Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 May 1912 — TIN PLATE SECRETS BARER ON STAND [ARTICLE]

TIN PLATE SECRETS BARER ON STAND

Stevenson Tells How His Concern Went Into Trust. CAUSES ROARS OF LAUGHTER Witness Describes Scene When "Wire Pool” Members Met to Fix Price* —Says Baacke* Broke Hi* Pledge. 1 New York, May 24.—The steel trust lawyers met their match when John W. Stevenson, Jr., on the stand told how his tin plate company went into the trust. Stevenson, a rugged, white whis kered individual, said to be a relative of Robert Louis Stevenson, and a brother of "Danny” Stevenson, lord provost of Glasgow, kept everybody, Including the investigators, in roars of laughter. He has a gentle vocal burr and the keen wit of his native land.

Tells of Fortune-Making Days. Mr. Stevenson told modestly of the days of fortune making when he built up the Sharon Steel company, the Newcastle Wire Nail company, the Chenango Valley Tin Plate company, which he handed to the American Tin Plate company for a million and a half dollars; the Newcastle Sheet and Tin Plate company, which he turned over for a million, and of various other companies he had organized. He said that just prior to selling out to John W. Gates his wire nail company competition was So fierce that most of the tin plate mills were in a bad way and his own company, the strongest, was fee Ting pinched. Gates wired him and met him on a train and he agreed to sell, he said. Wire Pool Fixed Price*. Then the witness described a scene in a Cleveland hotel when the members of the “wire pool” once met to fix prices. They were all in a room, he said, and had agreed to fix the price of wire nails at $1.50 a keg. the meeting was in progress Frank Baackes of the American Tin Plate company excused himself for a moment

“I followed him down stairs and would ye believe it, the telegraph girl mistuke me for him, and, showing a dispatch the laddie had just written, asked me what one of the wurds was. That man had brukken his pledge even then and was wiring his concern to make the price of nails $1.40.” “And what did you do?” L “I was vairy mooch put oot, so I wired my company to meet this cut and then I took his dispatch up to the meeting and laid It before the others,” he said with a broad smile. Baackes Is Fined. "Baackes was fined and the chairman told me to kick him down stairs.” “And did you?” “No, he were too big a lad,” said Stevenson regretfully. The witness then told of how he was persuaded to sell practically all of his interests in return for which he ook some American Tin Plate stock and then he took a trip abroad. Asked what he did on his return, he said: "Wull, I begun to shok the oold apple tree again. I wanted somewhat to do to keep me busy. Toe Many Chorus Girls. “Ye see, I were getting along in years and didnt’ want to be like a lot f the other pair steel boys who came to New York and got in a lot of trouble. There were too many pretty chorus girls in' this town. One of the boys got married to a chorus girl.” “And others got in other kinds of trouble,” he added. The witness said that when the trust took over the Sharon Steel company it paid $13,200,000 in bonds.