The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-02

Sum purchases Watched Carefully l When wheat went to 90 cents under the i Patten impulse the laugh settled back | into the smile again. Suddenly wheat l started toward the dollar mark and as suddenly the board of trade in general | began to watch Patterns gum purchases about as interestedly as 1t followed his | buyings of wheat
 l couldn't find out about that gum. however. Whether 1t was mint favored. | blood orange, pepsin, don't care" or what was passed up by the observers. | But evidently it was not the old wheat | gum Of Pattens boyhood-the kind he used to make at his boyhood home in sandwich. H., throwing a handful of wheat grains into his mouth and then ehaWlng, and ehawing and chawing elim- | mating the starch and the shucks until the slutinous residue would stand masti- cation for week. Perhaps the assorted | flavor kind is cheaper than Patten wheat gum, anyhow.
 Wehn wheat had passed the dollar sign | men who had laughed at Patten began to pity him. In getting oyer the dollar mark these bags of wheat were inclined to wabble. One day wheat was $1O4 and next day perhaps it went back to s1. .O1. or something like that But Patten con tinued to buy.
 For Patten is this type of man. He be- gan buying on Patten judgment. He had
 
 Sl5o, regardless of the boosts of specu- lation. Even Patten can't change a 1 Patten Judgment in such a matter as that. Only hothouse wheat, grown to tens of millions of bushels overnight. would have shaken the Patten intuition based in crop dispensation of Provi- dence over three continents.
 Anybody Can Buy-From Patten. On December 1 last Patten called in some of the wheat that he had been buying. There were about I, ,000, 900 bush els of 1t, of which 6,O0v, 900 bushels are said to have come grudglngly from Ar mour granaries. The Patten horde of employees checked the wheat as it came in, and Patten signed the checks in pay ment. Checking and paying. checking and paying have been going on ever since, varied now and them by the hus- tered inquiries of millers and exporters who need the grain. The Patten reply has been at such times:
 Let's see, what was the opening price this morning? We'll, it's g cents above the market price f. O. b." And on this basis real wheat has been turned over to real millers for the making of real 1our to be used in real bread, cookies pies, cakes, and commercial ice creams.
 For Patten hasn't cornered the marketi Anybody can buy Patten wheat that is real wheat on this 2 cent margin Patten
 
 pants decided to buy up all the pants made in all the pants factories in the country just because they were good pants and cheap at the wholesale price, would the world charge that he had cor nered the pants market?
 The simile Is especially apt, coming from "Jim" Patton, for "Jim" wears only pants. They are everyday sort of pants, too, for Jim" says that he never yet has floundered into evening trousers. with the attendant full moon shirt and top hat Mrs. Patten is said to have declared. time and again, that it's just awful that Jim" won't; but "Jim" won't; and when "Jim" won't, he won't. and that's all there is to it.
 Stocking Tariff Minor Affair.
 But, returning to the wheat, "Jim" Patten today appears to be the most dis tinguished wheat citizen in the world. Talk about the Payne tariff on stock ings Why, a woman can't fill pin- cushion with bran without taking "Jim,, Patten into account For the first time in years bakers of rye bread are put ting all rye flour into 1t and hugging themselves that they've got the rye pow der to do 1t with. In 30 years history Of the board of trade wheat never has approached the figures of last week; the only natural looking wheat berry visible, In Tact, Is the modern ''puffed" wheat. described in the advertisement as being shot out Of gun, with picture of Pat ten pulling the triggerl
 The Patten telephone is overworkedt telegraph messengers are having shoes half-soled in the hurry runs with wheat orders to Patterns offices, while messen- ger boy mothers are walloping Patten flour Into more bread to build m the ah6ormally broken down tissues in their blue coated progeny. Four thousand miles away and five days ago the price or bread went up 1 penny in Liverpool. with goodness only knows how much of a Jump in the price of spaghetti and macaroni in the bootleg provinces of sunny Italy. The loaf problem. how ever. Is the more serious for the reason that the holes in the macaroni may be reduced in bore under pinch.
 The Chicago bakers equally are dis turbed. The Chicago cent loaf. regu- lated to one pound weight, has sold wholesale for 4 cents, based on a floilr price of S3fo @ barrel. With flour at $6.7o barrel and still going up, the Chi cago baker Is at point where he no longer can afford to pay for the printing of union label for sticking on just where 1t is most likely to get into the digestive tract of the innocent purchaser.
 Everybody Given Equal Chance?
 But what is to be done about if when Patten is certain that he hasn't cornered the market? Innocent purchaser him self, where would the miller, the baker. and the waffle man have him get off?
 q told everybody that asked that wheat was going to s1.25" says MT. Pat ten; T told 'em that away last fall Why didn't they buy wheat? My money was not different in either taint, texture, weight or fineness. But everybody left me to do the buying. Now they're holler- ing because I've got it. Why didn't the seller keep 1t? Why didn't somebody else buy it?'
 In the meantime. however, flour is go- ing up
 Let us not lose the question at issue. Has Jim Patten cornered the wheat mar ket?
 Once unon time small schoolboy wished t. he had all the cattle in the world, whereupon the other boy wished he had all the pasture land in the world.
 Well, I'd turn my cattle In on your grass" challenged the first boy.
 NO, you wouldn't" retorted the other boy, and inside of ten seconds the two of them were struggling to determine which of them would take the count.
 If Patten has all the wheat in the world until a new crop is grown what are the 1,e25, 1S3, 339 people having all the capacities fin the world going to do about it?
 For Patten says it isn't a corner.