The Dalles times-mountaineer. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1882-1904, 1893-02-11
SENATE AND "WIND" WHEAT.


The Republican senate has passed
the anti-option bill. The vote stood
40 yeas to 80 nays. Politically the
vote stood: Republicans, 27 for the
bill and 9 against it; Democrats, IL
for it and 20 against it. The two
Populists supported it. Illinois SEN
ators were divided, Cullom voting yea
and Palmer nay. Both of the sell
ators from Wisconsin, Sawyer, Repub-
lican, and Villas, Democrat, as both
from New York, Hiscock and Hill,
voted against it. The sectional line
was not closely drawn, but very nearly
so. Of the senators from the grain
belt none voted with Palmer, Sawyer
and Villas, except Vest, of Missouri,
and he went directly contrary to the
expressed instructions of the leglsla-
ture of his state. His ground of op-
position was constitutional. Several
other senators based tneir opposition
on the same ground, but MIR. Vest will
hardly have cause of complaint If he
is accused of being Influenced by the
board of trade of Kansas City, his
home.
The real strength of the opposition
is derived from the fact that the bill
aims to destroy speculative dealing in
farm and plantation products, says a
Chicago exchange. 1t singles out the
commodities which have been used for
purely speculative trading, and makes
optional trades in those lines illegal.
The friends of the bill insist that OPP
tion trading lessons the producers
profits, the opposition insisting that it
is Just the other way. Neither side
seems to have taken into account the
interest of the consumer. 1t is worthy
of note that New England, which is
almost wholly dependent upon the
west for breadstuffs and largely for
provender and provisions, was divided.
The two Massachusetts, senators voted
against the bill, the two senators from
Maine, those from Vermont and New
Hampshire for it, while Connecticut
was divided, and only one Rhode ISL
and senator voted.
The farmers who raise grain and
hogs for the market and planters who
raise cotton are almost unit, appar-
emily, wanting option trading stopped,
and as their interests alone are con-
suited, professedly, why, then, should
the bill not pass and become lawY
The farmer and planter say, down with
options, and the board of trade men of
Chicago and New Orleans and every
where else insist that the farmer and
the planter do not know their own
business. Perhaps not. There is
often wide difference between theory
and practice. That difference is quite
as liable to occur In legislation as in
things generally. But certain it Is
that the agricultural element of the
country does not stand in need of a
conservltor, and if one were to be ap-
pointed the chancery side of the court
of public opinion would hardly appoint
the bears and bulls of Change to act
In that capacity.
The plain truth is that great part
of the trade in agricultural products
at our large centers of commerce is
species of gambling, and ought not to
be countenanced. There is such a
thing as perfectly legitimate specula-
tion. In sense all trading is specu-
lative. No one knows what the course
of the market may be, and the buyer
may be ruined by the decline. But
where there is an actual basis of
at The bottom of the trans
action it is perfectly legitimate. The
Journey from production to consump-
tion can rarely be made without change
of cars, and at each transfer point
there must be a middleman, but it is
burden upon either pro-
duction or consumption, or both, to
have to support large army of by
standers who have nothing to do with
the actual products, who only look on
and bet as to the turn the market will
take. These wage-layers are rather
high livers as rule, and it is not to
be wondered at, that the land-tillers
are tired of being burdened with tEeir
England appears determined to
maintain her foothold in Egypt, not
withstanding the objections raised by |
France and Turkey. There is no