THE WHEAT KING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3212, 11 June 1909, Page 7

THE WHEAT KING.

EPISODES OP HIS STORMY CAREER. James Patten is a typical example of the ambitious, pushful, American, with worlds to conquer and energy and ability to complete the conquest. The man whose spectacular operations in the Chicago wheat pit threaten to put the Leiter deals in tbe shade, is fifty-four years old. He was clerk i'i a small IlJinois shop, through which a railroad ran. He made money as a commission fgent for farm product?, and jo.ned his brother at Evanston, where he founded what ultimately became the largest grain brokerage firm in the country. In 1901 (says a "Morning Leader" New York message), he was elected Mayor, of Evanston. Persuading the whole town that it was more likely to enjoy prosperity if it became teetotal, he shut up every saloon and incidentally administered the quietus to the notorious Dr. Dowie, who in formed the mayor he wits Elijah the Second, and proposed to show Mr j Patten how to govern Evanston. Patten's method of getting rid of Dowie consisted in sending for trie fire brigade, and, armed with ihe hose, they washed him out of the town.

In 1902 Patten organised a corner in oats. His ensmies tried to break him. His one reply to them was.. "All I want is oats." Ultimately they got all the oats and Patten all the dollars.

Armours attempted to suppress him, and obtained 150,000 dollars £32,000) from him in the law courts. They thought him financially ruined; but next yenr he built the greatest mansion in the West, outside Chicago. In May, 1907, he took wheat in hand, declaring he would not shave until wheat touched one dollar fifty. It only rose three cents, and Patten, instead of shaving himself, wect to a barber.

In January last year, in an effort to smash the Armour bull wheat campaign, he lost a million dollars. Four months later he caught the same adversaries in a corn corner, and recovered twice that sum. He started the present corner in De- j cember— or, as he puts it, he forsaw nearly five months ago that the supply would be far short of the demand, and acted like an American trader with brains in his head. Patten never drinks, seldom smokes, and [generally sleeps in a tent out of doors. He has a charming wife and two muscular sons.