Show OFFICIALS WITH I BAD MEMORIES flen Draw Big Salaries But They Know Mighty Little AIR LEXOW IS MERCILESS SLASHES RIGHT LEFT AND IN THE MIDDLE Flint of Rubber Company Admonished Admon-ished by Lexow That He Was Not Called to the Stand to Advertise His Goods Havemeyers Answers An-swers Do Not Answer the Keen Questions Thrust at Him From All Sides Story of the Mutilated Trust Deed I New York Feb 18 Senator Lexow and his colleagues of the joint legislative legislat-ive committee appointed to investigate the existence of trusts and monopole in this state met again this morning In anticipation of an interesting session ses-sion there was a large attendance of the outside public Mr Havemeyer was in attendance at the funeral of the late William P St John but Lawver Parsons assured Senator Lexow that he would be peasant peas-ant after recess Mr Parsons said he had been authorized by a meeting of the board of directors of the American Sugar Refining company to present the agreement in regard to the purchase of I the Philadelphia concerns and the information in-formation regarding labor and taxes paid by the company but Senator I Lexow said the committee would like to have Mr Havemeyer before the committee before putting the information informa-tion In evidence Charles R Flint then took the stand He was asked if he had secured the figures with regard to the wages paid Ly the United States Rubber company and competitive companies Mr Flint was unable to secure all the details and he was then asked if any one in the employ of the United States Rubber company had destroyed the facilities for the manufacture of rubber on Long Island I know nothing about anv such thing replied Mr Flint Did the United States Rubber company com-pany destroy any property in Brook haven Not to my knowledge Now dont you remember that i was one of your agents that destroyed the plant of the Brookhaven company after Mr Elverson bought it I have no knowledge of such a thingHave Have you any branch of the business busi-ness which provides for the destruction of property I can ascertain I dont know WOULDNT SEE IT Chairman Low tried to get Mr Flint to admit that whenever the United States Rubber company advanced ad-vanced money to factories it did so for the purpose of controlling the output and fixing the price of the goods but the witness would not see it in that way The witness then gave statistics gave statstcs showing the wages paid by the United States Rubber company to Us employees em-ployees and the wares paid by the Setaucket According to Mr Flints figures his company paid more than the Setaucket company to its employees em-ployees Mr Flint said that workers in first frt quality rubber shoes make 2 to S3 a day and cutters get from 3 to 350 How is it that the Setaucket factory fac-tory cannot compete with the United States Rubber company although it pays 25 per cent less for its labor Well we claim that we get more value out of our waceearners than I they do although we pay them 25 percent per-cent more We have also more laborsaving labor-saving devices and use more economy in production Why is it that when you increased your facilities as far as plants were concerned you did not gO to a place like Setaucket where labor was 25 percent per-cent cheaper We thought it best to Increase the plants at our larger factories Furthermore Further-more our specialty is the production of high grade goods AND LEXOW SMILED Senator Lexow smiled at this reply re-ply DlyMr Mr Flint he said Dray do not advertise your goods any more Witness admitted that there were more men employed by the independent companies before the consolidation NoV to put i plainly Mr Flint has not the entire general stock of the United States Rubber company been known a watered Mr Flint paused a moment and then went pnto describe how the stock was issued Our stock he said was issued for good will and to pay for properties Now does not deal of a great your stock represent only water which your companies directors expect some day to develop into something which may pay dividends We have our trademarks and patents pat-ents they are very valuable just as valuable as brick and mortar said Mr Flint In reply to another question Mr Flint admitted that one of the objects of the consolidation was to enable the property to be put on the market in a realizable form Then to the industrial feature of the enterprise is added the ability to dispose of its certificate of stock Undoubtedly sir At this juncture Chairman Lexow announced a recess A subpoena duces tecum has been Issued on James B Ford of the United States Rubber company who has the key to the safe deposit vault in New Brunswick N J to produce the schedule of purchases and other papers asked for by the committee HAVEMEYER APPEARS After recess S 0 Havemeyer took the stand Witness Identified a copy of the agreement made by the Knight Refining Refin-ing company for the sale of its property prop-erty as a correct one After witness had Identified copies of the agreements with other companies and declared a document showing the amount of taxes paid by the company from 1S92 to 1S9G was correct he said he thought that the statement mady by Mr Searles that the Brooklyn factories of the company com-pany produced 20000 barrels per day was right Witness said his company paid in this state last year 33615 in taxes for personal real and household property He also stated that about onehalf of the producing capacity of his company was in this state Witness Wit-ness declared that his company had as much raw sugar stored In Boston as a in Brooklyn and twice as much in Philadelphia as In either of those cities How came it then when half of your producing property is in New York you do not pay taxes on 30000000 I do not see any relation between the two things Do you know where the deed of the American Sugar Refining company is No sir I do hot Mr Havemeyer then said that the figures showing the distribution of the preferred stock of the company were cut out by Mr Parsons by permission of the Arnold committee at the time of the investigation by the United States senate Yes sir I sav the figures have been cut out at the time of the Arnold investigation by Mr Parsons without regard to anything before or since The figures were never replaced to my knowledge Who had the custody of the mutilated trust deed ll Parsons JUST HOW How was i that you and your assistants as-sistants were so solicitous to conceal these papers A hundred people agreed to have that done I am not responsible The deed Why should have been destroyed It should have been destroyed because be-cause in my Judgment it was that deed that caused all the trouble and hostile legislation against the company com-pany You mean prosecution dont you No I say persecution All the fuss has been over that deed I that deed had not been in evidence the legislators legis-lators would have been fighting the air All this sort of thing has been swept aside by the supreme court What do you mean by that asked Senator Lexow Oh I thought you were conversant with things that had gone before in this matter by former investigations said the witness I am in a general way replied Senator Lexow But explain what you mean I mean that we have had these investigations in-vestigations before that one judge has ruled we are a criminal monopoly and another judge that we are Sot The supreme court has > swept all this aside by declaring we are not a monopoly inasmuch as we do not stifle competition tion tonWALL WALL PAPER NOW Hent Burr president of the National Na-tional Wall Paper company was the next witness He was one of the original origi-nal incorporators or original directors of the corporation which wasorganIzed in July 1892 Were you connected with any company com-pany at the time of the organization Yes sir with the Robert Greaves company I The witness said that 28 companies in all were absorbed by the National Wall Paper raI company How many companies were left out of the combination i About 17 What amount of business did the combination secure About 65 per cent judging by the machinery we employ We have 188 machines as against 88 of those not in the combination What was the capital stock issued The original Issue was 14000000 subsequently 28000000 increased to 27000000 or It was all common stock witness said and the car orn was organized organ-ized in New York The witness said that 8000000 of debenture stock was authorized but only 7500000 was issued is-sued suedHow How did you arrive at the proper distribution of stock We calculated the profits of the various va-rious concerns for certain years and multiplied it by 16 In other words you capitalize each concern at 6 per cent and based on that the issue of common stock Yes sir common and debenture We subtracted from this amount however how-ever a value of tangible property which we issued in debentures The rest was given in common stock How do your prices compare with the prices of the companies not in the combination LOWER PRICES Our prices are 25 per cent lower The wages had not decreased they were about the same and the employment employ-ment was steadier The witness said about 5000 men were employed by them in the United States Have you an agreement with the sellers of your product in New York Yes in one or two cases Witness said they had competitors in New York state who worked under agreements Are their agreements similar to yours I dont know the method our competitors com-petitors use I only know there is a wall paper trust somewhere You claim then you are not a trust trustYes Yes sir The agreement you have with your sellers restricts them to the sale of your goods Yes sir Adjournment was taken until tomorrow tomor-row when the witness was ordered to produce the agreement |