Devil Hunt

In the search for the devil responsible for soaring food prices, the hunt turned last week to Chicago's grain pits. As corn for future delivery rose to $2.63¼ a bushel, an alltime high, and wheat soared to $2.87, Vermont's Senator Ralph E. Flanders, ex-president of Boston's Federal Reserve Bank, thought he had spotted the devil. It was Speculation. "The situation today in the commodity markets is comparable to that in the stockmarket in 1929," said he, "and it could have the same disastrous results." He demanded that trading on margin be eliminated and that trading in grains be put...

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