Raising the Grade

Before concluding this discussion of the Produce Exchange it may be proper to refer to a species of gambling conducted under the semblance of grain trading, and known as the operation of "bucket shops."

The bucket shop is an imitation of the commission house. The one is an outlaw in most states in this country, the other as legitimate as filling of orders for coal, lumber or merchandise. The commission house fills orders entrusted to it in the open market, where every purchase or sale has its effect in making the prices, on which producers sell their crops and consumers both domestic and foreign base their purchases. Every sale contemplates delivery and every purchase contemplates the ability of the buyer to take the actual property on delivery day. Bucket shops generally secure their quotations, (which they mark up on a black-board,) from the exchange by trickery. They never create a quotation, except it be a false one to get the best of an innocent customer. The bucket shop system is to take the wagers of its victims on the next turn in the regular market, the money passing over the desk as if betting on a horse race. Most trades are made on 1 cent a bushel margin and the bucket shop deducts its 1/8c or 1/4c a bushel from the price when the outsider makes his bet. It is a gamble pure and simple on what the market is about to do. No bucket shop ever controls a bushel of grain, ever makes a delivery or fills an order in the open market unless for protection. Nearly all the highest state courts and the United States Supreme Court have ruled in test cases that regular exchange methods are proper commercial transactions while the bucket shop is declared an evil.