Board of Trade v. United States

Board of Trade v. United States

Opinion

 [*235]   [**243]   [***686]  MR. JUSTICE BRANDEIS delivered the opinion of the court.

Chicago is the leading grain market in the world. Its Board of Trade is the commercial center through which most of the trading in grains is done. The character of the organization is described in Board of Trade v. Christie Grain & Stock Co., 198 U.S. 236. Its 1600 members include brokers, commission merchants,  [****9]  dealers, millers,  [*236]  maltsters, manufacturers of corn products and proprietors of elevators. Grains there dealt in are graded according to kind and quality and are sold usually "Chicago weight, inspection and delivery." The standard forms of trading are: (a) Spot sales; that is, sales of grain already in Chicago in railroad cars or elevators for immediate delivery by order on carrier or transfer of warehouse receipt. (b) Future sales; that is, agreements for delivery later in the current or in some future month. (c) Sales "to arrive"; that is, agreements to deliver on arrival grain which is already in transit to Chicago or is to be shipped there within a time specified. On every business day sessions of the Board are held at which all bids and sales are publicly made. Spot sales and future sales are made at the regular sessions of the Board from 9.30 A.M. to 1.15 P. M., except on Saturdays, when the session closes at 12 M. Special sessions, termed the "Call," are held immediately after the close of the regular session, at which sales "to arrive" are made. These sessions are not limited as to duration, but last usually about half an hour. At all these sessions transactions [****10]  are between members only; but they may trade either for themselves or on behalf of others. Members may also trade privately with one another at any place, either during the sessions or after, and they may trade with non-members at any time except on the premises occupied by the Board. ¹ 

Purchases of grain "to arrive" are made largely from country dealers and farmers throughout the whole territory tributary to Chicago, which includes besides Illinois and Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and even South and North Dakota. The purchases are sometimes the reult of bids to individual country dealers made by telegraph or telephone either during the sessions or after; but most purchases  [*237]  are made by the sending out from Chicago by the afternoon mails to hundreds of country dealers offers to buy, at the prices named, any number of carloads, subject to acceptance  [***687]  before 9.30 A.M. on the next business day.

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