The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1922-03-08
CHICAGO BOARDS ATTACK
 ON TRADING ACT ONE OF MOST VITAL OF QUESTIONS

1 The Future Trading act imposes
 among other provisions. a tax of
 twenty cents bushel upon all trans l actions known as puts and ''calls'' prohibit such trading, and a similar
 tax upon all contracts for "future'' | deliveries except those made upon
 'contract' market or by the owner
 or grower of grain. Certain admin
 1stratiVe provisions for the keeping | Of records and the making of reports,
 and for governmental supervision are
 also embodied in the law. Designat- | ed grain centers, to become "con-
 tract markets, must, among other
 conditions, admit to membership rep
 resentatiVes of agricultural co-opera- | tive associations.
 The government in defending the
 act took the position. that the only
 constitutional limitation upon the
 is their uniform distribution geo.
 graphically, Congress being free to se- ! lact the subject for taxation. Con- gress may use the taxing power, the
 eIal' economic and moral purposes. l The purpose of the tax levied in the
 act in question, as explained by the
 marketing evils such a manipulation by large operators, promiscuous and unrestricted speculation in foodStuffS,
 desse imitation of false crop informa- tion, gambling in puts" and "calls," and other arbitrary interference with
 the law of supply and demand. It was NOT a punitive law. the Solicitor enforce regulatory measure which Congress could NOT legally control by line and Imprisonment. but was in tended to terminate what he called Wlld orgies" upon grain exchanges. Among the objections urged by the members Of the exchange bringing the case were that grain traded in upon the Chicago Board of Trade had lost Its interstate character, and therefore was not within the control of Fed eral legislation; that the government, tempting to exercise police jurisdtc- don properly belonging to the States; that membership upon the exchange was a valuable property right which could not legally be impaired by com pell1ng the admission to membership
 or representatives of agricultural CO.,
 operative associations, and that the
 exchange rule prohibiting the rebatine
 Of commission should NOT be abro-
 gated by permitting agricultural CO.,
 operative association represented upon
 the exchange to distribute among
 their members profits made upon ex-
 change transactions. It was also al- legged that the keeping of records and the furnishings of reports, with Fed eral supervision required by the law. would be unduly burdensome and in Val1d The Chicago Board of Trade has valuable real estate belonging to 1 compel the exchange to admit renre- sentat1ves of cooperative associations | to membership would be the taking of property without due process of ] law.
 In, replying to these objections the | government contended that an ex- change which buys and sells more graln than the whole world produces
 must have very real relation to in- terstate and foreign commerce." that the state is free to legisIate with ref creme to future" trading; that the tax was NOT prohibitive; that mem bers Of corporations heretofore ad- rnltted to meLdbership upon the Chica- go Board of Trade had distributed | among the stockholders of such cor poTaflons profits derived from trans acuons upon the exchange, as it pro- posed agricultural cooperative asso- cations shall be permitted to do; that there is NO compulsion mon the board to apply for designations as -contract market, except to eniov exemptions provided for such mar. aeIs, that representatives of agri- nntted to membership upon the Board presumably will be required to pav lni5latlon fees or to purchase a seat and comply with all other terms and |; was no taking of property in viola |, ton of law
 Counsel for the opponents, in a. re- ply brief submitted after the case had oeen orally argued. asserted that the tax upon 'future'' trading is stprohibi- Ii tive" as applied to such trades in i ,orn and oats as well as wheat. and { nat the governments objection that { he tax should have been paid and suit instituted to recover it. would no+ t nave resulted in testing the constitI1- nonality of the law because unless re- strained the Chicago Board of Trade. 1nder the "compulsion'' of the law | would accept designation as a con [ raCt''