^6 THIRTY CENT BREAD 



through their refusal to put the price down to a fig- 

 ure at which the public will buy, holding their eggs 

 instead as a "gamble on the future," 



The attorney general's office proved that in addi- 

 tion to the surplus on hand in cold storage, fresh 

 eggs Avere coming into the market every day and 

 that many honest receivers were willing to take their 

 losses on them and sell at lower prices, although the 

 market quotations were, in the meantime, kept arbi- 

 trarily high in the hope that the receipt of fresh 

 eggs during the following week might be light. 



This system the state was able to prove forced 

 the honest receiver of eggs to fall in line with the 

 speculator in order to hold his shippers in the coun- 

 try. To do otherwise would quickly make it impos- 

 sible for him to obtain any eggs at all. No farmer 

 would ship to a receiver if the latter undersold or 

 attempted to undersell the speculator. 



§ 53 SUPPLY AND Di^MAND 



That this is the system which tgg speculators de- 

 scribe as "the law of supply and demand" was 

 charged as long ago as December 9, 1913, in a re- 

 port filed with Federal Judge Kohlsaat by Charldfe 

 B. Morrison, master in chancery. 



Morrison's report alleged that within the Chicago 

 Butter and Egg Board was a smaller organization 

 known as the Elgin Butter and Egg Board, which 

 sets prices for the wholesale market. 



He declared that at periodical meetings these 

 boards, acting in unison, established values' in a man- 

 ner that forced the wholesale prices down as low as 

 possible during the flush period of production and 



