Business & Finance: Cutten Case

Neatly clad in a brown herringbone suit, a spare, tight-lipped little man walked into a room in the Department of Agriculture one day last month, obligingly posed for cameramen. Secretary Wallace glared at him from the other end of the chamber. So did Secretary Roper and Attorney General Cummings. This Cabinet trio, constituting the Grain Futures Commission of the U. S., had summoned him before them to begin hearings in the biggest case ever handled by that tribunal. The little man was Arthur William Cutten, whom the Government described as "the greatest speculator this country ever had." Had he or had he not lied to the U. S. Government about how much wheat he owned "in order to manipulate the price of grain and thereby to make large profits?"

Quickly the Government ticked off its charges. Mr. Cutten had misreported or had failed to report in 1930-31 his long & short positions of 500,000 bu. or more, as the Grain Futures Act requires. He had split his trading into 35 accounts in eight brokerage houses, putting the accounts under the names of relatives and associates. While each account seldom went over 500,000 bu., the total of all accounts often exceeded that amount. Would Mr. Cutten please show cause why he should not be barred from trading?

Trader Cutten declined to take the stand. Instead his lawyer pleaded that during the period in question Mr. Cutten had hired a new girl secretary who, confused, must have handed in the wrong figures.

Last week the Cabinet trio was ready with its decision. It declared that on six counts the facts were true, ordered Speculator Cutten to be suspended from all U. S. grain exchanges for two years.

In Chicago newshawks were barred from Mr. Cutten's door which bears the name "Chicago Perforating Co." His friends were sure that the speculator who, once a $7-a-week stockboy in Chicago's Marshall Field's, had made $1,500,000 in corn in a single month and ten years ago cornered more wheat than any man in history (about 20,000,000 bu.), would appeal his case or transfer his trading activities to Canada where he was born. But later that day Speculator Cutten declared laconically: "What's the use of trading? The market doesn't move."