The Marion daily mirror. (Marion, Ohio) 1892-1912, 1909-12-01
SUGAR TRUST
TRIAL IS ON
Jury is Sworn in and TAX.
ing Testimony is
Begun.
STIMS0M STATES. the CASE
Frauds in Weight of All
Sugar Cargoes.
Methods of Weighing Are
Gone Over.
Chief Clerk of the Entry Department,
First Deputy Surveyor, and Gov
ernment Sampler ut New York
Port Are Placed on the stand as
the First Witness for the Govern
ment.
BY United Press Wire.

New York, Dec. 1.-The actual
trial of the former employees of the
sugar trust for conspiring to de-
fraud the government, defrauding
the government and certifying false
sugar weights, was begun Tuesday
when the tentative jury selected Mon
day was sworn in and Wilfred Il.
Dennison, assistant to Special Prose-
cutor Henry L. Stimson presented
the governments side of the case.
He declared that the government
planned to prove that the Havemey-
er and Elder refinery defrauded the
government of portion of duties on
every cargo of sugar 1t had ever
brought into the port of New York.
The defrauding had been continued
by the American Sugar Refining COM
pany, which took over the old con-
cern until November 20, 1907, when
the frauds were discovered and stop
ped.
Dennison then launched into q
lengthy discussion of the methods of
weighing sugar on the docks for the
collection of duties. This weighing,
he said, was done by weighers i'm the
governments employe. At the Have
meyer and Elder plant, he said the
government used old fashioned Fair
banks scales which were owned by
the company. So soon as the weigh
ers secured their weight, the sugar
was taken ten feet away to set of
tripod scales owned by the merchants
who sold the sugar to the trust. The
government weighers were to ascer-
tain the amount of sugar on which
duty was paid and the private weigh
ers ascertained the mount of sugar
actually sold to the trust.
Splitter, he said, was the company's
superintendent in charge of the
docks. Among others he had under
him thirteen or fourteen tally men
who checked the government and
merchants work"
New trust employees, he said,
checked against the merchants weigh
ers. but the six men who checked
against the government weighers
were men who were never changed.
"The men, who checked against the
merchants weighers," declared Dem
nison. were there to see that they
weighed correctly, but the men who
checked against the government
welg'hers were to see that the gov
ornment weights We're incorrect;
They were to sit in a darke corner of
the scale house where they could in
sert a steel spring into the scale and
reduce the true weight so the United
States could be ,defrauded of duties
There We're seventeen scales and each
of the seventeen scales were prepared
to receive The spring and thus un-
derweight the sugar.
He declared Splitter was RESPONSE
BILE for the selection of the men who
manipulated the springs and that he
received two sets of tallies on every
cargo. The true weight was thirteen
pounds per thousand more than the
false. Thus the government was de-
frauded of duties on 100000 pounds
of sugar on each cargo. Splitter, he
said, sent both the true and false
weights to Cashier Bendernagel and
the latter paid the checkers for their
crooked work.
$50 great was the influence of
these men," said Dennison, both
with the higher officials of the sugar
trust and with the officials of the
United States, that IL a government
weigher who, by honesty or astute-
ness, discovered the sluggishness of
the scales, sought to investigate, he
was instantly. transferred from the
docks and placed in some position
where he could not prevent the