Argosy, Vol. 85, No. 3 — page 157: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

FIGHTING THE EGG KING. his long arms as though preparing for emphatic gesticulation. | “There’s our own town for example. Potatoes selling for three-fifty a bushel— that’s at the rate of about three cents apiece. Think-of it—more than we paid for lemons two years ago. And that isn’t all. Mr. Grimes, our butter man, told us the other day that he has five hundred bushels of potatoes in his cellars and that he has been paid a big price by some agent who came along two weeks ago not to sell these potatoes for at least three months. These agents have gone all over the country making similar’ overtures to farmers, in order to keep low the potato supply — and thus permit prices to be boosted.”’ He took another breathing spell, swal- lowed and plunged into his subject again. ‘“ There’s Truxton, in our own town— Cassius Stanley Truxton, who says bold- . ly that he’s going to clean up a million dollars in eggs. He doesn’t make any bones about it—puts his fingers through his vest and comes right out with the in- formation that he has two hundred thou- sand gross of eggs in cold storage—gross, not dozens—and that he’s going to hold them until the price soars and then he'll sell, and what, he asks insolently, is the public going to do about it? “Do about it? Nothing, of course. What can the public do about it when the government permits such proceedings? And he’s only one of the many specu- lators who has cornered eggs all over the United States. “ There’s sugar,” he exploded, going off on another tack. ‘“ For a year the specu- lators have been trying to corner the sugar market and have at last succeeded. Sugar sells at twenty cents a pound in some of our larger cities and the supply is so low that many houses can’t get a bit of it. Fine state of affairs—for a peaceful nation, a country that isn’t at actual war with anybody—prices higher than they are in Germany—in England. Do you know what they’re paying nght now for potatoes in Toronto, and they 499 think the price exorbitant? Sixty-five cents a bushel. That’s a fact—have a cousin living in Toronto who wrote that to me. ‘“Now I do not believe in mob rule and anarchy,” he went on in quieter tones, as though he realized he had broached a ticklish subject. ‘“ But what are the peo- ple to do when the government that rules them sits back and discusses the situation -m cabinet meetings and then suggests an appropriation. of four hundred thousand dollars for a thorough mvestigation which they propose to extend over a period of six months. ‘ Six months, when the food crisis is on us now? Six months, when the people in our large city slums are starving? Six months when anarchy threatens now? Might as well operate on a man after he is dead as to say they will deal with this situation in six months. ‘““Do you fellows know what it is to starve—to feel the pinch of hunger gnaw- ing at your stomachs? I had a touch of it once—was lost three days on a hunting trip in northern Canada. I tell you hun- ger will make people do anything. No, six months’ investigations will not help. What we want is action, drastic action now, now.” He shouted the final zow till the car rang with the noise. There fell a silence. After his burst of oratory, the silence hung like the hush which follows the boom of a great gun. Karby stared re- flectively at this young firebrand. He had spoken fanaticism, yes. But there was great thought behind his words — a prophetic warning—a review of the situa- tion which was startling, | Karby glanced at the girl diagonally opposite. Her cheeks were red with the flush that had bespread them some time ago, and her eyes, like his, stared with a studied expression as though her mind might be rehearsing the better points the young fellow had made. ‘What suggestions would you offer?” one of his companions now asked the speaker.e comicloool C©