Camas Prairie chronicle. [volume] (Cottonwood, Idaho) 1901-1917, 1909-06-04
WHEAT CORNER ENDS
PATTEN, OF CHICAGO, PROVED
HIS PREDICTIONS.
He Clears Up Nearly $4,000, Ooo-His
Friends Make About $4,000, 600
Says Profits to Farmers over the
Country Is Over $4,000, ooo-crou
Shortage ALI Over the World,


Duration of the Patten campaign,
nine months.
Lowest price of May wheat, % 5se.
Highest price, $1.35 IA.
Average cost to Patten per bushel,
$1.O5.
Bushels held by Patten at one time,
100000.
Bushels held by his followers, So,
100000.
Patten's estimated profits, So, 500 900.
Profits of Patten' friends and fol.
lowers, $1O,OOOOOo.
Profit to the farmers of the country,
$5O,OOO,0OO.
The reason-According to Patten:
Crop shortage all over the world.
According to his opponents: Skillful
speculation and manipulation.
The Patten wheat corner passed into
history Saturday at Chicago. Sitting
before the quotation board in his Office
when the market closed, the man who
had brought to a successful issue the
most profitable deal in the history of
the Chicago grain market said only
this:
s. have claimed there was no corner
IN May wheat and have proved it. L
could have put the price to $3.50 at
any time during the last few weeks,
but L did not want to squeeze any one
or make fictitious price"
And this is what some of the
shorts said:
May Have Feared Failures.
A man who had made three or four
millions of dollars can well afford to
be magnanimous. But we are not sure
whether the wheat king eased up on
us because he did not want to squeeze
or because he was afraid if he put on
the screws any tighter he would have
to take what he could get from a lot
of bankrupts.' -
The Patten corner, however, can be
charged directly with only one failure.
Somebody lost large part of the mil
lions Patten and his friends acquired;
not all of it came from legitimate in
creased value of their holdings. But
the identity of the big losers is guess
work, as they traded through COM
mission houses.
Rumors have associated with the
bear opposition to Patten-su names
as H. c. Prick, Reginald Vanderbilt,
Charles Schwab, D. G. Reid and even
j. Pierpont Morgan and the late H. H.
Rogers.
Waterman Million Winner.
While it is hard to place individuals,
brokers declare there is no doubt that
the forces that worked hardest to
break the corner came from Wall
street, Boston and Pittsburg.
The wheat king and his business
partners, w. H. Bartlett, George Pat
ten and Frank Frazier, however, are
not the only big winners.
Chicago, Minneapolis, Duluth, Omaha
and Canadian traders followed his lead
early in the game. Charles E. Lewis
of Minneapolis, an intimate friend of
the Pattens, is credited with winning
at least $15O,OOO. John Washburne,
the big miller; Thomas Carter and
John T. Milliken of st. Louis, James
Caruthers of Montreal and Robert
Caruthers of Winnipeg made at least
as much.
The heaviest individual winner, next
to Patten, is Theodore Waterman, an
Albany IN. y miller, who is believed
to have cleaned up about a million on
the long side of wheat, and nearly as
much on other cereals.
The battle that the noon gong ended
in the Chicago exchange today began
last September. Only Patten himself |
knows how long before that time he
had been laying plans. Information
from correspondents all over the world
that cost him fabulous sum had con-
WINGED him that the world s need of |
wheat would steadily increase.
When Patten began to "bull" wheat
last fall few saw the situation as he
did. AS to this persistence in the cam
paign the Patten crowd owe a large
part of their profits. -.