FOOD PRICE BOOSTERS ARE IN FOR IT, SAYS RUMOR- From Washington comes a Jeak credited to a high source that with in the next few days the department of justice will secure indictments against food price boosters. It is understood that the depart ment of justice has about completed its probe and has found evidence very damaging against several food hogs who are shoving the prices with the war cost excuse. Attorney General McReynolds will not give out any statement at this time. President Wilson recently ordered the attorney general to get busy on the investigation. In the meantime, the investigation here halted abruptly when District Att'y Wilkerson left town abruptly for Pentwater, Mich. Wilkerson and his friends are said to be indignant over the sudden man ner in which Chas. P. Clyne was chosen as his successor while Wil kerson was in the midst of important work. ' Stacked up in Chicago cold storage .houses are hundreds of thousands of pounds of rice, put away since the big war broke. Joseph P. Geary, chief investigator for State's Att'y Hoyne, states that his seventeen men who are making a hunt for food hogs, find immense quantities of rice in many of the larg est cold storage houses. This is the most peculiar condition so far uncovered by the "state's at torney's office. Rice doesn't need ice or any sort of frozen atmosphere, they are told by experts. Rice will keep in any kind of a dry place. Let it lay in' the direct rays of the" sun and it wouldn't change in days. "Why then should rice be packed away along with eggs, spring chick ens, Michigan -peaches and California oranges?" asks Geary. "It looks as though some fellows had to 'have storage space all of a sudden and were willing to pay extra cold stor age rates in order to put over a big clean-up of profits." Shipments of large quantities of rice northward from Chicago and in quick time over the Canadian bor der have been made in the last two weeks, according to Geary. He said he does not know what date his re port will be ready for the grand jury probe into forestalling. His view is that the best service the investiga tion will render will be pubhc ex posure of facts. The offenders, if found guilty, can only be convicted of a misdemeanor and can easily pay their fines out of a day's profits on food hogging. Banker Charles G Dawes, who de clared in his Wednesday night speech that it would be "un-Christian, un American demagougery" to stop ex porting food supplies to "our broth ers at war in Europe," got his "an swer last night from a meeting of 600 grocers and butchers at the Hotel LaSalle. Speculators and wholesalers were blamed for war prices and xesolu Cions were passed calling for all ex ports to be stopped until prices go down to normal. Sol Westerfield of the National Association of Retail Grocers introduced -this resolution, adopted by unanimous vote: "Present prices of foodstuffs, par ticularly those of domestic origin, such as flour, beans, meat, and sugar, are witnout doubt unduly inflated. Reported buying of foods for export has resulted in placing means of in flating prices in the hands of unscru pulous holders. We urge President Wilson and congress to prohibit the exportation of foodstuffs until nor mal conditions return. "We recommend that all boards of trade whose options are bought and sold for speculative purposes be closed except for transactions of buy ing and selling for actual delivery. "If quick action is taken it would at once restore normal market conr ditions. We recommend that all ex portation of foodstuffs for Bed Cross. ieguzgemmmmmimimiiimmmmm