Dollar Wheat!

To G. O. Politicians of the Harding-Coolidge era (1921-29) the phrase "Dollar Wheat" was the sorriest raven-croak of agricultural depression. It suggested unpaid mortgages, political revolts, elections lost. When in July, 1923, wheat dropped to 96^ per bu. there was something akin to panic in Republican Washington, with wild talk that a Republican could not be elected President the following year.

Today "Dollar Wheat" is as the caroling of seraphim to Republican ears. Should wheat touch that bright and gilded level before the next presidential election. Republicans will be more confident of holding the White House than they have been all this long dreary year.

Last week the wheat market continued its upward surge in such a way as to make "Dollar Wheat" a distinct possibility. In fact "Dollar Wheat" was an actuality in the highest grades of grain. Montana Dark was taken for $1.01 in the Seattle pit. A fine hard variety brought $1 at Boise. The Pillsbury Flour Mills at Minneapolis paid $1.03 per bu. for No. i amber durum.

On the Chicago Board of Trade wheat prices rose and fell and rose again, bounding up if:.1 2 or 3 per day. Sweating brokers within the paneled walls of their La Salle Street skyscraper were swamped with buy orders. They yelled and screamed their floor jargon: Give jo Deece 63! Sold! Sold! Sold! 50 March 67! Give 40 July 70! Sold! Sold! Give 50 Deece 64! 70 Deece 65! Sold! Sold!

In five and one-half trading days December wheat rose from 61/ to 67^ per bu.. a rate of climb which, if maintained, would bring "Dollar Wheat" by Christmas. All of next year's futures crossed the 70<' line and went beyond. La Salle Street's air throbbed with bullish rumor: Russia was definitely out of the export market; the Manchurian situation meant war and war meant a wheat shortage; U. S. farmers will cut their 1932 acreage drastically; nearly one-third of Germany's crop was ruined by wet weather.

The rally in wheat, it was believed, was started by professional traders. But last week the public swooped into the market and whirled it up and out of control with buy-orders. Oldtime operators implored amateur speculators to be cautious, recalled that in 1896 on a shortage scare in India wheat climbed almost perpendicularly from 5 3 (Ho 94/. only to scale down again. "The advance is too rapid to be sound," they kept repeating to a public that did not want to hear. For was not the Farm Board bulling the market and Arthur Cutten predicting "Dollar Wheat"?

Most famed of wheat speculators. Bull Cutten was supposed to have started buying last August, to have amassed nobody knew how many million bushels of wheat for a rise, and to have attracted Stock Speculator Jesse Livermore into the wheat pit. Last week Mr. Cutten. lean and quiet, was found in a La Salle Street grain office, feet cocked up on a table, eyes on the quotation board. Said he to newsmen: "The market is fundamentally sound. There's a demand for wheat or it wouldn't be going up. Of course I can't be quoted or make any comment but don't believe half of what they tell you about me." From Farm Board members came a chorus of statements, all calculated to run up wheat prices. Excerpts: "The worst is over. . . . Surpluses will disappear. . . . We can only hope the market rise will continue. . . . The price of wheat was too low. . . . Purchase of wheat at even higher prices would appear a good investment."

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