He was a wonderful man, this Wallingford, a genius, a martyr, a being made in his entirety of the milk of human kindness and brotherly love; but this rapidly growing organization that he had formed was more wonderful still. They could see as plain as print what it would do for them; they could see even plainer than print how, with the certain knowledge of the price to which wheat would eventually rise, they could safely dabble in fict.i.tious wheat themselves, and by their enormous aggregate winnings, obliterate all boards of trade. It was a conception t.i.tanic in its immensity, perfect in its detail, amazing in its flawlessness, and not one among them who listened but went home that night--J. Rufus Wallingford"s seal-leather pocketbook in his pocket, J.
Rufus Wallingford"s box of lace handkerchiefs on his wife"s lap, J. Rufus Wallingford"s daintily dressed French doll in his little girl"s arm, J. Rufus Wallingford"s toy engine in his little boy"s hands--but foresaw, not as in a dream but as in a concrete reality that needed only to be clutched, the future golden success of the Farmers" Commercial a.s.sociation; and on the forehead of that success was emblazoned in letters of gold:
"$1.50 WHEAT!"
CHAPTER XXIV
THE FARMERS" COMMERCIAL a.s.sOCIATION DOES TERRIFIC THINGS TO THE BOARD OF TRADE
The holidays barely over, Wallingford was upon the road again, and until the first of May he spent his time organizing new branches, keeping the endless chain letters booming and taking subscriptions for his new journal, the _Commercial Farmer_, a device by which he had solved the grave problem of postage. The _Commercial Farmer_ was issued every two weeks. It was printed on four small pages of thin paper, and to make it second-cla.s.s postal matter a real subscription price was charged--five cents a year! For this he paid postage of one cent a pound, and there were eighty copies to the pound. He could convey his semi-monthly message to a million people at a cost of one hundred and twenty-five dollars, as against the ten thousand dollars it would cost him to mail a million letters with a one-cent stamp upon them. And five cents a year was enough to pay expenses. On the first of May, the enterprising promoter, who seriously aspired now to become a financial star of the first magnitude, took a swift thousand-mile journey to the offices of Fox & Fleecer, where Mr. Fox, polishing, as always, at his glazed scalp, was still intent upon that bland but perplexing secret problem. Mr.
Wallingford, as a preliminary to conversation, drew his chair up to the opposite side of the desk and laid upon it a check book and a package of doc.u.ments with a rubber band around them. "Four hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars in cash and negotiable securities," he stated, "and all to buy September wheat."
Mr. Fox said nothing, but unconsciously his palm went to the top of his head.
"The September option is at this moment quoted at eighty-seven and one-eighth cents," went on Mr. Wallingford. "Could it possibly go lower than sixty-two?"
"It is the invariable rule of Fox & Fleecer," said Mr. Fox slowly, "never to give advice nor to predict any future performances of wheat.
Wheat can go to any price, up or down. I may add, however, that it has been several years since the September option has touched the low level you name."
"Well, I"m going to bet this four hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars that it don"t go as low as sixty-two," retorted Wallingford stiffening. "I want you to take this wad and invest it in September wheat right off the bat, at the market, on a twenty-five cent margin, which covers one million, seven hundred thousand bushels."
Mr. Fox, his eyes hypnotically glued upon the little stack of securities which represented four hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, and a larger commission than his firm had ever in all its existence received in one deal, filled his lungs with a long, slow intake of air which he strove to make as noiseless as possible.
"You must understand, Mr. Wallingford," he finally observed, "that it will be impossible to buy an approximate two million bushels of the September option at this time without disturbing the market and running up the price on yourself, and it may take us a little time to get this trade launched. Probably five hundred thousand bushels can be placed at near the market, and then we will have to wait until a favorable moment to place another section. Our Mr. Fleecer, however, is very skillful in such matters and will no doubt get a good price for you."
"I understand about that," said Wallingford, "and I understand about the other end of it, too. I want to turn this four hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars into a clean million or I don"t want a cent. September wheat will go to one dollar and a quarter."
Mr. Fox reserved his smile until Mr. Wallingford should be gone. At present he only polished his pate.
"That"s when you would probably fall down," continued Wallingford; "when September wheat reaches a dollar and a quarter. If you try to throw this seventeen hundred thousand bushels on the market you will break the price, unless on the same day that you sell it you can buy the same amount for somebody else. Will that let you get the price without dropping it off ten or fifteen cents?"
"Fox & Fleecer never predict," said Mr. Fox slowly, "but in a general way I should say that if we were to buy in as much as we sold, the market would probably be strengthened rather than depressed."
"All right," said Wallingford. "Now I have another little matter to present to you." From his pocket he drew a copy of the _Commercial Farmer_, the pages scarcely larger than a sheet of business letter paper. "I want an advertis.e.m.e.nt from you for the back page of this. Just a mere card, with your name and address and the fact that you have been in business at the same location for thirty years; and at the bottom I want to put: "We handle all the wheat transactions of J. Rufus Wallingford.""
[Ill.u.s.tration: A LARGER COMMISSION THAN FOX AND FLEECER HAD EVER RECEIVED IN ONE DEAL]
Of course in a matter so trifling Mr. Fox could not refuse so good a customer, and J. Rufus departed, well satisfied, to work and wait while Nature helped his plans.
Across a thousand miles of fertile land the spring rains fell and the life-giving sun shone down; from the warm earth sprang up green blades and tall shoots that through their hollow stems sucked the life of the soil, and by a transformation more wonderful than ever conceived by any magician, upon the stalks there swelled heads of grain that nodded and yellowed and ripened with the advancing summer. From the windows of Pullman cars, as he rode hither and yonder throughout this rich territory in the utmost luxury that travelers may have, J. Rufus Wallingford, the great liberator of farmers, watched all this magic of the Almighty with but the one thought of what it might mean to him. Back on the Wallingford farm, Blackie Daw and his staff of a.s.sistants, now half-a-dozen girls, kept up an ever-increasing correspondence. Ham Tinkle was jealous of the very night that hid his handiwork for a s.p.a.ce out of each twenty-four hours, and begrudged the time that he spent in sleep. During every waking moment, almost, he was abroad in his fields, and led his neighbors, when he could, to see his triumph, for never had the old Spicer farm brought forth such a yield, and nowhere in Truscot County or in Mapes County could such fields be shown. Upon these broad acres the wheat was thicker and st.u.r.dier, the heads longer and larger and fuller of fine, fat grain than anywhere in all the region round.
The Farmers" Commercial a.s.sociation, a "combination in restraint of trade" which was well protected by the fear-inspiring farmer vote, met monthly, and Wallingford ran in to the meetings as often as he could, though there was no need to sustain their enthusiasm; for not only was the plan one of such tremendous scope as to compel admiration, but Nature and circ.u.mstances both were kind. There came the usual early rumors of a drought in Kansas, of over-much rotting rain in the Dakotas, of the green bug in Oklahoma, of foreign wars and domestic disturbances, and these things were good for the price of wheat, as they were exaggerated upon the floors of the great boards of trade in Chicago and New York. Through these causes alone September wheat climbed from eighty-seven to ninety, to ninety-five, to a dollar, to a dollar-five; but in the latter part of July there came a new and an unexpected factor. Dollar-and-a-half wheat had been the continuous slogan of the Farmers" Commercial a.s.sociation, and every issue of the _Commercial Farmer_ had dwelt upon the glorious day when that should be made the standard price. Now, in the mid-July issue, the idea was driven home and the entire first page was given up to a great, flaming advertis.e.m.e.nt:
HOLD YOUR WHEAT!
SEPTEMBER WHEAT WILL GO TO $1.50!
DON"T SELL A BUSHEL OF IT FOR LESS!
The result was widespread and instantaneous. In Oklahoma a small farmer drove up to the elevator and asked:
"What"s wheat worth to-day?"
"A dollar, even," was the answer.
"This is all you get from me at that price," said the farmer, "and you wouldn"t get this if I didn"t need fifty dollars to-day. Take it in."
"Think wheat"s going higher?" asked the buyer.
"Higher! It"s going to a dollar and a half," boasted the farmer. "I got twelve hundred bushels at home, and n.o.body gets it for a cent less than eighteen hundred dollars."
"You"d better see a doctor before you drive back," advised the elevator man, laughing.
Over in Kansas at one of the big collecting centers the telephone bell rang.
"What"s cash wheat worth to-day?"
"Dollar-one."
"A dollar-one! I"ll hold mine a while."
"Better take this price while you can get it," advised the shipper. "Big crop this year."
"A dollar and a half"s the price," responded the farmer on the other end of the wire.
"Who is this?" asked the shipper.
"J. W. Harkness."
The man rubbed his chin. Harkness owned five hundred acres of the best wheat land in Kansas.
In South Dakota, on the same day, two farmers who had brought in their wheat drove home with it, refusing the price offered with scorn. In Pennsylvania not one-tenth of the grain was delivered as on the same date a year before, and the crop was much larger. In Ohio, in Indiana, in Illinois, in Iowa, in Nebraska, all through the wheat belt began these significant incidents, and to brokers in Chicago and New York were wired startling reports from a hundred centers: farmers were delivering no wheat and were holding out for a dollar and a half!
"You can scare the entire Board of Trade black in the face with a Hallowe"en pumpkin," Wallingford had declared to Blackie Daw. "Say "Boo!" and they drop dead. Step on a parlor match and every trader jumps straight up into the gallery. Four snowflakes make a blizzard, and a frost on State Street kills all the crops in Texas."
Results seemed to justify his summing up. On that day wheat jumped ten cents within the last hour before closing, and ten thousand small speculators who had been bearing the market, since they could see no good reason for the already high price, were wiped out before they had a chance to protect their margins. On the following day a special edition of the _Commercial Farmer_ was issued. It exulted, it gloated, it fairly shrieked over the triumph that had already been accomplished by the Farmers" Commercial a.s.sociation. The first minute that it had shown its teeth it had made for the farmers of the United States ten cents a bushel on four hundred million bushels of wheat! It had made for them in one hour forty million dollars net profit, and this was but the beginning. The farmers themselves, by standing together, had already raised the price of wheat to a dollar-fifteen, and dollar-and-a-half wheat was but a matter of a few days. On the boards of trade it would go even higher. There would be no stopping it. It would soar to a dollar and a half, to a dollar-seventy-five, to two dollars! Speculation was a thing ordinarily to be discouraged, yet under these circ.u.mstances the farmers themselves should reap the wealth that was now ripe. They should take out of "Wall Street" and La Salle Street their share of the money that these iniquitous centers of financial jugglery had taken from the agricultural interests of the country for these many years. They themselves knew now, by the events of one day, that the Farmers"
Commercial a.s.sociation was strong enough to accomplish what it had meant to accomplish, and now was the time to get into the market. It should be not only the pleasure and profit of every farmer, but the duty of every farmer, to hit the gamblers a fatal blow by investing every loose dollar, on safe and conservative margins, in this certain advance of wheat. On the last page of this issue of the _Commercial Farmer_ appeared for the first time the advertis.e.m.e.nt of Fox & Fleecer, and copies went to a million wheat growers.
The response was many-phased. Farmers who were convinced of this logic, and those who were not, rushed their wheat to market at the then prevailing price, not waiting for the dollar and a half, but turning their produce into cash at once. To offset this sudden release of grain, buying orders poured into the markets, the same cash that had been received from the sale of actual wheat being put into margins upon fict.i.tious wheat. Prices fluctuated in leaps of five and ten cents, and the pit went crazy. It was a seething, howling mob, tossing frenzied trades back and forth until faces were red and voices were hoa.r.s.e; and the firm of Fox & Fleecer, long noted for its conservative dealing and almost pa.s.sed by in the course of events, suddenly became the most important factor on the floor.
On the ticker that on the first of May he had installed in his now mortgaged house upon his mortgaged farm, Wallingford saw the price mount to a dollar and a quarter, drop to a dollar-eighteen, jump to a dollar-twenty-two, back to twenty, up to twenty-five, back to twenty-two, up to twenty-eight. This last quotation he came back into the room to see after he had on his hat and ulster, and while his automobile, carrying Blackie Daw and Mrs. Wallingford, was spluttering and quivering at the door. Then he started for Chicago, leaving his neighbors back home to keep his telephone in a continuous jingle.
Hiram Hines met Len Miller in the road, for example. Both were beaming.
"What"s the latest about wheat?" asked Len.
"A dollar twenty-eight and seven-eighths," replied Hiram; "at least it was about an hour ago when I telephoned to Judge Wallingford"s house.
Suppose its climbing for a dollar-thirty by now. How much you got, Len?"