GAMBLING IN FOOD PRODUCTS. 79 



3,330,000 bushels of the "contract grade" of wheat that could be got to market within the 

 month — September 1888 — (although the country was full of wheat of lower grade thut 

 would miike good bread) the worker of the corner, by paying two dollars u buehe' 

 for one or more car-loads of the contract grade, fixes the price at which be will settle 

 with those who are "short to him" — mind you the last thing that he desires is that thay 

 shall be able to deliver the grain which he has contracted to receive yet never expected or 

 iutended to receive, and had the "shorts" been able to have delivered a few hundred 

 thousand bushels more no doubt the corner would have been broken and the cornerer 

 bankrupted instead of the shorts, although lie might still have plumed himself with hav- 

 ing advanced the price of the loaf of which, however, there is no proof. 



Expatiating upon the benefits of this kind of speculation to the producer Mr. 

 Hutchinson neglects to inform the reader that immediately he had settled with the 

 "shorts" upon their contracts, to deliver grain, that would certainly have ruined him if 

 complied with, the price of wheat dropped back to about what it was when he started to 

 work the corner and that many of the short sellers had beeustripped, by such sfitlement, 

 as bare as when they came into the world, and the business of the country h . . inen dis- 

 turbed that one man might have "gain without merit." 



Is it not illogical to say that when wheat is too cheap the selling of "options" and 

 '•puts and calls" aids the producer and in the next breath tell us that: 



"Grain operations benefit the consumer also; because when there is an excess of 

 bread-stuffs, a low price stimulates consumption and gives a big loaf and when there is a 

 deficit a high price enforces economy and teaches him to eat more potatoes and esculent 

 roots and less bread and thus give his neighbor a chance at the loaf?" 



It is somewhat difficult to understand how speculation can add to one's appetite 

 and stimulate consumption. Is it a fact, that here, where all but those in extreme indi- 

 gence are always fully fed, that a low price stimulates consumption of the cheapest form 

 of food? Have not our people at all times all tlie bread they are able to consume? Is it 

 not known to every school boy that bread is, by far, the cheapest form of food when nu- 

 tritive properties are considered? 



While we were long since told that "man shall not live by bread alone" it still re- 

 mains the one constant factor in the diet of the bread-eating people and being the cheuj" 

 est form in which the masses can readily obtain the required nutriment is the last to be 

 dispensed with, and the quantity eaten is lessened in but a slight degree by an advance 

 in price. When flour was selling at $15 per barrel, during the Crimean w 'r. there is no 

 evidence that consumption was malerially lessened either in this country or Western 

 Europe. 



Few will question the benefits derived from the use of capital in dealing with food 

 products, but it is not the capital of the pernicious short-seller which performs the laud- 

 able service of distribution. • 



While nothing could be more remote from the desire of the writer than to belittle 

 the services of capital actually employed in distribution, it is his desire to call attention 

 to the fact that what is known as the visible supply of grain, during the last ten years 

 has averaged under 30,000,000 bushels of wheat, less than 10,000,000 bushels of corn and 

 some .5,000,000 bushels of oats, with small quantities of rye and barley, all aggregating 

 some 4(5,000,000 bushels and worth less than $40,000,000 and it is quite safe to say that 

 adding the value of all the crude food and fiber products in transit, in mill, warehouse 

 and factory, as well as the value of the plants used In their distribution, the entire sum 

 would at no time exceed $.500,000,000. On the other hand the farmer, who is never 

 thought of us a capitalist, has invested in his land and its equipment for production a 

 sum that probably exceeds §16,000,000,000 and as he carries an average of half the year's 

 crop for the entire p riod his further investment is over $700,000,000 and in this form 

 alone greatly exceeds the entire investment of all those directly engaged in the distribu- 

 tion of his products. 



I trust that the short-.selling gamblers of the Boards of Trade will pardon the sug- 

 gestion that the farmer could get on much better without their aid than can the real cap- 

 italist, engaged in distribution, get on without the farmer, who is not called upon to be 



