The daily Nome industrial worker., 1917-05-15
THE WHEAT GAMBLE.

There is certainly nothing more spectacular since the United States entered the ranks of the warning nations than the extraordinary gambling in wheat. It is just as significant as spectacular, and with wonderful distinctness reveals for us all the utter indifference of the system to the social needs, and hence the complete anti-social na- ture of capitalism.
 These brokers are all respectable business men. They are prominent in the social and oftentimes the church life of the city. They are prominent in the community ana are men whose words and opinions have great weight.
 Yet as far as filling any useful function they might as well not eX- ist. They are merely businessmen who make gambling business They add not a cent to the world s wealth. They do not produce one quarter cent of yal6es, They per form no useful function whatever.
 Yet they can buy wheat which they cannot pay for, from men who have no wheat to sell, paper bar gains all of them, and shunt up the price of the food that the people eat away above the cost of produc tion, and away above the actual values.
 The procedure whereby it is un- derstood that deliveries of wheat must take place as result Of buy ing and selling fictitiously, does not justify this gambling in wheat. It only signifies that such brokers can sit in at the game who have money enough to cash their checks when called upon. It eliminates men with out money enough to pay when they lose, a very reasonable provi- sion in any gambling game to be sure.
 But it is all outrageous just the same. It is without particle oi justification. Its harmful effects are so obvious and so serious that if is a wonder it should at all be permitted.
 Bread is still the staff of life Wheat is as necessary today as in the time when Joseph's brethren in the lean years came to Egypt to buy their needed supplies. Buying and selling. speculating and cornerine wheat is today an infamous transac- ton. It is however this very trans action which shows us the entire ineficiency and insufIiciency of the capitalist economy.
 It is essential that human beings be fed and the obtaining of bread is a most important part of that. Il is essential that the food be distri- buted among the people as effect ively. as fairly and as rapidly as possible.
 It is essential that the producers raise a sufTiciency. It is just as es' sential that the sufIiciency reach the consumers. There are farmers rais ing wheat. There are railroads dis tributing wheat, There are miller' grinding wheat.
 These processes are necessary These functions must be filled. Bu why should, in the wheat reaching the railroads or from the railroad the millers. there be any gambling in wheat at all?
 Why should spectators be al lowed to enter into this matter all? They do not improve the pro duction of the farmer. They do no uuicken or improve the distribution of the railroads. They certainl do not grind the wheat more eff ciently nor better the grade of fiou in small degree.
 They are simply parasitic eie ments. They are highly respected highly prominent, leaders in socla and other affairs of the community but in all respects parasitic. The are distinct nuisances. They i'm pede the regular distribution c food and they are an anti-socia menace of the first degree.
 Yet capitalist economy will jus tify them. It says that this eco nomy exists first of all to make pro fits. It is not concerned at all wit the satisfaction of human wants 0