The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-10-28
Steel Corporation Is Ex- pected to File Answer
 During January
TO COMPLETE CASE
 WITHIN TWO YEARS
Department of Justice Officials Do Not Believe Outcome Will Be Influenced By Oil and To-
 bacco Decisions

| cAtAtANAA titanic legal battle with the government for it's existence will be taken Monday December f On that day an array of counsel which promises to include some of the most brilliant legal minds in Amer lea will appear before the United States circuit court at Trenton. N. j.. in which the governments dissolution suit has ! been brought.
 January ?, 1912, the Steel corporation is expected to file its answer to the govern ments sensational charges which have hardly been paraleled in any antitrust | tuit.
 Several legal maneuvers. of which the Steel corporations lawyers could avail themselves may postpone the date of their answer They have the right to ask the court to give 30 days grace. thus ex tending their time to February ?.
 In the meantime they may demur or file a bill of exceptions. It is possible. however, for the trial to begin January I2. The procedure will be for Judges Gray. Lanning and Buffinton to appoint | mister to hear testimony. The master will take evidence in various parts of the | country. It required a year and half to take the testimony in the Standard oil | case
 l The government hopes to do as well with the Steel corporation. With the testimony in and both sides heard the circuit court will decide the issue Whichever side loses will appeal and by the operation of the so called expediting act the case will jump to the supreme court.
 Department of justice officials do not believe the outcome of the Steel case will be influenced by the Oil and Tobacco de- cisions. Attorney General Wickersham today declared he is convinced more than ever that each case must be settled upon its merits and that the oil and Tobacco cases cannot fairly be called models for solving the trust question of Steel.
 Wickersham Talks
 MT. wickersham was asked if he hoped to see business returned to the e9nsssoas of cdtrpetitioa.
 .'I do not he Iel.,ed T cannot be-, cause do not think 1t possible. We can not return to our swaddling clothes. We must readjust ourselves to a new set of conditions entirely"
 Do you think that can be done with in the present laws. without further up- settling business?' he was asked. | ACN
 Tt ought to be made clear,' continued MT. Wickersham, that there is no con- | tlict in the steel case between the de- | partment of justice and the Stanley com mittee which has been investigating the l Steel corporation. That committee has been conducting it's investigations to de-. | termine what legislation may be desira- | ble to meet the economic question raised | by trusts and combinations; the suit filed by the department of justice is a legal proceeding to compel observance of the | law remaining"
 When the attorney general was asked l if he hoped the Steel corporation would | volunteer to readjust it's organization as has been done by the International Har- vester company, the Electrical trust, the Southern Grocers trust and several other | combinations, he indicated that he ex- rected no such conciliatory move
 Fight to a Finish | Department of justice officials think it will be a fight to finish. Mir Wicker sham declined to say If he IS preparing | or considering criminal prosecutions. | Comment was occasioned by the fact | that the name of Solicitor Greneral Fred | erick w. Lehman does not appear cn the complaint Rumor had 1t that MT | Lehman had not been identified in the governments bill because he was being | considered for the vacancy in the su- preme court made by the death of Justice Harlan and that justice he might be called upon to sit in the case. | "Rubbish,n was MT. Lehmann's only comment when he heard this report | It was ponted out that the office of so- iic;tor general is so heavily taxed with supreme court cases that it impos- | sible for MT. Lehman to take charge of the case,
 It was declared that Jacob NJ DcSin- | son, former Secretary of War, who has nFaf al counsel, will occupy the same position in | the case that Frank B. Kellogg occupied in the Standard oil case.
 The city is still wondering how the preparations for the filing of the bill were conducted with such successful secrecy. | The bill was not set in type in the gov- ernment's printing office, as such peti- tions usually are, but was printed by the private concern that prints supreme court | decisions.
 1 It was intimated the department of hcials believed the governments case complete, and the Attorney General feels confident in going to trial on evidence already obtained.
 To Move Rapidly
 Now that the governments fight to dis solve the United States Steel corporation has been fairly started. there will be no slow movements in the battle.
 When the bill was filed in the United
 
 | for the dissolution of the corporation and | it's subsidiaries, Attorney General Wick ersham also filed certificate of public | importance.'
 | This states the case is of utmost im- portance to the government, and asks that it be heard by a bench of four jus tices Ordinarily it would be heard by | cnly one.
 Although the Steel corporation will have four months to make it's answer to the ! governments allegation that 1t is a dozen trusts witsin trust. "a menace to the nation,' and practically the most complete monopoly ever perfected in this | country, there are possibilities of other developments in the meantime Attorneys for the corporation may demur to the | government charges.
 | Attorney General Wickersham and other department of justice officials expect to 1 make progress much more rapidly than | was done in either the Standard oil or | Tobacco cases. It was a little less than | five years from the time those cases were started until they reached the supreme court of the United Stares for decision. The supreme courts decision in those cases. however. Is expected to expe- --~~-~-----------~~-~~----