Every day the American people squander $100,000 in fictitious
speculation in grain.
There are 1,000 bucket shops operating in the United States at this
time, their geographical distribution marked by the boundaries of the
country.
For each of these 1,000 shops an average of $100 a day gross income is
necessary to meet its expenses, chief of which are for wire and ticker
service and blackboard writers.
Thus, in order that 1,000 of these shops may live and remain open,
they must have $100 a day each, which, in a year of 300 days, means
an income of $300,000,000 annually. Many of these bucket shops fail
for lack of money, while others "fail" in order that they may keep
the money of the investor. While $100,000 a day as the losses of the
people in the illegitimate speculation in grain is very conservative,
one must add another $100,000 a day as tribute which the gullible
pay to the fake "get-rich-quick" and kindred sharper concerns of the
country.
"SPECULATION" AN UNMEANING TERM.
Yet with this $100,000 a day going into the hopper of frenzied
speculation of all kinds, Bradstreet's for the year 1907 showed
business failures from speculation as one-eighth of 1 per cent of the
total failures of the country.
Whatever may be Bradstreet's definition of the word "speculation,"
as used in his lists, the word to the average business man who
knows whereof he talks is as unmeaning as any other in the business
dictionary. Suppose a man somewhere in a country town loses money in
any speculative venture anywhere under the sun. If it is a few dollars
only, he may not speak of it at all. If it is enough to embarrass
him, perhaps he may have to speak. Under these circumstances the best
possible thing to do is to explain that he lost it "on the Chicago
Board of Trade." If he has no credit at stake in the matter, and is
sore, he may yell murder over his losses "on the board." But hundreds
of such men have lost their money in bucket shops, and scores of them
have lost it at poker or some other gambling game.
"BOARD OF TRADE" FALSELY BLAMED.
Every little while a banker somewhere goes wrong with funds that are
intrusted to him, and in the telling of the story the "Chicago Board
of Trade" is the secret of his undoing.
One of the marked cases of the kind was that of the Aurora banker who
defalcated with $90,000, "lost on the Board of Trade."
But when the story was run down it was discovered that his money was
lost in a bucket shop in Hammond, Ind., which had been driven out of
Chicago through the efforts of the Chicago Board.
When $100,000, at a conservative estimate, every day, is lost by the
American public in bucket shops, just the thing that such a shop is
"in being" should be of economic interest and consideration.
Within the knowledge of tens of thousands of citizens some
acquaintance or person of whom they have had personal knowledge has
gone "broke" in grain speculation.
Yet to find a man who has lost his fortune on the race tracks or in a
gambling den is not at all an easy task.
Without a question the gambling losses in the bucket shop are more
serious in consequences the country over than the losses in any other
one kind of gaming, for the reason that the man who could afford to
confess losses at horse racing or at cards may retain his character
as a business man to a far greater extent by having lost at a "little
flyer in grain."