The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1909-05-30
PATTEN IS kim"
AND YET MERC|FUL
Could Have Forced Price of
Wheat to $5 Per Bushel Sat
urday, Is Report.
HAS FORTUNE TO SHOW
FOR HIS MANY DEALS
Only Bit of Sentiment in Days
Business Is Bonus to All
His Clerks.

CHICAGO, May 29.-What is general
" conceded to have been the most sue
ccssfu wheat deal in the annals of
the Chicago board Of trade closed to-
day, and il closed without squeezing of
shorts, which In other days was wont
TO furnish a show TO the gallery vis-
itors and leave La Sale street stagger-
ing.
James A. Patten during today's brief
session made fixed price Of Sl3l a
bushel Through his pit clerk, ed
Walker, he bought or sold at that price,
but the buying was almost purely thcor
cticaI on his part. He did take in 2
few thousand bushels from some trail
er' who waited until the last moment
for his profits, but in the main he dis
posed of about a half million TO shorts,
who had hoped against hope to the last
moment, and then, in the parlance of
the pit. ''took their medicine
No Excitement Apparent.
1t was all quite tranquil, really duller
than usual, and not even remotely re-
sembling the turbulence of the sessions
of previous months. Few were In the
pit and Mr.. Pattcn was not one of them.
He sat i'll his office facing the black
board, chewing vigorously at a quId of
gum, his hat pushed back on his head
and his eyes fixed on the quotations of
/ options other than May,
| 1t was not until an hour after the
! close of the market that the only bit
| of sentiment connected with the whole
thing leaked ont. A procession of clerks
headed for the cashiers Office with
broad crins on their faces and slips of
white paper In their hands called at
| tcntion TO it, and it was learned that
every employc Of the Bartlett-Pnttcn
| house had been given Il bonus of 10
per cent of his annual salary.
Price Not Inflated.
The price at which May wheat closed
today did not represent fictitious
! value 1T was, according to traders,
! consistent with the price the world
| over. Mr.. Pattcn, had he wished, might
1 have put the price at s. and remain
ing shorts would have been compelled
to pay it or acknowledge bankruptcy.
However, according to his friends. he
remained consistent with his assertion
| that he had no wish TO manipulate
| prices, but only TO secure the legitimate
profits of his foresight. lie backed
his judgment that there was less wheat
in the, world than was generally believed
and found himself in control. Wall
street sold short, as did some inhuen-
tial western speculators. but Mr., Pat
ten stood firm. He took vacation at
a critical period of the campaign and
ignored a decline of II cents that fol.
lowed his departure from Chicago, That
loss was more than recovered, for it was
only n few days ago that the cereal
sold at $1.35h, the highest price in
eleven years.
Mr., Patten has made fortune, how
| much he cannot say until his cash
wheat is marketed, His own admission.
however, seems to make Sl,000,000 a
| conservative estimate 1t may run much
larger. The losses, it is said, have
fallen mostly on professional specula
tors
The battle is not over yet. for the
bulls and bears are still divided as TO
whether empty bins will be replenished
by the July harvest.