Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-07-12
HAVING A HARD TIME.
Quay's Anti-Sunday Opening Of the
Columbian Exposition
MEETS WITH MUCH OPPOSITION.
Some Senators Want Certain departments
open for Those Who
CAN'T VISIT THEM AT OTHER TIMES

|
umbian Exposition, making it dependent
upon the closing of the Exposition on
Sunday.
On the first question Mr.. Washburn occu-
pied 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 agriculturists of the
United States because the prices of their
products were unduly lowered, not by the
law of supply and demand, but by the opera
tions 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.. Washburn, in his speech, said the
| anti-option bill was not directed against
| legitimate trade, but against that gigantic
modern invention known as "short selling"
of agricultural products of the country.
This was a system under which by misrep-
resentation, tricks of trade and fraud, it
was possible to juggle with values and
practically eliminate from the commerce of
the country the operation of the law of
supply and demand, a system which robbed
the producer and filed the pocket of the
parasite.
Figures OF . Fictitious Character.
At least 80 per cent of all the business of
the produce exchanges and boards of trade
lin the United States was of a fictitious
| character, where property was sold without
the ownership and without any intention of
delivery on the part either of the seller or
| the buyer In Chicago, at least 35 per cent
was of that fictitious character, prices being
| fixed without regard to the law of
supply and demand. The great agricultural
| products of the country were made the foot
ball of gamblers-wheat and cotton playing
the same roll as chips on a faro table or as
peas of thimble-rigger Between the
grain-producer and the 1oaf-eater there
| stepped in party saying at what price the
one should sell aud the other buy-a
parasite that robbed them both. He made
the broad statement that the prices of
made artifcially and arbitrarily on the
boards of trads, and most notably on the
Board of Trade in Chicago, and that, too,
without the lightest regard to the law OF
supply and demand or any natural condition
whatever.
Prices Abroad Even Depressed.
Mr.. Washburn sent to the clerks desk
| and had read several paragraphs from the
Chicago newspapers describing Pardridge's
bear operations in grain on the Chicago
Board Of Trade; also Associated Press dis
patches from Europe stating the depressing
effect on prices there, of those operations.
In view of these facts it was not hard, he
said, to understand why farmers were SELL
ing wheat at 10 cents bushel instead 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 Minneapolis were three times
in
than in Chicago and New York combined.
What an anomaly it was, he said, that Chi
cago-the third wheat market of the United
States, with an average annual delivery of
A. OOO, 900 bushels-should make the price
for from 400, ,00O 900 to 800, 900, 900 bushels of
the United States, and for the wheat of the
whole world. The wheat received at Chi
cago was only nest egg, and yet 1t was
made the basis of transactions aggregating
from 30, 600, 900 to 100, 00O, 900 bushels day.
An Unbearable System.
If Chicago 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 Mime
sofa and the two Dakotas (to the aggregate
of $50, ,000.0 .000), the system become abso-
lutely unbearable. He dismissed as illog-
ical, absurd and devoid of common sense,
interfere with regular business As to the
other argument against it, made in the
nature of threat, that if the system of
gambling in futures were squelched in the
United States, operators would transfer
their business to Canada, Mr.. Washburn
said, sarcastically, that many New York
business men had felt it healthy for a few
years past, to transfer their household goods
to Canada, and that the country had stood
the shocks. There was no class of citizens
who could be better spared than the adven-
turers 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.
Bucket Shops Denounced.
Mr.. Washburn denounced the bucket
shops, and said that the royal road to
wealth had been through illegitimate spec
ulation, through market wrecking, bank
wrecking, railroad wrecking, and the whole
Senators might talk Of tariff robbers, but
he could count on the fingers of one hand
those who had become immensely wealthy
from manufactures It was not the tariff
barons or the business men who had so abb
sorbed wealth, but the creatures whom this
system of speculation and gambling had
evolved. He closed by answering objec-
tions made to the bill on constitutional
grounds.
The Senate then resumed consideration of
the sundry civil bill-the pending question
being on the committees amendment as to
the Columbian Exposition, and Mr.. Quay's
amendment to it, requiring the Exposition
to be closed on Sunday.
Some Portions Might Be Opened.
Mr.. Manderson thought that some por.
tions 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 objection to the art
galleries being open, so that the people
might quietly 60 there and be instructed, as
well as interested by gazing at the works of
the great masters. He would offer an
amendment (when it would be in order) to
have the mechanical portions of the Ex-
position closed on Sunday.
Mr.. Quay modified his amendment by
making it read: "The first day of the week,
commonly called Sunday"
MI. Palmer argued against Mr.. Quay's
amendment He said that he had remarked
in private, and now said in public, that he
thought it would be good thing to shut up
the whole people of Chicago in the Exposi-
tion buildings on Sunday, so that they
might spend it more innocently than if they
were lett at large. The laws of the State,
he added, were sufficiently stringent to
guard against any abuse, and he thought it
far better to leave the whole matter to the