Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-02-01
THE wHEAr-aAmBL1Ke PROJECT.

The San Francisco papers have for the
most part with characteristic cowardice
allowed themselves to be bullied by the
gamblers, and given in their adhesion to
the new proposition for gambling in wheat.
Some of the so-called commercial journals
have even gone SO far as to print long de-
lenses of the scheme We are, however,
glad to observe that one commercial paper
at least, namely the Merchant, does not
fall into the same rut, but speaks the
truth plainly, in the following remarks {:
" 1t is clear to everyone that swapping
"Jack.knives or selling wheat back
"wards and forwards between brokers and
spectators cannot raise the ultimate
g value in Europe one cent. But all this
" would cost money brokers are expensive
fellows, and spend more coin on pleasure
in day than farmers do in month. If
"their expenses do not come out of the
" European consumers they must come out
I" of the gambling public or the farmers,
cor both. The farmer will have to pay
eventually the larger share of the shot !;
Z" that is, while he works hard and lives
"plainly the brokers will smoke two. bit
"cigars, dine at the Maison Doree, and
"drive by moonlight to the Cliff
" House, and the farmers returns will
"be mulcted for the cost of these ex.
" travagances. Further, if this system of
I" puts and calls is inaugurated the
" farmers will more than ever, in Conven.
tions and Legislatures, and everywhere
"else, and with reason, show their hatred
" for San Francisco and all San Francis
cans" There can be no doubt that this
is true. The farmers have had too much
ground for believing that San Francisco
harbors an element which has determined
to live without work, upon their industry.
This is what the commission men and
brokers do. They are n-producers, and
the facilities which they pretend to furnish
are to a great extent fictitious. The truth
is that the middlemen, as rule, are class
of men who are too lazy to earn their own
living honestly, and who therefore under
take to make the producers support them.
The wheat gamblers are the worst of
ali the middlemen, however. The business
in which they are engaged possesses no
commercial value or utility whatever.
The pretense that it will afford better
market fer the farmers is most impudently
false. 1t will make the market worse for
the farmers in all respects, for what it
aims at is the fleeing of the farmers.
Where are the profits of the wheat
gamblers to come from? Assuredly
the gamblers do not expect to create
any new value. These profits must come
from one of two sources: the pockets of
the producers the pockets of the specula-
tive public. The gambling brokers propose
to stand between these two classes and
plumber them both Unfortunately, and
this is the wonderful scheme to the sup.
port of which the farmers are invited to
advance. The plan is in plain talk neither
more nor less than a desperate attempt to
secure new hold on the wheat market by
these spectators, who at last realize that
their old vantage ground is about to disap-
pear. These stranded middlemen have
joined hands with the. out-at-elbow habi-
tues of Pauper Alley" and the two have
conco,ted the new Produce Exchange as
patent method for stripping the Simple
Granger. If the latter walks into the
Parlor which the San Francisco Spider has
thus prepared, however, he will deserve to
furnish dinner for his treacherous host.
We have given him fair and full warning,
and if now he allows himself to be hood
winked, he will have only his own stu
pidity to complain of.