The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-11-22
SAYS JOHN ).
 SQUEEZED HIM
Tale of How Rockefeller Got $7O0,OOO,OO Worth in Ore For Less Than Million
Witness Claims Oil King After Getting Him to Mortgage Pro- perty Called His Loan


 1 Washington, Nov. PA tale of how
 John D. Rockefeller is alleged to have
 manipulated a call loan so as. to ac-
 quire for less than $1,O00,000 ore prop critics in Minnesota worth $700, ,000, GOO I was unfolded to the Stanley steel 1 committee, yesterday, by Albert Mer- ritt of Duluth, Minn., who described
 himself as a simple lumberjack' and said he had been well trimmed in Wall | Street and insisted that the Rev. F. D. Gates. manager of the Rockefeller 1 charities, was the man who put the big deal through. | Charles H. Martz of St. Hiiaire,
 Mipn!, the engineer who built the Du- luth, Misabe and Northern Railroad, | Of which MT. Merritt was the first president, helped to enlighten the com
 mittee concerning MT. Rockefeller' 8
 Minnesota operations. His principal kick seemed to be that he had sold to gestion, thirty shares of stock in the I Duluth, Missable and Northern Rail- road at $30 share back in the sos I and that this stock was now paying about $200 a share in annual divi- | dends.
 Throughout the session of the steel 1 committee the affairs of the Duluth. Missabe and Northern Railroad and of the ore properties which 1t taps were under investigation by the con- mittee.
 At one point in the hearing, when George Wellwood Murray, counsel for MT. Rockefeller. fiatly contradicted Witness Merritt's statement that MT. Rockefeller had secured the valuable railroad and ore properties through a call loan manipulation, the committee decided to summon MT. Rockefeller to ~~f,~ I-9- >y%3~ But Representative Gardner of Massa- chusetts, recollecting the agreement that bound the committee to await the decision of it's entire membership be- fore proceeding with the investigation l beyond hearing those witnesses al-
 ready summoned, suggested an execu- ! tive session.
 At this executive session the com mittee decided to wait until this af- ternoon before determining whether or not to call MT. Rockefeller. Today Alfred Merrftt's brother. another sim | pie jack, will be called to testify, and if he produces some papers that f the committee is anxious to obtain 1t \ is quite possible that MT. Rockefeller will not be pestered by subpoena. | This may save the committee some mental strain.
 When MT Stanley announced that he proposed to call MT. Rockefeller | looked dubious. Representative Gard ner smiled.
 ssWhere is Mir. Rockefeller at pres ent?" he inquired of MT. Murray. T am sure don't know" MT. Mur- | ray replied.
 mented, ''that John D. Rockefeller Is not particularly accessible to subpoena servers."s
 MT. Murray smiled. Mr. Gardner smiled, the committee smiled, the au- dience smiled and a moment or two 1 tive session. As a result of the mass of details contributed to the committee by AL l fred Merritt and Engineer Martz, and often they contradicted themselves. It appears that MT. Merritt, his brothers, 1 cousins. uncles, aunts, nleces and nephews were financially interested in the Duluth, Missabe and Northern Railroad, of which Alfred Merritt was president and of which only part had been constructed in 1891. The road was able to get ore from the big Mesaba field to Lake Superior by a traffic arrangement with another rail- road, but it wanted all the carriage for itself But in order to build an extension from Columbia Junction to the lake to supplement the line from the ore fields to the junction the road had to have money.
 Both Merritt and Martz insisted that the first proposal to help them along came from John D. Rockefeller through a man named Wetmore. whose first name both witnesses had forgot 1 ten. MT. Rockefellerss counsel insisted just as strongly that it was MT. Rocke- feller who was approached. Be that | as 1t may. MT. Rockefeller finally loaned the Merritts upward of $1.000.- | 900 of which, according to Witness Alfred Merritt, $420.000 was in a call note.
 MT. Merritt said that although MT. Rockefeller had promised him plenty of time on this loan the demand was made upon him in the panic days of '93 that he produce the $420,000 within twenty-four hours or lose all the col lateral he had put up. which consist ed of stock in his railroad and in his ore properties. AS he wasn't able to raise the money MT. Rockefeller, he says, closed him out.