The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-12-29
VICTIMS TURN TO
 SQUEEZE PATTON.
Wheat and Cotton King in Desperate Battle to Halt Loss of Mil-
 lfona fu Corn

1Itu8 m corn.
 A Chicago special dispatch says:
 With the dawning of Christmas Day, James A. Patten, whose recent corners In cotton and wheat have made him a dominant figure in the bourses of the world. have entered upon the most des- perate speculative battle of his career. Surrounded on all sides by enemies and facing rising market, he Is fighting fiercely to keep down the price of corn. In spite of his most strenuous efforts the cost of that commodity has price at which he sold 1t, and he is known to be between 10,0o0.0o0 and 20.000.000 bushels short"
 Unless there be a marked and rad ical change in market conditions in the near future. hfs enemies say. the erst- while wheat king" by May will be metamorphosed into the '.corn goat to the tune of s2.o0o,o00 or more. Already Patten has suffered huge paper" loss es and all indications point to those losses becoming greater instead of less, During the last month he has been playing Santa Claus to large num- bers of farmers through the West and Southwest. The farmers saw the Christmas-money possibilities of the corn market about the same time that Patten did. but from a different angle.
 Farmers' Turn to Buy.
 That was last November. Patten sold corn and the farmers bought. Ever since then the price of corn has been going up. With the beginning of the Christmas season the farmers began to close out their lines at profits from 6 to 10 cents per bushel and Patten. with his brother. George. who is interested with him fin the deal, have contributed the money which has lent more than wonted air of yuletide cheer to thous- ands of rural hearthsides.
 The farmers closing out sales, how ever, are only preliminary to what the bulls in the corn market confidenti- ally expect Is to come. In the Decem- Der campaign. to keep corn down, Pat ten and his brother have sold with a lavish hand. They are still selling and matters have come to the point where their selling has no effect on the market.
 Meanwhile group of corn .bulls' composed to a large extent of cotton men whom Patten squeezed severely in his recent incursion into the South ern cotton market, have organized to keep the price of corn up and have joined with the farmers in their ef- fort to make things unpleasant for Pat ten. They assert that. compared with the price of pork and other provisions. corn is worth from 90 cents to $1 a bushel. They are buying corn on that theory. Patten Is trying to sell as fast as they buy.
 Loss Already a Million.
 Exact figures as to how much corn Patten is short" of course, are not available. That is secret. closely guarded in his private office. and he has no intention of divulging 1t. Conserv- afffVa aaffrnnfaG nl fnr May delivery at from 1o.000.000 to 12,- 100000 bushels. The corn "bulls' talk in figures of from l5. .000,00 to 20,00o,000 and even higher. ~ 8s yg
 For delivery on or before December 31. conservative estimates of Patten's sales are from 5.o00.00o to 100000 bushels. On this he has Host on an av- craze of about cents bushel Part of this is an actual cash loss. The rest of his deals, by mutual consent, have been transferred over to the May de- livery.
 There will be no trouble about the December delivery. The farmers who wanted Christmas money received it upon demand, Others who wished to close out before the 1st of January find the Pattens ready with the corn to set- tie with them. Most of the spectators, however, have an eye on the huge pile OA WHICH tHo E4lLSHS I1ldut III the recent wheat and cotton corners and readily have consented to advance the time for delivery from December to May. in the hope of getting a larger share of that pile"
 Must Buy Rising corn.
 In order to deliver his May corn. however. Patton must have at hand every bushel that he haa sold short before the last day forS delivery ar rives, and in getting this corn togeth- CT he has to figure on certain amount of delay between the farmers cribs and the elevators. due to bad roads. bad weather and other causes. That means that Patten must continue buying corn now while corn is going up, for, if he waits for prices to go down, a sit- uation may arise which will make 1t impossible for him to get, hold of corn at any price. Also, there is the danger that corn may go to $1, as the bulls confidently assert.
 Patten began his corn campaign last August. Looking over the field his agents discovered that Illinois, Indiana and Ohio had sown larger crop of corn than ever before in the history of the States and that all the conditions were right for a tremendous crop. Studying these reports, Patten could see nothing else than a falling market for corn and he began to sell.
 But the farmers down in Texas, Kan sas and Nebraska, at just about the same time. discovered that. while there had been a greater acreage sown in corn, there were infallible indications that the crop would be short one. Backed by country bankers, they grasp ed the situation of which they are now masters.