The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-12-24
MORE REVELATIONS
 IN BUILDING PROBE
Five Concerns Accused of Col fusion and Price Fixing In
 White Lead Industry x
By Associated Press

New York, December 23.--Five manu- featuring concerns controlling over 90 per cent of America's white lead out put, principal ingredient of paint, were accused of collision and price fixing today in New York's building trust" inquiry
 The capital stock of these corpora tons approaches s4o0,000oo0 and the joint legislative committee conduct ing the inquiry into the alleged build ing trust was told in todays testi- mony that they maintained equal prices and exchanged information rega rding quotations and names of customers.
 This revelation" came to the com mittee from Charles F. Tuttle, aocrc tary of the American Institute of Lead Manufacturers, the association through which the companies exchanged price data and other information.
 The corporations he named were the ST erwin Williams company National Lead company, E. !, DuPont de ne Mours company and. Hammer Brothers the last named, the owner of the Eagle-Pitchcr Company of Chicago, fifth members of the group. They op- crate plants throughout the country
 WHITE LEAD CINCH Samuel Untermyer. committee coun- sel. asserted that the organization was rock-ribbed combination and sug- gested that a good name for 1t would be the Lead Pipe White Lead Cinch." After being informed that next to white lead, the principal component of all paints is linseed oil, MT. Uuter- y1,rar frti in,a fAd ha s.,,, |, colusion" among the manufa cturers of that product when the committee re. sumes it's sessions next Tuesday Another organization Of manufac- turers of building materials. cast iron pipe in this instance, crumpIed up to- today under the attack of the investi- gators. The Eastern Soil Pipe Manu- featuring association, Of which Mr Futile is also secretary. promised through him to dissolve within week. He said the members would immediate ly re-enter open competition.
 With >the coming of the new year the warfare against alleged combina ton in the building trust" which the joint legislative committee has been con ducting for more than two months will be augmented by the United States Senate committee on reconstruction and production to come here from w tofiinB toH lO cUnuuct investigation into building com pines" along na- tional lines. M
 Members of the legislative commit tee expressed the belief today that tn. two groups would sit jointly next month Mir. Untermyer. who is ex- pected to act as joint counsel for the committees, expressed satisfaction that the testimony heard today concerning the white lead trade exposed "a per- rect price fixing case,r He said the evidence would be turned over to fed eral authorities.
 Robert J. Foster, chief investigator for the National Steel Erectors' association. was arrested tonight on two indictments and he'd in $2,0O ball
 One indictment charges. that on Decem- Der 16, when a witness before the Lock- wood committed, Foster wilfully refused to testify, and the other that on the same date he refused to produce books. pal pers and documents in his possession.
 In one of the indictments it is alleged that the National Steel Erectors' asso- Iciation annually erected or controlled erection of two-thirds of the structural steel for building purposes throughous the United States