36 THE MARKET WRECKER— A MENACE. 



Yet the price of flour is determined by the option dealer's manipulation of tht 

 wheat market. 



Although swine cannot be shipped to marlcel, stored and advances procured,— as 

 the market wreckers assure us is necessary in order to enable the farmer to market bii 

 products— and their inclination to run violently down a steen hill prevents the option 

 dealer from including them in his short sales, the farmer m nuges to market his swine 

 (and other animals) quite as readily and profital^ly as he does his grain. Unable to sub- 

 ject the hi)g to his methods, the option dealer makes ample amends when the animal has 

 been converteil into secondary product, but it is singular, that while he sells pork, lard 

 and bacon short, such parts of the swine as canvassed ham, sausage, pig's feet, etc.. must be 

 disposed of by such methods as obtained in the commercial world prior to the evolution 

 of the option dealer, and yet such dealer's pernicious arts aCTect the market for the animal 

 most injuriously, as the price of the hog is directly related to that for the pa<'l;ing-house 

 products' over which the option dealer holds a sway. 



Aside from farm products, in primary and secondary form, the s:ilcsof nierchandise 

 in Chicago, — at wholesale — during 1888 amounted to $437,500,000, all of which wasi mar- 

 keted withdut aid from the option dealer. 



15y re;isiin of its being the largest market for farm products and the number, ac- 

 tivity ntid supreme audacity of its speculators, Chicago has become the most potent factor 

 infixing the prices for such Ti)roducta, and yet (hat city handles less t/ian four per cent, 

 of the wheat and corn grown, its power in this direction being out of all proportion to 

 the volume of products h ludled, and is directly attributable ^to and in exact ratio to the 

 enormousqnatititiesof fictitiiius St utr constantly pressed upon the market, and it is the daily 

 offering, selling and buyingoftlie.se figments, in million on million of units, that enables 

 a few men, possessed of capital and credit sufficient to "margin " millions of such ficti- 

 tious commodities, to dominate the markets of the country and determine prices. 



If the system which creates and perpetuates sucli con Ulions is an outgrowth of 

 civilization, no less so arc lotteries, dram shops, pool selling and anarchism, but a major- 

 ity of citizens believe one and all are excrescences to which the knife should be applied 

 without liesitation. 



Because certain methods are the outgrowth of civilization it does not follow that 

 they are benign, and there is abundent evidence that the baleful results of option dealing 

 are incomparably greater than tlioseattending the unrestricted sale of lottery tickets, as the 

 lottery, aside from its corruption of public morals, aflccts only those who voluntarily be- 

 come its votaries, while Board of Trade dealing in fictitious commodities is as much a 

 game of chance as is the lottery, and not only debauches the morals of those who actively 

 participate, but affects the prosperity of every cultivator, as well as that of every one 

 having business relations with him. 



From the planting of the seed until the cio]) is garnered and sold, the speculator 

 pursues it with misrepresentations which are intended to and do lessen the selling price 

 of farm products, but should the making of contracts for future delivery, other than by 

 owners or prt)ducers of commodities, be prohibited as against public policy, the interest, 

 prompting the propagation of false reports would disappear. 



The following from a dealer in varitable products outlines the situation: 



"I am a commission merchant, receiving from the West car-loads of grain to sell. 

 For every bushel sold l)y actual shippers hundreds are sold "short" by sijcculators and it 

 Is a fact, that almost all the so called grain speculators in Chicago aie short .sellers and so 

 far from trying to advaui-e prices are constantly endeavoring to depress them. A few 

 years since Chicago was calloLl a ])roducers' market, but now it it recogniwii as the great 

 bear market of /he world with a large m;ijoiity of the dealers and a prepouderence of the 

 capital <.f the Board of Trade on the bear side."* 



/■•i it not strange, that a city adjacent to the producing dist7-icts and (he natural en- 

 trepot for (he grain, produced, should be decrying the value of xuhat we in (he West have to 

 sell, and is it not anomalous that most of the articles in the press are bear articles, and 

 lastly is there any other country, with a surplus to sill, that is constantly trying to depress 

 the value of that surplusf 



* 'Oomiiilfsiun Uerohant" In Chicago Tribune. January 11 



