Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1882-12-13
Manufacturing "Corners."

When a speculator in stocks manages
to get into his hands and under his con-
| troll the whole or nearly the whole of a
given stock and continues To buy at va
rious prices from other spectators large
amounts of the same stock for future
delivery, he is, in the peculiar language
of Wall Street. said to have made n
corner" He has 'cornered" that par
ticular stock, or, rather, those who en-
tered into contracts for selling 1t to him
for future delivery. Holding all of the
stock, he controls the price, and those
who agreed to sell it to him ut certain
price must, in order to fulfill their con-
tracts, buy it of him at the price which
he chooses to fix or pay him the differ
ence between the price at which the stock
was sold and this price, or fail to fulfill
their contracts. They expected to buy
the stock for less than they agreed to de-
liver it to him, and in this way to make
money by the operation; but, unfortu-
nately for their expectations, he has
"cornered' them. They are largely
"short" of stock which they have
agreed to deliver at a specified time; and
he has the whole of it in his own hands,
and hence, has the power TO fix the
| tCl upon NillCn tHtl Snull SCttlt tHClI
contracts with him.
This, even according to the ethics of
Wall Street, is not regarded as an honor
able transaction. 1t involves secrecy,
duplicity, and deliberate purpose to
cheat under the form of bargain and
sale. The man or men who manufact-
ure the corner mean to get the
'shorts" into it, and when they get them
there, then they mean roundly to fleece
them. These ''shorts" are not entitled
to any special sympathy, since they ex-
pected to make money by selling for
future delivery what they had not at the
time of the sale, and subsequently, buy
ing, in season for the delivery, at a
cheaper price than the selling price.
They are themselves spectators, and in
this instance they have simply slipped up
in their calculations, or, rather, have
been outwitted by others smarter and
stronger than themselves. The opera
ton was grab game on both sides, and
when the corner succeeds the actual
grabbing is done by those who made the
''corner." When it fails, then tire
''shorts" carry of the prize.
1t would be well for the community if
these cornering operations were con-
fined exclusively to the Stock Exchange.
They are quite bad enough there, with
out being extended to Boards of Trade,
where the commodities OH which people
live are bought and sold, as matter
of speculation, rather than in the line of
legitimate and regular business. When,
however, corners become the order
of the day, and wheat, corn, oats, pork
and other commodities are thus manipu-
lated for speculative and gambling pur-
poses, the general community feel the
disturbing and injurious effect far more
than when the operation is confined sim
ply to stocks. The articles gambled in
are the staples of life. The people must
have them and must use them. They
are necessaries to human comfort, and
to have the pride of these articles kicked
up and kicked down by set of gamb-
ling spectators is n great Inconvenience
indeed, an unbearable nuisance, to the
general public.
The city of Chicago, by reason of its
location, has become the great center in
this country where such corners are
made, especially in wheat and this is
perhaps the reason why the State of IL
inois has by express statute forbidden
them, not only declaring "options' to
be gambling contracts and void, but
making it penal offense, punishable by
fine and Imprisonment, to corner or
attempt to corner the market in re-
spect to the staples of life. If Boards of
Trade will not, from sense of propriety
and justice, adopt rules that will put an
end to these cornering operations, then
the law ought to lay its hand vigorously
upon the Ubiquitous system and arrest it
by proper penalties and by the enforce
ment of these penalties. This is de-
manded by due regard to the public
interest The people are not bound
quietly to suffer huge evils from the OPP
erations of set of produce gamblers, -
N Y Lndenendeik