The Penn's Grove record., 1910-05-27
SPLITTER, PARD0NED,
A STATES WITNESS
Liberated From Atlanta Prison by
President Taft.
fRIeHTENs THE SUGAR MEN
He Confesses Completely in Weighing
Frauds with Gerbracht, Bender
hagel and Otliers-Invented the
t'Corset Spring. Device.

New York City.-Oliver Splitter,
boss of the Williamsburg piers Of the
Sugar Trust duringthe years in which
the sugar-weighing frauds were going
on. walked into the Criminal Branch
of the United States Circuit Court
with a pardon from President Taft in
his hand, to give his testimony, a free
man, against Gerbracht, his old-time
boss at the refinery; Berdernagel, the
ex-cashier. and three underlings, who
were on trial with Charles R. Heike,
secretary and treasurer Of the trust,
for conspiracy to defraud the United
States.
1t was n sorry episode for Ger
bracht and B~endernagel, for Harry
Walker. Spitzer's old assistant, and
Halligan and Veelker; the two former
tallymen, but Heike was spared. Spit
ger did not connect him with knowl-
edge of the weighing frauds.
If Henry G. HaVemeyer had APP
peared from the grave he would not
have created a bigger sensation than
did Spitzer In Judge Martins court,
WuCTG tu0 ouSdt luoL hlCA "ClS ~
ginning the second week of their trial.
Splitter was the "big fish" Of the Gov
ernment's prior haul, when Henry L..
Stimson, Winfred Denison, and Felix
Frankfurter convicted him, along with
four ex-tallymen, but suffered a disa-
greement in the case against Bender
nage1. The dock boss got a sentence
of two years at Atlanta, as against a
year on Blackwell's Island for each of
his co-defendants convicted, and was
led way vowing vengeance on the
people who had deserted him. Said
Splitter at that time:
1.-The Sugar Trust made a scapegoat
of me. It pounded and ruined me af-
ter l had served 1t faithfully for TWEEN
ty-nine years. In the alleged fraud
prosecution the Government cried for
a victim, and the Sugar Trust an
swered by sacrificing me and four
eighteen-dollar-a-week checkers"
The scapegoat returned from the
wilderness with some of the sins of
the trust still upon his head. These
he dropped, in part, on the witness
stand by telling how the trust took
care" of him and the tallymen it dis
charged after the discovery of the
weighing frauds; by telling how Ger
bracht, the superintendent Of the
williamsburg refinery. and Bender
nagel knew all about the weighing
frauds.
Splitter frankly admitted he was
connected directly with the various
devices used on the piers to cheat the
Government. He is the inventor of
the corset spring" device, the most
successful of all schemes for de-
frauding the Government. He orig
mated the method Of boring the boxes
about the scales and fixing a spring
that would make the scales register
about t~hirty-fve pounds less than the
actual weight in every 1000 pounds
of sugar. Quietly and smoothly Spit
ger related his story. He put the
frauds directly up to the Wall street
offices of the Sugar Trust.
1t is a reasonable assumption that
such other burden of guilty knowl-
edge as Splitter had he freed his mind
of in the Grand Jury room, for as
soon as his direct examination was
over before Judge Martin, Mr.. Slim
son and Mr.. F~rankfurter took him be-
fore the Grand Jury and kept him
there the rest of the day.