A Southern Gentleman

To the neighbors on peaceful Tuckahoe Lane in Memphis, the signs of Landon V. (for Victor) Butler's increasing wealth came in little ways. As the biggest commodity speculator in years, he was doing fine. First the gravel driveway at his small bungalow was blacktopped, then a curb was added--and then the whole thing was refinished in crushed brick. On the driveway, instead of a Buick there appeared a Cadillac, then a second one--with chauffeur to boot. Three years ago Commodity Speculator Butler bought himself a $300.000 house, added a swimming pool with cabanas; he bought a $150,000 yacht, used it as an office.

Last week 42-year-old Landon Butler's fortune was gone. A petition for involuntary bankruptcy was filed against him, and two grain firms sued him for millions. Charged Continental Grain Co., of Chicago and New York, and Manhattan's Leval & Co., Inc.: Butler had sold them $4,400,000 worth of nonexistent soybeans. Charged the U.S. Department of Agriculture: by fraudulent methods, Butler had tried to corner the soybean market.

$1,000,000 a Day. Butler started out by learning to class cotton in Memphis' Front Street sample rooms. Classified 4-F because of a back deformity, he joined the F. M. Crump cotton company and worked there through World War II. At war's end, while others talked recession, Butler bought cotton gins. He built a stake, put it in the cotton market; in one day he reportedly made $1.000,000 speculating in cotton futures. He moved into soybeans, coffee and other commodities, and by last year had $11million.

Then his troubles began. He started buying heavily in the spot and future soybean market. According to the Commodity Exchange Authority, he bought up 94% of the deliverable stocks of soybeans in Chicago, then tried to drive the price up by shipping beans out of the Midwest and circulating phony market rumors of a shortage. For a while, says CEA, the scheme worked: prices rose by as much as $1 a bushel, to $4.08. But then, as the new crop started coming in, the price of soybeans cracked to $2.50 a bushel. Meanwhile. Butler was losing heavily in the declining coffee market.

"He Carried Himself Well." To get cash, according to the Continental Grain Co. suit, Butler called Continental one day and offered to sell $3,100,000 worth of soybeans. Continental, an old Butler customer, agreed, and in exchange for its check it got a bunch of warehouse receipts for the beans, normal procedure in the soybean market. Leval made a similar deal for $1,300,000 worth of beans. But when a routine warehouse check was made, the companies charge, no soybeans were to be found.

Last week, already suspended by the Chicago Board of Trade, and the New York and New Orleans cotton exchanges.

Butler was getting ready to show cause to the Agriculture Department why he should not be expelled altogether. He would not comment on the lawsuits or the "nonexistent" soybeans. Said Continental Grain's Executive Vice President Julius Mayer, who is also head of the Chicago Board of Trade: "He was one of those Southern gentlemen; he carried himself well."

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