Arizona republican. [volume] (Phoenix, Ariz.) 1890-1930, 1907-02-06
THE POWDER TRUST
GIVEN A HEARING
The First Statement by an officer of
the Company Before a Committee OF
Congress.

washington. Jan. 80 Especial Core
spondencr of The Republican).-The
so-caIled Powder Trust" which is the
popular name for the +. I. DUPONT de
Nemours Company. has At last been
heard from before a committee OF con-
ssress The subcommittee on fortih-
cations Of the house committee on APP
7rop.iations has made public the report
Gf u private hearing recently given TO
= 4. Haskell. of New York, vice presi-
s..a1 Of the Dupont company. Mr.. Has
keIi was president OF the Latin * Rand
company when Robert Waddell was
the Chicago selling gent and couuoI-
- the western territory. When the
Latin x Rand company was purchased
by the DUPONT company Nj. Waddeu
left the concern and started an indie
pendent factory. Since then he has
been flooding congress with documents
in an endeavor 10 show that the I'M
mense profits made by the Dupont COM
pany from the government contracts
enabled i 10 sell black powder below
the independent manufacturers to their
great injury. A. il was the INST time
any on. connected with the DUPONT
company had appeared before a COM
mittee az congress. Mr. HaskeiIs tes-
tinoEy has attracted much attention.
one uf Nj. WaddelTs charges has been
that the powder trust was founded on
PATENTS taken out by Nessrs. Bernadou
aud Converse. when they were naval
Offices. and that the trust has offered
- sell powder made under these pat
sI4ts TO foreign governments Ny Has
k.-il testified that the patents had been
offered the DUPONT company and We're
rejected because they We're Of 40 value.
Later they We're sold TO the lnterna-
fiural Sgnok.l-ss Powder company. and
when that concern was absorbed by
tie DuPonts the patents were also &C
s;rIir,d II they ever had been OF value
ie said. they were Of none now lor the
rgyarDJnent was not taking amy powder
mad according 10 the specifications OF
:hs patents in question. As 10 selling
10 foreign governments. he said the Of
l.: referred 10 by NJ. WaddelI had been
mad. b. the deceased president of the
International SmOkeless Powder COM
pany before the DUPOnts acquired con-
rroI ~ =. and they could NOT b. held
responsible for the offer He further
stated the Dupont company neither
sold nor tried 10 sell powder 10 foreign
governments MI Haskell referred &"
. new secret process Of manufacturing
smoEe{ess powder. now being tried. The
government officials were anxious the
process should not be sold TO foreign
governments. so the DuPOnts purctlaS-
ed the foreign rights for $4,000. al
though they could realize nothing from
them as they do not sell abroad. An
Interesting resume was given by the
witness Of the relations Of the powder
companies. and particularly the DUPONT
company. with the government since
the way 81 1912. and especially during
The CiGii War and the Spanish-Ameri-
can var. Lower prices were charged
by t1e powder manufacturers during
war times than when peace prevailed
Mr.. Haskell thought the powder manu-.
facturerS were the only government
contractors who did not raise their
prices during the Spanish war. and in
stanced saddles which cost $l3 before
the war and for which S23 was charged
during the war.
As far as the profit was concerned
Mr.. Haskell said the government con-
tracts were so small the works de-
voted to THIS KIND OF powder Cpu-u ne
operated only One-third Of the time and
he thought a fair profit should be al
lowed. The company had TO maintain
these large works so that in time Of
war the output could be quickly and
largely increased. on - per cent Of
their business the profits were larger
than on government contracts. When
the government directed the army to
construct a powder plant the DUPONT
company furnished the ordnance de-
partment with plans and specifications
and assisted it in every way He also
gave some interesting testimony on the
processes Of manufacturing this pow
der. stating that as it took six months
10 dry the manufacturers had from
$4,000 900 10 s2.5e000O worth in their
storage house constantly. on which they
could get could get no insurance. The
amount rejected is also large, being
about 100000 pounds this YEAR
Mr.. Haskell has spent many years in
the powder business and is thoroughly