The committee met at 10 o'clock a. m., Hon. Robert L. Henry (chairman) presiding. There were present before the committee Hon. James Manahan, a Representative in Congress from the State of Minnesota; Hon. Charles H. Dillon, a Representative in Congress from the State of South Dakota; and Mr. Samuel H. Greeley, of Chicago, Ill. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will be in order. The committee has met this morning for the purpose of considering House resolution 424, introduced by Mr. Manahan, which will be printed in the record. [H. Res. 424, Sixty-third Congress, second session.] Whereas the world's demand for wheat and the consumption thereof so closely balance its production from year to year that there is no legitimate occasion for violent fluctuations in the price of that necessity; and Whereas it is charged and generally believed that the price of wheat paid the farmers as well as the cost of flour to the consumers is largely controlled by the Board of Trade of Chicago, the Chamber of Commerce of Minneapolis, and the Board of Trade of Duluth, acting in combination; that the Board of Trade of Chicago is a monopoly and has and exercises complete control over the buying and selling of wheat and the prices paid therefor in that market; that the Chamber of Commerce of Minneapolis is a monopoly dominating and controlling that market and controlling the prices paid for wheat from day to day; that the Board of Trade of Duluth controls the market at Duluth and operating in conjunction with the Board of Trade of Chicago and the Chamber of Commerce of Minneapolis makes the price of wheat for the Northwest; that each of these organizations is created under State laws that make them self-governing and enable them to exercise arbitrary and tyrannical control over all traders operating in their respective jurisdictions; that each of said organizations operates under rules and by-laws that enable the few members thereof controlling the public warehouses in Chicago and the terminal elevators and mills in Minnesota to control not only the said organizations themselves but the price of wheat; that it is the common practice of these controlling members by concerted action in these three great markets, offering or withdrawing enormous quantities of wheat of the public warehouses and terminal elevators and by concerted bidding and betting in the pit on futures, to depress or raise the price of wheat to suit the purpose of their gambling operations; that the prices are by such combination and manipulation depressed while the farmers are compelled to market the heavy portion of each crop and raised and manipulated so as to tempt speculative investors after the bulk of each crop is in the control of the combination; that for each bushel of real wheat actually sold and handled in each of these terminal markets at least one hundred bushels are bought and sold in so-called future trading; that the multiplied expense of all such future trading as well as most of the profits thereof must come out of the real wheat actually marketed; that the only part of the gains of gambling in wheat not borne by the farmer or buyer of bread is borne by men tempted to speculate in the pit; that the number of embezzlements, bankruptcies, and wrecks 3 |