Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 May 1912 — COURT TURNS DOWN U. S. GOVERNMENT [ARTICLE]

COURT TURNS DOWN U. S. GOVERNMENT

Denies Writ of Injunction in Steel Trust Suit. BAACKES TAKES ALL BLAME American Steel and Wire Chief Assumes Responsibility for Burning of Papers Wanted as Evidence. New York, May 9.—On the ground that no intention on the part of the Steel corporation to destroy’ evidence bearing upon the government’s dissolution suit had been shown, Judges 3ray, Buffington and McPherson in the United States district court at Trenton refused to grant the ' injunction prayed for by the government to restrain the trust from making away with any of these papers. At the same time they granted the Injunction asked in the same application against the American Wjre & Steel Co. destroying any more of the papers in its possession bearing upon the suit. This latter injunction war granted because it had beep provet that the steel and wire company had burned a trunkful of correspondence pertaining to the famous Jackson POOIS.'/; ' , •

Decision Not Vital. Judge J. M. Dickinson, who is conducting the examination of witnesses in the dissolution suit before Sjiecial Examiner Brown, said, after he had learned of the adverse decision of the gourt at Trenton, that this would have no appreciable effect upon the government’s dissolution suit, Frank Baackes, vice president of the - American Steel & Wire Co., assumed full responsibility f®r. the destruction of the documentary evidence in the possession of that company which was testified to by H. A. Whitney. In the witness stand Baackes claimed that within a month or two after the wire pool collapsed as a result of the withdrawal from it of the American Steel & Wire Ca. he, had given an order for the immediate destruction of all correspondence and other papers bearing upon the operar tions of the pool because he thought vre was no longer any use to encum<r his office files with the great mass of correspondence about the transactions of the pool. Surprise to Baackes.

He swore that until the government started its investigation, which resulted in the present suit against the Steel trust, he tho.ught his order of two years before had been complied with. The introduction of these supposedly destroyed papers in the 1 proceedings here which led to the indictment of all the members of the Jackson pool surprised him much, he declared. Baackes stated positively that he had not given the order to Whitney to have the papers burned, but that he had always understood that that order had been given to Whitney by George A. Cragin, the company’s assistant general sales agent.

Pool Formed to Make Money. “Why was the wire pool formed?” was asked of Baackes. “To make more money,” replied Baackes. "Did you make more money by raising prices and controlling allotments?” “Of course we did,” promptly replied the witness. Baackes then told how the allotments were made. "If a member of the pool had sold yver 100 per cent of his allotment,” said the witness, "he was notified to curtail his sales so as to get in line with the others. If he persisted in □verselling then he forfeited the cash guarantee he Had to deposit when he became a member.”