Wichita eagle., 1889-10-31
OPTION DEALING A VICE; 1T SHOULD
BE a CRIME
American Farmers or Foreign Tenants,
Which?
To the Editor of the Eagle.

To the Editor of the Eagle.
The necessity for relief to the grain
raiser, stock feeder is apparent.
The disease is recognized. Dissolution
is at hand unless remedy is found.
Eruptions on the skin are overlooked
when the vital part of the system is at
tackled with malady. When mans
brain is affected, his liver out of order
or his heart diseased the boils that break
out are unnotlced.
The state Of the markets on grain and
stock threaten the heart of the grain and
stock producing interests of the west.
We see an effect. What is the cause?
We learn that a committee of
the United States senate is insulted and
treated with contempt by those engaged
in dealing in stock.
We are informed that demagogues are
busy inflaming the public mind against
men engaged III the laudable attempt to
destroy the price of grain.
We are taught that the federal consti-
tuition is too narrow torelieve the known
distresses of those engaged in agricul-
tural pursuits and that state constitu-
tious are not broad enough to reach the
disease.
If this be true, we must either prepare
for a worse condition of the grain and
stock market, or we must amend the
fundamental land.
If the states cannot regulate this by
uniformity of legislation, then the pow
or should be. by amendment. conferred
on'the federal government. We are suf
fering from a couse that only criminal
laws can wipe out.
The option dealer and his friends cry
overproduction, but statistics prove that
the amount of grain produced has no eff
feet on the market.
The DULL and bear raise and lower
prices according as they command cap
ital. Whether wheat is 80 cents or 81. 90
per bushel cuts no figure. Supply and
demand have no perceptible effect on
prices. If the bull is successful markets
are good; if the bear triumphs there is
crash.
Option dealing or selling what one
does not have and has no intention of
possessing, or putting it IN its true light,
betting on the price of grain and stock
at a future date, is vicious, because
there is an incentive on the part of one
party to the bet to destroy the worth of
an article.
If man bets $780, 900 that lots
on Main street will depreciate fifty per
cent in three months, he must, TO gain
his wager, create a panic on Main street
lots, and his endeavor, if known, would
result in hanging bee:'' and yet So
called respectable men bet on the price
of grain, and the result on the real
owner of grain is DISASTROUS.
We may be wrong IN our conclusions
1--WE often are) but the depression, or
ruination of farm products, has led US
to conclude that the tendency of grain
gambling Is To DRIVE THE AMENICAN
GARNER FROM THE FARM, and the result
will be that foreign peasantry will do
our farming, e., class of people will
be brought here by alien capitalists to farm
the large tracts of land they will acquire.
There is a growing tendency on the
part of English capitalists TO secure
large land holdings and bring the meth
DDS practiced in England to America.
The result will be peasant class as ten
ants. and ere we know it the American
will abandon the farm. If farming be-
comes improbable no one can blame
MIN for so doing.
do not think we shall ever have a
famine in breadstuffs, but stranger
things have happened than a universal
riot on account of the price of wheat.
We do not counsel any raid on the
bucket-shop management but we are in
different rs TO its result, should one ever
be made, as shops will suffer.
There is an evil, vice, damaging the
crop and stock interest of the west and
south. and this vice should be made a
crime.
The grain gambler should be on level
with the poker chip man, the keno caller,
the faro dealer. The grain man is quasi
respectable everywhere. the common
gambler ostracized everywhere: and yet,
so far as the consequences to the peonle