Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1893-02-09
PUBLIC OPINION.
THE ANTI-oPTIoN BILL.

THE ANTI-oPTIoN BILL.
Cincinnati Tribune.
Since the anti-option bill, which has
passed the Senate, is an amended House
bill, which passed the House with two
thirds majority, it is fair to assume that
it will become law. It's enemies have
used every power within their control to
defeat it. All classes of people, not
omitting the farmer, have been brought
before the committee to tell the evil
effects that will follow the enactment of
the law. One of the strong arguments
used, and the one most persistently
placed before Congress through the
press and otherwise, is that to Kill
speculative trading will lower the prices
of grain and provisions-the articles
that are the favorite staples of specula-
tion. Some of the Senators who op-
posed the bill did so upon the ground
that it was subversive of home rule and
violated the reserved rights of the State.
The argument meant to catch the
Congressman through the farmer is
purely speculative and theoretical.
There have been no precedents to show
what is the effect of suspended specula-
tive dealing. So far as there is any
precedent at all, it goes against the ar
gument, for there were many years pre-
ceding the Chicago invention of grain
business on basis of pure wind, when
grain and provisions were higher than
now. Indeed, statistics will show that
wheat is lower now than in almost any
year preceding the speculative market
era.
Upon all business principles it must
> follow that an article of commerce must
pay theexpenses of its marketing. Any
farmer looking into the Chicago 'bear
pits where dealers are yelling and
struggling to back transactions in "May"
wheat, august" corn, or January"
pork in such quantities as to suggest
some miraculous power to enable them
to meet their contracts, need not be told
that grain and provisions must pay the
expenses of these energetic operators.
And when he is informed that the
noisiest among them never has bushel
of wheat to sell, and that the purchaser
of millions of bushels never sees a grain,
and never expects to, the farmer can see
more plainly that his grain is paying
more than its legitimate share of the
cost of marketing. The theory that
speculation stimulates prices does not
seem to rest upon basis of reason.
On the contrary the history of grain
speculation furnishes repeated examples
of the market price of articles in actual
and normal transactions being affected
by the ''cornering" or other manipulation
of the spectators.
1t is probable that this view of the
facts has more than anything else to do
with creating the strong majority in
Congress in favor of the law. That a
pure system of gambling should be the
controlling factor in fixing the prices of
bread and meat is not relished by the
thoughtful legislator.
But the sbusiness" of Chicago will
not be wiped out even by National
law Some device will be found as a
substitute for the present open method
of betting on the fiuctnation in the prices
of grain and provisions.
CLEvELAND's BIG UNDERTAKING.
Pittsburgh Chronicle Telegraph.
The report that Mr.. Cleveland is using
his influence to secure action on the
silver question is very gratifying. The
efforts of the government to bull the
the silver market by heavy continuous
purchases of pig silver have not only
failed in that respect but they have
done great hurt to the cause of bimet-
allism. The great accumulation of sill
yer in the United States Treasury vaults
hangs over the financial world like an
avalanche whose descent would over
whelm any possible arrangement for
the establishment of fixed equivalents
of value in the coinage of gold and
silver.
If Mr. Cleveland will, as reported,
make this question the leading issue of
his administration, and shall postpone
the distribution of his patronage until
the desired legislative action has been
secured, there is very little doubt that
he will succeed. In SO doing, however,
he may have to endure some sharp criti-
cism from the civil service reformers,
who think the chief business of the
President is to see that the offices are
dealt out on certain academic principles
without regard to politics.
Doubtless Mr.. Cleveland has learned
a thing or two during his first term of
office, and will hardly be disposed to
sacrifice the ends of government in de-
votion to its machinery. By this time
he is well aware. that despite whatever
he may do to improve and polish civil
service, his administration will be a
failure unless he is able to accomplish
its objects, and to do that he must use
such means as he has. The patronage
is his most powerful instrument and he
will show his sense and discharge his
duty best by using it for all it is worth.
GAN AMERICAN SOLUTION"
New York Press.
Like the other great, statesmen who
preceded him in the office of Secretary of
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