The Minneapolis journal., 1904-08-20
THIS BULGE.
AND OTHERS
Doings Of the Apparently Crazy
Men Who Are Making the
Price of Wheat.
Farmers, Who Lost in the Erratic
1900 Market, Get Back
Into Trade.

In wheat there are bulges-and
bulges. The one that has been on for
the last six or seven weeks is Of in
terest to all the world, and Of i'm
portance to large portion Of it..
With but a very small, almost inconse-
quential surplus of spring wheat in
store in the great elevators in Min
neapolis and poor crop conditions in
the foreign wheat-growing countries
Russia, France and Argentine
all eyes naturally are riveted on the
prospects of the yield in Minnesota,
the Dakotas and the Canadian north
west, upon which so much depends.
Look down from the balcony Of the
Chamber of Commerce pit here. Do
you see that mob of coatless men Of
every conceivable age, height, weight
and girth as they. dance, prance, jump.
gle, yell, catcall and below, as they
throw their hats into the air or jam
fistfulls of grain down each others
necks amid general hilarity, while an
old gentleman looks down from his
high position and smiles benignly on
the rioters, precisely as the chief
warden of Bedlam may have done in
days Of yore?
These seemingly crazy men control
the wheat market of the world. They
scan reports from the wheat fields,
study the weather conditions and pre-
dictions, look far into the future, TAX
ing into consideration, as their ex-
perience enables them to do, the thou
sands Of things that may influence the
condition Of the cereal or it's price.
and act, perhaps showing the price OF
wheat for September delivery from
$1.11A a bushel to $1.18B, as they
did yesterday. Then the markets in
the big trading centers of both the
United States and Europe take thei1
cue, and Chicago, St. Louis, Balti-
more, New York, London, Liverpoo.
and Paris trail in.
No Manipulation Yet.
The hand Of the manipulation has
| not appeared in the present advance
yet-altho it may show itself later
There have been some big deals anc
the trading has been very heavy bu
traders have been "in'' and ''out' and
there has been no concentration OF
Holdings. Thus far the market hax
been wholly Legitimate" prices be
/ ing controlled entirely by crop cond1.
ltions and prospects.
r Andunder these influences the price
| of wheat for delivery mediatel1
latter harvest has gone up nearly 81
per cent in six weeks, with possibility
of still further advances in the nea'
| future. The farmers will not ship Sc
many bushels of grain to the marke
/ this fall nor will the grade be s.
| high as was expected before the ad
vance began, but the increased price
will result in the shipment of alnos
as much money into the farming. dis
tricts from the trading centers as In
! normal year. Millers and the con
sumers- some unlucky traders
will lose.
/ No Surplus Light.
The situation is interesting. Their
is no denying that the northwest ha
had poor wheat crops for three year
past. At no time since 1901 has ther
been more than 17,O00,000 bushels o
i wheat in the Minneapolis elevators
which have a capacity Of 100000
bushels, and today the quantity i
store here is only about 100000
With this enormous capacity lyln
idle this enormous investment unpro
ductive, the loss to the owners Q
these elevators has been heavy.
The same condition hits the niller'
For months the Minneapolis mills, ia
nous as the greatest in the worlc
have not been operated to their fu
capacity. Some of them are turn1n
out less flour in a week now than
usual for day when times are goot
The conditions are abnormal, an
about as bad as they can be.
It is likely, as appears from the re
ports Of crop prospects, that tn
United States will not have any sprin
. wheat for export this year. There
no fear expressed that the supply wi
not equal the demand for home con
SUMPTION altho one commission maj
!. last evening said that the America
is famous for his ability to adapt him
self to conditions, and that no Whea
famine would be noticeable becaus
when the price of flour got SO hig m
the workingmen would find othe
things cheaper and as nourishfng.
view of the prophecy by experience
traders that there will be no SUI
plus for export this year. and tahJn
into consideration the small surplr
in store and the constantly increasln
number of consumers, there seems
be little hope for any material IN
crease in the surplus over the 1mmed
ate delivery Of this fall.
Not Corner.
+ have said that there are bulge
and bulges. One kind Is a corner
which the present is not. A corner
sends the priceup by MANIPULATE
and without regard to the prio
that would be brought by til
grain in a competitive marke
under the nominal action Of the la
of supply and demand. Thus whe
Joe Letter ran his corner in 1879
May wheat sold for $1.62 in the Mir
neapolis pit.
The man who tries to corner a graz
market must calculate accurately tx
amount of the cereal in the countr
Then he sets about to buy it up,
control it all, intending then to Sc
it at his own price with nobody
say him nay. It's an excellent schen
in theory, but 1t seldom works. Ever
corner" operator seems to have III
derestimated the amount of grain n
naming. When he has forced Il
price way up beyond all reason, ar
the farmers are put to it to deliver II
goods, they scrape their. bins, and
is surprising how much is found ar
dumped onto the market in this wa
Corners always lose-that's histor
Letter dropped $4,000, 900 in his II
at the game.
The Famous 1900 Market.
But corners are not the on
markets in which money is droppe
A Legitimate market in Minneap
lis in 1000 market controlled