THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE 



It is a fair question what confidence could 

 any farmer have in any market when he knew 

 that it was subject to such control and 

 manipulation. 



The Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce has 

 a rule that forbids any member to buy grain 

 in carload lots at country points for more 

 than the city price of that day, less the freight 

 to Minneapolis. And the city price is based 

 primarily upon the recorded bets on what 

 the price will be months hence in a market 

 thus controlled and manipulated. I earnestly 

 desire not to be unjust or to give any coun- 

 tenance to the personal attacks that have 

 been a regrettable feature of this conflict, 

 knowing well enough that all these conditions 

 are the result of a system, and nobody's fault. 

 But it does seem to me that gambling on 

 the faro layout, as administered by Michael 

 McDonald, in Chicago, or Patrick Sheedy, 

 at Long Branch, was infinitely fairer. There 

 the cards were not stacked nor marked; if you 

 lost it was the turn of luck or fate and not 

 any trick imposed upon your innocence that 

 lightened your pocketbook. 



Can we say the same of the gambling by 

 the great wheel of fortune on the Chicago 

 Board of Trade and Minneapolis Chamber of 

 Commerce.^ 



For instance, in the summer of 1915, No. 1 

 Northern wheat was selluag at Minneapolis for 



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