St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1893-08-02
PORK BUBBLE BURST.
MIGHTY r R0AR WENT UP M The PRO-
W. ION Pit
ON A DROP OF NINE DOLLARS

ON A DROP OF NINE DOLLARS
IN Mess Pork-Jack Cudahy and
Charlie Wright, the Big Pro-
vision Bulls, Go to the SvaII-A
COLLAPSE That Has Been Looked
FOr-Wild Excitement on the
Chicago Board Of Trade.
CHICAGO, Aug. To-day was one of
the most disastrous in the history of the
board of trade in this city. Wealthy
and individual firms were bowIed over
like nine pins. and the prices of hog
products went tumbling like an ava
lanche. Dealers on the Chicago board
are accustomed to exciting scenes and
Kaleidoscope changes in values, for
this market seems to be the storm
center where both the upward and
downward push in the price of the
worlds food products is most severely
felt; but old members of the board who
had been through the whirl and clatter
Of many collapsing corners in both
grain and provisions. actually stood
aghast at the rapidity with which the
price of mess pork went down. A sheer
drop of 1925 per barrel inside of three
quarters of an hour is enough to take
away the breath of old Stentor
himself; but then. Stentor, in the vul-
garism of the street. isn't in it'' with
some of the howlers on the board of
trade. His deepest tones would sound
like cunsumptiye whine beside the
roar which goes up on the board when
there is anything exciting on. There
was hush. however. near the opening
this morning when Secretary Stone ap-
peared on the balcony of the trading
room and notified all concerned that
those having trades with the well-known
provision brokerage firms of j. @. Stee-
Yer q Co., E w. Bailey 81 Co., ana A.
HelmhOlz u Co. should proceed to close
them out. The silence lasted for a seq
ond after the close of the announce
ment, and then
A Mighty Roar
went up from the provision pit. AS
early as last March it became apparent
TO the trade that mess pork was being
"bulled" through these houses, and it
soon became noised about in the pro-
vision trade that A. W. Wright was be-
hind the deal. a year before he started
a corner i'll ribs and, with the help of
John Cudahy, carried it through to sue
cess, making a large amount of money.
Apparently, according TO the general
opinion on the board, he started to run
similar deal in mess pork. The col
lapse has been looked for some weeks,
and as the monetary situation became
more and more strained anu the bur-
rowing of money to put up in mar
gins more and more difficult, every
body not interested in the deal drew
out. leaving the market so dull that
there was scarcely enough business to
establish quotations. When the bubble
finally burst the pieces were SO small
, that it was next to impossible to find
them. The first offer heard by the quo
tation official after the announcement
of the failure was SIS.75 per barrel,
against S19 at the close yesterday; the
next bid was S1S, then Sl7.50-Seeing
| that the SIS man was overwhelmed with
| customers anxious to supply his wants
and so it went S25 cents to 81 at a
| time, with very little hesitation at any
| point until the price touched $1,000, a
loss of $3.50 per barrel in forty minutes.
! These are the official figures. But it is
reliably vouched for that
A sale Was Made
at $40, aud several as low as SO, a drop
Of 50, or nearly 80 per cent. or $3.50, 600
on visible supply of $4,000 barrels.
! Then the market became quieter, aud
/ good buying at the enormous decline
! carried the price back to S12. and subse-
/ quent events had only temporary
| effect on it. Things were moving along
/ with OminOus smoothness when another
/ and heavier shock came in the an
| nOuncement by the secretary in quick
| succession of the failures of the North
! American Provision company, a pack
! ing concern with capital of S25O.0OO,
| in which Jack Cudahy was largely
| interested; of Wright IL Haughey,
a respectable firm, chiefly engaged
| in the receiving and shipping of
wheat. but who were understood
| to be interested with Cudahy in
/ his deals in the provision pit. and, final
/ ly. on Cudahy himself, the great packer
| and daring operator in provisions; a
man interested III the packing trade in
a half-dOZen states, including plants at
| Chicago, Milwaukee, Omaha, Louisville
and Nashville; man whose wealth had
! been recently estimated at no less than
| $4,000. 600. of which about s., ,OOO, 600
| was made in deal in ribs last fail 1t
| was not doubted that he had used every
means of raising money before laying
down." or that he had lent a helping
hand to his friend. Charlie Wright, be-
| fore the final pinch came. But the
| financial moose was drawn tighter and
! tighter; he had big deal in lard and
was interested in ribs, and the strain
became
| Too Great 10 Bear.
The announcement of mis- failure had
! scarcely died on the secretarY's lips be-
fore the storm broke loose again, this
time in the lard crowd. That cOmmod-
| ity had held extremely steady through
! out the slump in pork. but it in turn
mounted the toboggan and went down
as if self-lubricated. The price for Sep
| tember was 1915 per tierce in the early
trading; 1t was Sc within six minutes
| after Cudahy's failure was announced.
and September short ribs, which sold
early at S7.25, broke to S5.ST15. Before
the close, however, both rallied. the
/ former to S6.6217, the latter to $3.50. 1t
was said by one close to Mr.. Cudahy
that his private affairs were en-
tirely separate from his partnership
| matter. and that the various companies