In the wartime rye marketthe one grain on which there were no ceilingsthe sky was the limit on the wild speculation. Last week a Department of Agriculture referee, in preliminary findings, told just how wild it was: he found General Foods Corp., Daniel F. Rice and Co., and four members of the Chicago Board of Trade guilty of trying to corner the rye market.
General Foods, said the referee, first went into the rye market in December 1942 (General Foods' reason: to hedge against losses in wheat and corn). General Foods' Executive Vice President Charles W. Metcalf bought so heavily...