The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-15
PACKERS APPEAL FOR HADEAS CORPUS
Newest Move in Attempt To
 Evade Trial
TO HEAR ARGUMENTS
Of Ten Packers Indicted-All But Armour Were Temporarily in Custody While Writ Was
 Being Heard

Chicago, November 14-A further ef- fort of the indicted Chicago meat pack CTS to avoid trial and to have declared unconstitutional, void and of no force the Sherman antitrust law, was made today.
 The latest move was d surprise to the government and consisted in the surren- der to the United States marshal of the packers and an immediate appeal to Unit cd States Circuit Court Judge Kohlsaat for a writ of habeas corpus.
 Arguments will be heard Thursday
 Viola tions of the fifth, sixth and eighth amendments to the federal constitution, ambiguity and alleged failure of the act either to create an offense against the government or so define what it set up as an offense in a manner that would enable the citizens to know when he erred and when not were charged against the Sherman law as the law recently in- terpreted by the United States supreme court in the Standard oil and the To- bacco cases.
 Attorney John S. Miller who as chief counsel for the packers conducted to- days court action and characterized the. Sherman law as a met large enough to catch all possible offenders" and leaves it to the court to step in and say who rightfully can be detained and set at large.
 Of the 10 packers indicted all but J. Ogden Armour were temporarily in GUS tody while the petition was being heard.
 The nine were Louis F. Swift, president of Swift and company; Edward Swift, director of Swift and company, Edward Tilden, president of the National Pack ing; company, Arthur Meeker, general manager Armour and company, Edward Morris, president Morris and company, and Francis Fowler, director of Swift and company Thomas J. Connors, director of Armour and company, and Louis Hey ' mann, manager of the Morris Packing comtany are also in custody. The pe tition for a writ of habeaS corpus con tained little material other than the ar gument used by the packers before Unit ed States District Judge Carpenter when they sought to have the indictments ouashed and later in argument demurring to the courts decision in the indictment controversy.
 The petition goes more into detail in te allegation of insufficiepcy of the stat ute to set up crime and it otherwise stresses what the attorneys for the pack CTS characterize as the citizens inability to know whether he is law breaker be-
 
 Along this latter line the petition says:
 "The alleged criminality of the alleged transactions complained of in the indict- nlents will depend entirely upon par ticularly clear citation ofsthe reasonable ness or unreasonableness of the case; it will depend any standard erected by the Law which may be known in advance, !. tut merely on one that may be created [. by the whim, prejudice or arbitrary views Of jury
 There is no set standard fixed or at tempted to be fixed to guide the citizen to q knowledge of his guilt or innocence of an offense charged before it has been sdjudicated.
 .sThe act violates the sixth amendment to the constitution of the United States which requires that the petitioners sew orally shall be informed of the nature and otherwise the cause of the accusa- tion."
 Tt is further charged that the act at tempts to establish as crime acts not criminal but civil in their nature The large number of witnesses necessary to trace the multitudinous transactions of the great cost of trial will prevail both as to defense and prosecution. The re- quest that the constitutionality of the sct be determined was thus made