Arizona republican., 1905-04-25
The Collapse of the Gates Corner.

The Collapse of the Gates Corner.
 John w. Gates has failed In his effort to corner the wheat available for deliv- cry on May contracts in Chicago. After 'bulling' the price to SIPS a bushel, Gates and his associates found that they had undertaken an impossible scheme. and the close of last week marked the complete collapse of the attempted corner. On Saturday the price tumbled below a dollar. Gates losses are supposed to aggregate mil lions of dollars.
 MT. Gates has the consolation of knowing that he has joined distin- guished company. He has taken his place in the speculator's hall of fame along with Hutchinson, Harper the Cincinnati banker. Joe Letter and oth- CTS who have tried in past years to buy more wheat than could be deliv- cred. in the hope that they could squeeze a golden stream out of the shorts
 On the face of 1t, the undertaking generally has all the aspects of sim pie operation. The official data at hand-the reports from the govern ment from Bradstreets, from the ele- vator companies and country millers- show a certain number of bushels in the visible supply" Allowance is made for the wheat mot visible"-the grain which will make its appearance when the price becomes abnormally ! high. Account Is taken of the country's daily consumption of flour. of the con- tracts already made on the board of trade for future delivery. and so forth. and the conclusion is reached that the quantity of wheat that can be delivered | is within certain limits. Then if spec l speculators can be induced to sell. for future delivery. quantity greatly in excess of the wheat that can be delivered they will be caught short. will they not? And as soon as they find that they have oversold the market they will bid against each other in wild effort to obtain wheat wherewith to fill their contracts. and the price will go booming. Ultimately the operator of the corner will force them to pay whatever price he chooses. It Is merely a question of millions of dollars enough millions to handle the business. That is the way it has looked to one big speculatOr after another, but in recent years they have invariably fail- ed in their calculations.
 For awhile they can boost the mar ket. and incidentally the producers are benefited. In both the Letter and the Gates corners the price of cash wheat
 went up in sympathy with the specu-
 lative price of future wheat, and the
 farmers of the west were able to get
 a dollar a bushel for their grain. But
 the effort at monopoly always fails, for
 the reason that the manipulators of
 the corner have underestimated the in
 visible supply. They are astOnished to
 find that an exceptionally high price
 will bring on the market millions of
 bushels, the existence of which had not
 been suspected It is one of tho in
 cfdental proofs of the immensity of the grain growing industry III the united
 States. The productive capacity of the
 country. and the production as well,
 have grown to such vast proportions
 as to be practically beyond the grasp
 of the mind. In order to defeat an at tempted corner it requires merely that
 against the corner shall be arrayed
 the elevator and transportation facil-
 ities of the country. under the guid- ance of millions equal to the millions on the side of the bulls"
 Hitherto these opposing millions ? have not been lacking. It was the Ar mour wealth that smashed the Letter
 corner, and walked off with the profits . that Letter had in sight Again it is the Armour wealth that has wrecked 9 the Gates corner and taken the profits
 The result might be different if th' Armour house, with it's stupendous re sources in money and elevators, should join hands with a man like Gates, bu Q under the most favorable conditions 1 e is next to impossible to corner tho 5 wheat of the United States.
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