Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 August 1901 — Philipps Couldn’t Keep Vp. [ARTICLE]

Philipps Couldn’t Keep Vp.

Speaking of the suspension of his commission house, "Corn King" Phillips says: “In a nutshell, it was a case of too much business. It has grown so rapidly that our facilities for taking care of it have not kept pace with it Money came easy and it went easy," says the Chicago Chronicle. On reading this one naturally recalls the fact that not so very long ago Mr. Phillips made a speech in Minneapolis in which he proposed a case of a great deal more business —so mucn more as to make the Phillips commission business look like a molehill beside a mountain in the comparison. The business which he proposed was nothing less than that of keeping corn forever cornered, with 50 cents per bushel as the minimum price. In order to work this business successfully he proposed to establish a bank with a capital of 150,000,000 or such a matter and to establish mammoth elevators also to store the corn offered by farmers as security for loans from the big banks on the basis of 50 cents a bushel, with a margin of 10 cents off. * The magnitude of the business had no terrors for the “corn king" when he made that speech. In his mind he had no trouble in conducting a bank with $50,000,000 or more capital and an elevator business running up to hundreds of millions of bushels. In his mind, t6o, ILwas a perfectly simple matter to keep the price of corn up to 50 cents a bushel or above. What dees he think of it now? He admits that his respectable but comparatively trifling commission business has run away from him. He has not been able to keep up with it or keep track of it Does he still think he could keep yp with his rousing perpetual corner business ' "Money came easy and it went easy” in his little business; how does he think .. might be with that tremendously big business? Might not the easy-coming money go too easily? i