Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1890-05-15
FARMERS ALLIANCE.
THE BUTTERwoRTH BILL.
The Secretary of the Iowa Farmers ALI
ance Has the Floor.


ance Has the Floor.
To THE ALLIANCES OF AMERICAN
| FARMERS AND PLANTERS: We desire
to call your attention to what is known
as the "Butterworth Bill" concerning
| option and future sales of farm products
now pending before Congress, and to
urge that you use all the influence you
can command, by petitions or otherwise,
to secure the active support of your Sem
ators and Representatives in Congress
in favor of the immediate passage of the
bill. A careful study of the causes of
the present depression in the farming
and planting industry must satisfy any
one that the enormous amount of short
selling and gambling in soil products
| which is carried on in Chicago and 9TH
er cities has been the leading cause OF
the present low values of these
products. The actual products of
not only with what is actually grown in
other countries, but with hundredfold
greater quantity of fictitious or wind"
products which these gamblers, through
their artful devices and methods, con-
jure up and use in the market as a
means of depressing the price. While
the stuff they offer for sale is not real or
actual, yet the operators have become
such accomplished jugglers thatLthey
make it appear as if it were, and so
manipulate it that it has all the weight
and force of real stuff for depressing
market values of wheat and other farm
products.
For instance, certain number of
bushels of wheat are grown in this coun-
try. This wheat must of course, under
the law of supply and demand, come in
competition in the market with
whatever other wheat may be grown
in the other wheat-producing coun-
tries of the world. In other words,
all the wheat actually produced in
each country has it's effect, naturally
and inevitably, in determining the value
of wheat in the various markets of the
world. Now, If the market price was
regulated by this standard alone, that
is. if the market price was depressed
solely by the amount of wheat actually
produced, the farmer could not COM
plain. But the value or market price is
not regulated in this way. The Ope-
ratorS or gamblers in wheat are too nu-
merous and too Unsuitable to content
themselves with Offering for sale only
such wheat as is actually grown. BY
their system of options and selling for
future delivery they constantly offer on
the market millions of bushels which
10 ,,k4 ,al
reaped nor sown, and never will be, and
which will never be, and are never in
tended to be, actually delivered. They
consist only of wind; and the buy
ing and selling OF them are mere
''bets" which are settled simply by pay
ing the differences between the price at
which they were sold and the market
price at the time the "bet" natures.
Yet, when they were offered for sale,
they appeared to be real, actual wheat.
OF course the more of a thing which is
offered for sale the greater the tendency
must be to lower the price. And thus
the selling of these millions of bushels
of wind" wheat loads the market
down with an apparent supply which
has no real existence, and causes the
market price to decline just as effectual-
ly as if real wheat had been sold. 1t is
believed that this short selling of wheat
tends so strongly to depress the market
price that in effect the farmer is actual
ly made to give away about one crop out
of every five he produces. In the
same way the market price of
corn, and other products of the
farm, is hammered down by this method
of selling "short'-or selling fictitious
stuff, which is produced only by the
straightforward tricks performed on the
exchanges, boards of trade and bucket
shops by dexterous and accomplished
operators.
The "Butterworth bill' recognizes
that Congress is not authorized under
the Constitution to expressly prohibit
this business; that its only power to
deal with it is under the authority to
raise revenue. The bill, therefore, i'm
poses a license fee and tax upon this
sort of business, the effect of which will
be to put an end to it. The Chicago,
New York, New Orleans and other ex-
changes and boards of trade will defeat
the passage of this bill, if posi-
BILE. They realize that, if they
can not continue to use the farm
ers and planters for shuttle-cocks,
the game they have played so long
at the expense of these producers will
have to stop. 1t will therefore require
immediate and energetic action on the
part of the farmers and planters to have
the bill passed. Write your Representa-
tives and urge them to pass the bill in
the House, and to use all the influence
they can to secure its passage in the
Senate also. Have every influential
man who favors the bill, whether he be
a producer or merchant, write a per-
sonal letter to the Congressman of his
district requesting immediate and deci-
sive action in this matter. Your organ
ization should also adopt resolutions ia
voring this bill and forward copies of
same to your. Senators and Representa-
tives at Washington. Do whatever you
can, and do it quickly, to secure the
passage of the bill. AUGUST Posi-,
Secretary Iowa Farmers Alliance.
LEADERS WANTED.
Men of Good Judgment, Sound Convic-