66 THE MARKET WRECKER PREVENTS ADVANCE IN VALUES. 



tuting an evil of great magnitude as well as a great menace to the prosperity of t)ie 

 farmer, and, by lessening his purchasing power, a like menace to the prosperity of all em- 

 ployed in production or distribution. 



So long as the marljet wrecking option dealer, without owning or controlling a 

 pound of the products that he offers to sell in limitless (luantities, can determine prices 

 by placing his fictitious products in competition with the products of the farm, just .so 

 long will the fiirmer be uncertain of a reward for the labor and capital employed, and 

 just so long will short periods of great commercial activity be followed by prolonged ones 

 of stagnation. 



The immoral practices of the short-seller have yearly deprived the farmer of from 

 ten to twenty-five per cent, of the price he otherwise would have obtained for his products, 

 and in this way his purchasing power has been greatly lessened, resulting in equal loss to 

 the artisan, 'laborer, manufacturer, merchant and transporter, and a like loss is menaced 

 so long as the short-selling market wrecker is permitted to pursue the nefarious calling o' 

 placing his fictions in competition with the products of the farm. 



It requires land upon which to grow real products, and in the United States there 

 is employed in the production of food, fiber and forage 700,000,000 acres, or more, and 

 every pound of the products of the soil which the farmer offers represents the expend- 

 iture of a definite amount of money and labor, and the volume of product which he can 

 offer is limited by the amount of land in cultivation, its fertility and meteorological con- 

 ditions which last reader the result sufficiently uncertain without the baleful work of the 

 sliort-seller. On the other hand the short-selling market wrecker neither owns nor needs 

 land; he expends no money in producing what he offers; neither does he toil; his crop is 

 subject to no climatic contingencies; is harvested without labor, and the amount offered 

 is limited only by his assurance and lung power, both of which are phenomenal, avdyet 

 it is these limitless offers of fictions which have cost neither money nor effort — and not what 

 the farmer has produced at the cost of such infinite care and labor — which determines 

 the price which the farmer shall receive for the products of his land and toil. Thus does 

 the market wrecker reap where he has not sown. Thus does this worthless drone despoil 

 the industrious farmer of a just reward for his labor. 



How mucli longer shall the farmer's products, grown at an enormous expenditure 

 of capital and labor, be forced to compete with the limitless and costless products of the 

 lungs of the short-seller? 



Is there another business that is subjected to such unfair and immoral competition? 



Would other than farmers submit to such gross injustice when they have the 

 power to control legislation and could, by the enactment of laws taxing the "Board-of- 

 Trade-Gambler" out of existence, secure the reward due for their labors and yet fail to do 

 so while their products are forced to compete with the imaginary products of a horde of 

 parasites and harpies? 



Are not the harpies of the "Board of Trade" as much worse than the managers of a 

 ''bunco or skin game" as the stealing of hundreds of millions a year from those who take 

 no pari in the game is worse than the taking a few dollars from some fellow who volun- 

 tarily goes into a skin game thinking he has a sure thing of turning up the right card 

 and thus beating the dealer? In the market-wrecking game the farmer is not even given 

 a chance, by the three-card sharps of the Board-of- Trade, to see the cards that rob him of 

 the reward for his labor. 



For years the market-wreckers have been able, by the short-selling device, to de- 

 prive the farmer of a due reward and notwithstanding the deficient — world's— acreage 

 they will remain a grave menace to his prosperity, and that of the country, so long as 

 permitted to pursue their nefarious calling cif .■■elling the crops before they are grown; of 

 selling the property of the farmer, without his consent, and thereby fixing a price for 

 property in which they have no legitimate interest. 



Although existing abnormal conditions may enable the farmer — despite the baleful 

 work of the short-seller— to get more than usual for tliis yeai'sciop of grain, even if much 

 less than what they should receive, yet the wreckers have taken and are likely to retain 

 complete control of the cotton market until they have forced the cotton grower to the 



