THF, MARKET WRECKER PREVENTS ADVANCE IN VALUES. 67 



condition in which they liad placed the }j:rain grower until sliort crops enabled the niar- 

 kel to get partially from under their conlrol, but let there be but the promise of fair I'lain 

 crops next summer and the wrecl<er will resume entire control of the markets and pi ices 

 be again hammered down to an unreinuneralive level and tlie process of depressing prices 

 below a natural level continue until the marlct-wrecker sludl have been taxed out 

 of existence. 



SOME PHASES OF SHORT SELLING. 



The short-seller produces nothing; he performs no service, and is but a destroyer of 

 the value of other men's property. 



The legitimate trader, be he a buyer either for immediate consumption or to hold 

 for an advance, takes the product ofl'Ihe market thereby steadying demand and enabling 

 the producer to secure a fair price for his property. 



The short-seller needs little or no capital to enable him to wreck values as is made 

 clear by the failures of Dunham & Co. and Pardridge. Dunham, with a capital of but 

 $-•5,000, was carrying a line of shorts aggregating 10.000,000 bushels; equal to but two and a 

 half cents per bushel, and this fiat grain, represent ingsnch an insignificant sum in forfeits 

 put up to assure the other gambler that Dunham would not go back on the game, came 

 in direct competition with and depressed the price (just as effectually as though it were 

 real grain) of that grown by the farmer at the cost of much expenditure of capital and 

 iutiuite labor. Could anything be more unfair? 



When, by the sudden advance of wheat in August, the great bear (Pardridge) wag 

 forced into liquidation at a reported loss of 11.000,000, he must have had out a short line 

 of at least 20.000,000 bushels, as the advance was but 5 cents, and as he had been repeat- 

 edly called for margins during the advance, it would appear that the actual investment in 

 these enormous short sales — equal to nearly one-twentieth of an average crop — could not 

 have exceeded two cents a bushel and yet this man has, repeatedly, with such relatively 

 infinile.simal investments, been able to depress the price of all the grain owned by mill- 

 ions of farmers and deprive them of the reward due for their labors. 



In a published interview he is reported to have said that: "Had not my money 

 given out I could and would have sent the price of wheat to 75 cents; what I lost was only 

 velvet (prolils) from my operations since April." 



In the four mouths requiied to secure profits reported to be $1,000,000, what were 

 the losses of American farmers consequent upon the operations of these short-selling 

 gamblers ? 



Can there be a reasonable doubt that in consequei.ci; of short-selling the producer 

 is forced to accept from ten to twenty-tive per cent, less for his cotton snd grain than he 

 ought to and otherwise would receive? 



If Board of Trade meu must gamble why not bet on a game of poker or faro, or 

 upon a horse race? In such case only the participants, or possibly their employers from 

 whom has been stolen the money wagered, would suffer injury. 



Short-selling enables the European to throw immense quantities of fictitious prod- 

 ucts upon our markets thereby depressing the price when he tates in the cash product 

 at the price he has established by such nefarious practices. Moreovf r, when he ha.") 

 bought a cargo of Indian or Russian wheal he sells an equal quantity short in our mar- 

 ket, and thus forces the American farmer, by the short-selling device, to become hia 

 insurer and, this loo, without paying him a cent of premium. By the short-selling 

 device the American farmer is made to assume all (he risks atlendant upon European 

 importation of wheat bought from his competitors in India and llussia. 



