The Sentinel=record., 1911-07-29
ABSORPTION
 LEGITIMATE
HANNA SAYS PURCHASE OF IRON COMPANY WAS NOT RE-
 SUIT OF A PLOT.
No Ulterior Motive Lurked Behind the Absorbtion of the Tennessee
 Coal and Iron Company
 Says Witness. <

New York, July 2S.-No ulterior motives lurked behind the taking oy- CT of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company by the Cnited States Steel Corporation during the financial pam ic of 1907, in the opinio of~L. c. Hanna of Cleveland, one of the syn dicate owners of the Tennessee con cern before the merger and who spent the day on the witness stand before the steel trust Investigating commit tee of the house of representatives.
 That surreptitious motives had been suggested for MT. Hanna, who is brother of the late Senator Mark Hanna, a6Nlitted, sbut he never cred ited the reports. He believed the transaction was necessary to avert the failure of the New York bank ing and brokerage firm of Moore and Schley, who held too much Tennes- see Coal and Iron stock as collat- eral for loans and to avert vide
 spread threatening business disas ter.
 In answer 10 a series of questions by Representative Beall of Texas. MT. Hanna said he thought the con gressman believed a plot had been framed whereby the Tennessee Coai and Iron Company would be gobbled up by the steel interests, but he had no knowledge of such a plot and did not credit such an idea.
 g"Before the threatened failure or Moore and Schley," asked Represen- tative Beall, had not the United States treasury poured $50,000,000 in New York to stop the panic?"
 q think so," Hanna replied.
 Also, before that time," Br. Beall continued, had not J. P. Morgan and his associates advanced S60,0dO,- oO0 to relieve the financial situa- tion?"
 T heard it so stated" said Mir. Hanna.
 After all that the panic was not averted?" MT. Beall resumed, and can you tell me why the taking up of only s6,OOO,0OO in loans on the Tennessee Coal and Iron collateral of Moore and Schley effected that re- storation of confidence in the busi- ness world which the United States treasury and the Morgan millions had been unable to do?"
 The only explanation" Hanna re- piled after sonie hesitation, Ifs that the panic up to that time had not reached that character of business houses which were invoIved in tn1s Transaction. I think rom your line of questions that you believe the sale of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Com lpany was a plot. I never thought so. still wish could have held on- 10 my stock, but it seemed absolutely necessary to sell it to avert ser ious trouble.
 "The report has been current" said Me Gardner, that an attempt was made by persons desirous of acquiring the Tennessee company to ldiscredit that concerns stock in the banking word and to induce banks to make imperative calls on loans secured by that stock for the purpose of hammerig down the Tennessee Iprice so it might be acquired by the United States Steel Corporation.
 Did you ever hear that the deal was deliberate drive?'
 i've heard gossip about it,' MT. Hanna said q think l heard MT. Gates discuss it, and probably others talked about the humors afterward l. never felt that way myself, and did not believe anyone would have been so foolish or so dishonest as to at tempt such thing"
 Tomorrow Lewis Cass Ledyard' counsel for Oliver Payne, Grant b Ischley and the Tennessee interests lin then 1907 transaction, will testlfS will E. W. oglebay, another memoel of the Tennessee syndicate, who wal