Damaging Admissions

DAMAGING ADMISSIONS

Divine Rights Baer was put in most uncomfortable positions by the attorneys of W. R. Hearst in the coal railroad inquiry before the Interstate Commerce Commission in New York. Some of the questions put to him he refused to answer because, he claimed, they were impudent. He fenced well in giving his evidence, but the Hearst attorneys drew out of him many damaging admissions in spite of the twenty trust attorneys pitted against the two of Mr. Hearst. Among other things dragged most unwillingly from this witness which plainly establish the criminality of the coal trust may be stated the following:

"That he as president of the Reading Company, the Philadelphia & Reading Railway Company, the Philadelphia &, Reading Coal & Iron Company and the Central of New Jersey Railroad Company, controls 89 per cent of the workable coal fields of Pennsylvania.

"That he, by reason of such control, fixes the price at which coal is sold at tidewater.

"That he can restrict the output of coal mined or carried.

"That he can shut down every colliery controlled by the Reading system, producing 89 per cent of coal mined in the anthracite fields of Pennsylvania.

"That he can stop every coal car used in moving coal over the Reading system.

"That these things he can do through his authority as executive officer of the Reading System.

"That he connived at the killing off of the project of the independent miners to build a railroad of their own to tidewater in order to escape the exactions of the trust, and that in order to do this the iniquitous Temple Iron Company was organized, with himself as president and the presidents of the six great anthracite carrying railroads as directors.

"That he arranged a system of division by which each of the six great anthracite railroads was to secure a certain percentage of the coal freight tonnage of the anthracite fields.

"That there exists no competition in coal mining or coal carrying in the anthracite fields of Pennsylvania and that no such competition can develop under present conditions arranged by the coal trust through the organization of the Temple Iron Company.

"That by the coal purchase contracts so frequently referred to coal is bought from the independents at 65 per cent of the tidewater price, and that the actual freight on coal purchased from such favored independents is only 35 per cent of the tidewater price.

"It was shown when the cost of sellIng, handling and waste is deducted from this amount the actual freight charged to these independents is less by 50 cents a ton less than the charge to the independents who do not hold these purchase contracts."