Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ It is argued that the true purpose is to exclude all persons who do not deal through members of the board of trade. Whether there is anything in the law to hinder these regulations geing made with that intent we shall not consider, as we do not regard such a general scheme as shown by the contracts or proved. A scheme to exclude bucket shops is shown and proclaimed, no doubt, and the defendants, with their contention as to the plaintiff, call this an attempt at a monopoly in bucket shops. ”

“ No more does the fact that the contracts thus disposed of call for many times the total receipts of grain in Chicago. The fact that they can be and are set off sufficiently explains the possibility, which is no more wonderful than the enormous disproportion between the currency of the country and contracts for the payment of money, many of which in like manner are set off in clearing houses without any one dreaming that they are not paid, and for the rest of whch the same money suffices in succession, the less being needed the more rapid the circulation is. ”

“ It seems to us an extraordinary and unlikely proposition that the dealings which give its character to the great market for future sales in this country are to be regarded as mere wagers or as 'pretended' buying or selling, without any intention of receiving and paying for the property bought, or of delivering the property sold, within the meaning of the Illinois act. Such a view seems to us hardly consistent with the admitted fact that the quotations of prices from the market are of the utmost importance to the business world, and not least to the farmers ”

“ But legislatures and courts generally have recognized that the natural evolutions of a complex society are to be touched only with a very cautious hand, and that such coarse attempts at a remedy for the waste incident to every social function as a simple prohibition and laws to stop its being are harmful and vain. This court has upheld sales of stock for future delivery and the substitution of parties, provided for by the rules of the Chicago stock exchange. ”

“ These are two bills in equity brought by the Chicago board of trade to enjoin the principal defendants from using and distributing the continuous quotations of prices on sales of grain and provisions for future delivery, which are collected by the plaintiff, and which cannot be obtained by the defendants except through a known breach of the confidential terms on which the plaintiff communicates them. It is sufficient for the purposes of decision to state the facts, without reciting the pleadings in detail. ”

“ In the view which we take, the proportion of the dealings in the pit which are settled in this way throws no light on the question of the proportion of serious dealings for legitimate business purposes to those which fairly can be classed as wagers, or pretended contracts. ”

“ Its value in well known as a means of avoiding or mitigating catastrophes, equalizing prices, and providing for periods of want. It is true that the success of the strong induces imitation by the weak, and that incompetent persons bring themselves to ruin by undertaking to speculate in their turn. ”

“ In these pits the members make sales and purchases exclusively for future delivery, the members dealing always as principals between themselves, and being bound practically, at least, as principals to those who employ them when they are not acting on their own behalf. ”