Omaha daily bee., 1903-01-18
ELECT HASTINGS TRUSTEE
Creditors Of " R. Bennett Company
Require -Four Ballots For Election
MOVEMENT Oh TO KEEP THE STORE OPEN
w. n. bennett Appears on witness
stand and Tells of Loans Made
by Mercantile Company to
Building Corporation.
MOVEMENT on TO KEEP THE STORE OPEN

At the meeting Of the creditors OF the
w. r. Bennett company. bankrupt, yester-
day afternoon, Edgar f.. Hastings was
elected trustee on the fourth ballot. The
contest was between a number of
the large creditors and the great ma
jority OF those whose claims we're oom>
paratively small. On the FIRST ballot this
was shown by the fact that w. II. McCord
received 81 votes, representing more than
f21S, 900 Of the liabilities, while e. Z. Has
tings received 272 votes, representing a
little more than 800, 900. The second bal
lot was relatively the same. the support
Of Mr.. McCord coming principally from
the banks and the large wholesale houses
On the third ballot a number Of the larger
creditors broke rank and voted for Mr..
Hastings. Then an attempt was made to
adjourn the meeting and have the trustee
appointed by the referee. This was voted
dow and on the fourth ballot all came
to Mr.. Hastings except J.. J.. O'Connor, who
represented Peter Mangold's claim for
$4,000.
After the election Of Mr.. Hastings his
bond was fixed by the creditors at $780, 0O,
the same amount as he has furnished as
receiver pending the creditors meeting.
Bennett on the stand.
An interesting phase OF the afternoon
session was the introduction OF w. r.
Bennett on the witness stand to lay tho
foundation for the examination which will
be held at an adjourned session. He testl-
fed that he was the president Of the bank
rupt company and told OF its organization
in 1880 and Of the organization Of the
W. r. Bennett Building company ten years
later. He said that the building company
had a nominal capital stock Of $500, 900 at
the beginning, but that II had never had
any capital except such as was borrowed.
The incorporators we're s. F. Bennett. W.
r. Bennett, Irving Allison and F. w. Brown.
The stock was never delivered and the
witness did not know how It was divided
between the stockholders. He said the
building company borrowed $50. 900 from
the mercantile company and the money
was used to pay part OF the purchase price
OF the site; later the building company
borrowed SIS, 900 on first mortgage from
the Prudential Life Insurance company
and 500, 900 on a second mortgage from
John r. Webster; probably 5000 0 more
was borrowed by the building company
from the mercantile company, and an evil
dence Of Indebtedness for $500 given
aside from these sums all the money re-
quired by the building company was Dor
rowed by the mercantile company and paid
out on the building, and no separate ac>
count kept Of the transactions between the
two companies.
While these proceedings were taking
place before the referee the otDonohoe-
limo company filed an application be-
fore Judge Munger to require the trustee
to keep the business Of the bankrupt COM
pany in operation. In the application IL
was said that the applicant had contracted
with the W. r. Bennett company to OPP
crate a dry goods department in the store
and 1t had leased for a term Of years
certain space and the right to use win
dow for display; much of the value OF the
space and location depended upon the fact
that II was in combination with the liRes
Of goods carried by the Bennett company
in the store and the failure of the trustee
to carry on the business would work irre-
parable injury to the applicants.
Notica of this application was served upon