St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1892-07-12
No Mercy Shown the Men or
Their Bold Tricks OF
Jugglery.
Indisputable Statistics and
Logical Reasoning on the
Known Facts.
Threats of Removal to Cana
da Sarcastically Treated
Sunday Closing.

! we're the house anticipation bill and MIR.
Quay's amendment to the appropriation
for the Columbian exposition, making it
dependent upon the closing of the expo
SitiOn on Sundays.
On the first question Mr.. Washburn
occupied the attention of the senate for
more than two hours with an elaborate
argument in favor of the bill. which he
claimed TO be in the interest of the agri-
| culturistS of the United States because
the prices of their products were unduly
lowered, not by the law of supply and
! demand, but by the operations of short
sellers in the Chicago board of trade.
| He did not ask any action on the bill
| itself. as it was not before the senate
! for action.
Mr.. Quay'S amendment requiring the
Columbian exposition to be closed on
Sunday provoked discussion which
| lasted two hours and half, and was
not finished when the senate adjourned.
.'short'' Selling.
Mr.. -Washburn in his speech said the
| anticipation bill was not directed against
legitimate trade, but against that glgan-
tic modern invention known as ''short
selling" of the agricultural products of
| the country. This was system under
| which, by Misrepresentation. tricks of
| trade and fraud, it was possible to Jug
| gle with values and practically elimi-
| nate from the commerce of the country
| the operation of the law of supply and
| demand-a system which robbed the
producer and filled the pocket Of the
| parasite. At least 80 per cent Of all the
| business of the produce exchanges and
! boards of trade in the United States
! was of a fictitious character, where
| property was sold without ownership
and without any intention of delivery
| on the part of either the seller OF the
| buyer.
In Chicago at least 95 per cent was of
! that fictitious character-prices being
fixed without regard to the law of sup
ply and demand. The great agricult-
ural products of the country were made
the football of gamblerS-wheat and
cotton playing the same role as chips on
a faro table, or as the peas of a thimble-
rigger. Between the grain producer
and the loaf eater there stepped in
party saying at what price the one
should sell and the other buy-a para
site that
Robbed Them Both
He made the broad statement that the
prices of agricultural productS of the
country were made artifclally and
arbitrarily Oh the boards of trade. and
| most notably on the board of trade in
Chicago, and that, too, without the
slightest regard to the law of supply
and demand or any natural condition
whatever.
Mr.. Washburn sent to the clerks
desk and had read several paragraphs
from the Chicago newspapers describ-
! ing Partridge'S bear operations in grain
Oh the Chicago board of trade; also dis
patches stating the depressing effect on
prices there OF those operations. La
view OF these facts it was not hard, he
said, to understand why fai merS were
selling wheat at 20 cents bushel in
stead of 80 cents. He gave the relative
figures of the actual annual deliveries
OF wheat in New York, Chicago and
Minneapolis. These figures, he said,
showed that the deliveries in Mime
Chicago, and 80 per cent more than in
Chicago and New York combined.
A surprising Anomaly.
What an anomaly it was that Chicago
the third wheat market OF the United
OidlCo tNitH dill dNcldSc dlilIudi utsif-
cry of IL, o00, 0o0)-shouid make the price
for from 400, 600 to 600, 0O0,0 Geo bush
els of the United States crop and for
the wheat of the whole world. The
wheat received at Chicago was only
nest egg, and yet it was made the basis
of transactions aggregating from 0.000.-
geo to 100000 bushels day. Ii Chi
cago made the price only for the wheat
which reached its own market no harm
would be done; but when it depressed
the prices of the wheat product of Min
neapolis and the two Dakotas to the
aggregate of $50, 0G0,000 the system be-
came absolutely unbearable.
He dismissed as Illogical, absurd. and
devoid of common sense. the objections
made to the bill that it would interfere
with regular business. As TO the other
argument against ii. made in the nature
OF threat, that if the system of gam
bling In futures were squelehed in the
United States operators would transfer
their business to Canada. Mr.. Wash
burn said, sarcastically. that many New
York business men had felt it healthy,
for few years past, to transfer their
household goods 10 Canada, and that the
country had stood the shocks.
They'd Never BE Missed.
There was no class of citizens who
could be better spared than the adj
venturers who haunted the exchanges
of New York, and he would say TO them:
''Stand not on the ORDER of your going,
but go at once"
Mr.. Washburn denounced the bucket
shops. and said that the royal road to
wealth had been through illegitimate
speculation through market wrecking.
bank WreckIng, railroad wrecking, and
the whole family of such iniquities.
Democratic senators might talk of tar
if barons and tariff robbers; but he
could count on the fingers of one hand
those who had become immensely
wealthy from manufactures. 1t was
not the tariff barons or their business
that had so absorbed wealth. but the
creatures whom this system of Specu-
lating and gambling had evolved.
He closed by answering objections
made to the bill on constitutional
grounds.
Closing Of the Fair.
The senate then resumed conSidera-
ton of the civil sundry bill-the pend
ing question being on the committees
amendment as to the Columbian expo
sition and MIR. Quay's amendment to it
requiring that the exposition be closed
On the Sabbath day.
Mr.. Henderson thought that some por
tons Of the exposition should be open
on Sunday. He saw no objection to the
opening of the grounds, so that people
might gather there. He saw no objec-
ton to the art galleries being open so
that the people might quietly go there
and be instructed, as we'll as interested
by gazing at the works of the great mas
tiers. He would offer an amendment
(wffen it would be in order) to have the
no norton nf tho
closed Oh Sunday.
Mr.. Quay modified his amendment by
making it read: ''The first day of the
week, commonly called Sunday"
Mr.. Palmer. argued against Mr.. Quay's
amendment. He said that he had re-
marked in private, and now said in pub
lie, that he. thought it would be a good
thing to shut up the whole people of
Chicago in the exposition buildings on
l.