The Cheyenne daily leader. [volume] (Cheyenne, Wyo.) 1870-1884, 1883-10-10
MAKERS OF PRICES.
Something New t Solomon---The
Dance of Speculation---Cream-
cries of the World of
Labor.

North American Review.
While only one bushel in seven of the
wheat crop of the United States is received
by the produce exchange of New York, its
traders buy and sell two for every one that
comes out of the ground. When the cotton
plantations of the south yielded less than
100000 bales, the crop on the New York cot
ton exchange was more than 32,00O,OOO. Oil
wells arc uncertain, but the flow on the
petroleum exchanges of New York, Bradford,
and Oil City never hesitates. Pennsylvania
does well to run 90, 200, 900 barrels in a year,
and New York city will do as much ipztwo
smnll rooms in one week, and the petroleum
exchanges sold altogether last year 1000, 0o0,-
900 barrels.
When the Chicago board of trade was
founded, it's members were required to re-
cord their transactions The dance Of spec
ulation has nowadays grown to be so rapid
that no count is kept of the steps. The
board was lately reported to have turned
over as much wheat in one day as the whole
state of Illinois harvests in a twelvemonth.
Its speculative hogs outnumber two to one
the live hogs in the United States, and it is
safe TO say that the board raises five bushels
OF grain to every ono that is produced by the
farmers of the West. Securities have be-
come as staple an article of production with
us as wheat. cotton, oil or hogs. Ono mil
lion dollars worth n day of new stocks and
bonds is needed in prosperous years to sup
ply the demands of the New York stock ex-
change, and its annual transactions are
nearly thrice the taxable valuation of all the
personal property in the United States.
One OF the things that would be new to
Solomon, il he lived to-day, is the part
played by the modern exchange in the dis
tribution of the products of labor, and the
ia RI -
try that builds up our greatest fortunes is
raising wheat and pork on the Chicago board
OF trade, mining on the San Francisco stock
exchange, building railroads in Wall street,
sinking oil wells in William street, and pick
ing cotton in Hanover square. While the
text books of the science of exchange are
describing in infantile prattle the imaginary
trade Of prehistoric trout for pre-Adamite
venison between the first hunter and the
first fisherman, 4" the industry of the cotton
plantation, the oil fields, and the farm is be-
ing overlaid by an apparatus of exchanges
which will prove an extremely interesting
study TO the Ricardo of, say, the twenty
fifth century.
These exchanges are the creameries of tho
world of labor. The prices of the speculative
wheat and the special hog of the board fix
those of the real wheat and the actual hog of
the field. The negro planter of Georgia who
raises his bale and n half must sell 1t for what
the cotton exchange says it is worth. The man
who works in the ground must take the
price fixed for him by the man who works in
the mir. No one can understand the corner"
who docs not comprehend the development
and reach of the exchanges of our time. The
manufacture of prices, like other modern in
dustrios, is being concentrated into vast es-
Establishments, and these are passing under the
rule of bosses and syndicates. The markets,
like political parties, are run by the machine.
The people are losing the power Of making
prices us well as nominations.