CYRUS HALL McCORMICK 



Many a bank, as well as many a railroad, was 

 founded upon the moving of the wheat. 



The broker, the banker, the inspector, and the 

 insurance agent these four render a useful 

 service to the wheat that has left home; but 

 there is a.fifth man about whose usefulness there 

 is the widest possible difference of opinion 

 the speculator. From one point of view, the 

 speculator is the driving-wheel of the whole 

 wheat trade. By his energy and his impetus 

 he steadies and equalizes the conflicting forces, 

 and gives the entire mechanism a continuous 

 movement. From another point of view, he is 

 a gambler, reckless and parasitical, who inter- 

 feres with the natural laws of supply and de- 

 mand, and snatches an unearned toll from the 

 wheat bins of the world. 



Some of the wheat nations not only permit 

 speculation in wheat, but practically encourage 

 it by allowing more privileges to the speculator 

 than to the ordinary business man. Others are 

 resolutely stamping it out, as a nuisance and a 

 crime. The nations that have voted "Yea" on 

 speculation are Great Britain, Hungary, Sweden, 



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