The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-09-24
No Apprehension Is Felt
 by the Men Who Or ganized It
ABLEST LAWYERS
 DREW THE CHARTER
Inst cad of Running Away From the Expected Fight Officials of the Corporation Say That They
 Will Welcome It

The United States Steel corporation ex- poets to be attacked by the govern ment It is prepared to meet the at- ltack No apprehension is felt by the men who organized ii or by the men who are managing it that the corpora | ton will not measure up to every political requirement. of the sherman antitrust law, even as interpreted by the supreme court in the Standard oil and tobacco cases.
 These statements are authoritative. They are based upon assertions made to the International News Service by men in a position to know thoroughly the character, the purposes and the opera tions of the corporation.
 Before the great corporation was launched the ablest lawyers in the
 United States were employed by its founders to study carefully, analyze critically any measure with precision. every word, every phrase, every sem tence and every paragraph in the arti- cles of incorporation with the view of determining before all questions as to whether the organization was In thor ough and exact accord with the letters
 ss we'll as the spirit of the sherman law.
 A leading member of nearly every bar association in the country was put on this work, one after another. The re- suit of their joint and separate labor was the completed draft of the charter as it now exists.
 fad believed that the government was pre- pairing to attack the company In 1907 George W. Perkins, then chairman os its finance committee, went to Wash ington, carrying with him the original charter the books of accounts, all the minutes of the meetings of it's boards, etc, and offered to turn them over to Attorney General Bonaparte.
 T hear, you are going to attack us. I have brought a trunk full of material, everything in our possession bearing upon the character, history of the cor poration. We want to help you. If we are wrong we want to know it right now.
 Take it away responded the Attor- ney General. T don't want to look at It. We don't neod it. We are not go- ing to attack you
 But the work of preparation did not
 end there. Even the bylaws under
 which the company operates and which
 govern the acts of it's officers and di
 rectors were subjected to the same acid test These articles also were finally accepted and assembled only after they
 had received the approval of every legal mind that was employed to study
 and correct them.
 Tn of of al he t.A confidence in its soundness in the light of reason decisions of the su- prcme court and even before those de- cisions were rendered, the steel trust Is experimenting an attack under the Shrman law.
 Its controlling minds realize acutely the tremendous pressure of public opinion that is being brought to bear upon the
 government at Washington to hale the
 corporation to court and make 1t show
 clean hands or dissolve.
 They were puzzled for few hours to-
 day by reading a false statement attribut- ed to Attorney General Wickersham that the Steel corporation was In criminal vio-
 lation of the law. When the Attorney
 General denied the. utterance the Steel corporation magnates and their counsel
 declared that this was not more than they expected of him.
 They feel that the report of the Stanley committee will be harsh and largely de- clamatory but that it will so lash the
 public mind into fury that on the eve Of
 a presidential campaign the leaders of
 both great parties will clamor for speedy
 government acclaim against the so called
 Steel trust Instead of running away
 from an assault under such circums tances they say they will welcome it. They declare they have never contem- plated asking the aid of the department of
 justice to dissolve the company without
 suit and assist in its reorganization to &C.,
 cord with what the department of jus-
 tce might consider exact compliance with the Sherman law. That course. they say
 would only imperil the company's future,
 because until it's character has been ju-
 dicially approved by the tribunal Of last
 resort it could not feel wholly safe from attack with change of administration at Washington.