can 

 at once be bought and sold, but it obtains for 

 both buyer and seller all the news from every- 

 where about the wheat, so that no bargain may 

 be made in the dark. Before Exchanges were 

 organized there were times when a farmer 

 would drive twenty miles to the nearest town 

 with a load of wheat, and find no one to buy it. 

 Even in Chicago, in the early forties, a farmer 

 ran the risk of not being able to trade his wheat 

 for a few groceries. 



At present, when a buyer or a seller of wheat 

 arrives at an Exchange, he goes at once to con- 

 sult the weather map of the day. From here 

 he passes to a series of bulletin-boards, which 

 inform him of the arrival or outgo of wheat at 

 many cities. One board tells him the visible 

 supply of wheat in the world, so that he can 

 easily ascertain, if he wishes to do so, how much 

 bread the human race ate last week. Other 



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