BEGINNINGS OF THE NORTH\\'EST 



from farmside to dinner-plate with strange 

 devices for taking toll as the wheat went 

 along. Commission men in the market cen- 

 ters juggled it back and forth; "mixing 

 houses'' played tricks with it; upon vast com- 

 plicated machines like gigantic wheels of 

 fortune men gambled in it; railroads levied 

 on it excessive charges for transporting it; 

 a Hne of middlemen passed it superfluously 

 one to another, each taking a heaping handful 

 as it pursued the tortuous path prepared for 

 it — until at last, a mere specter of the portly 

 bushel it had started, it came to table. 



''The farmer raised a bushel and got paid 

 for a peck; the consumer received a peck 

 and paid for a bushel.'* 



As is usually true of such conditions, the 

 strength of the system lay in the great profits 

 it reaped for its beneficiaries. Colossal fort- 

 unes were made on the grain exchanges; the 

 power they created spread wide and fortified 

 the system, and the fame of them and the 

 alluring chance of others like them fired men's 

 imaginations and tore up moral codes. There 

 was never a system of ethics that could stand 

 the strain of a great nugget of gold. It was 

 the same way about the grain business. A 

 profit of 8100.000 on an investment of a fourth 

 of that amount was easily possible, as we 

 shall see hereafter, in a few days' operation 

 of a reliable "mixing-house"; a "wash sale" 



11 



