New-York tribune., 1921-11-29
81 Big Glass
Firms Indicted
AS aConbine
81 Officers Named and
Union Leader Cited as
Aiding Plot to Keep the
Output Low, Prices High
$1OO,O0O,000 Business
Control Two-thirds of u. S.
Product; Blanket Find
ing to Limit Pleading

An indictment charging fifty-four
corporations and fifty-one individuals
said to control two thirds of the win
dow glass manufacture of this coun-
try with violation Of the Sherman anti
trust law was filed by the Federal
grand jury here yesterday. The gov
ernment prosecutors who obtained the
Indictment considered it the most i'm
portant of those which are expected to
result from the Federal investigation
into business methods in the building
trades which was begun as result of
the revelations of the Lockwood COM
mittee.
1t is important, they pointed out
yesterday, not only because the cor
porations indicted have an aggregate
capitalization of several hundred mill
lion dollars and DO an annual business
of more than $100,O00,o0o. buu because
it will start test case on some of the
most important points which come up
in antitrust prosecutions.
Labor Chief Indicted
The indictment of Joseph M. Neenan,
of Cleveland, president of the National
Glass Blowers, the largest labor union
in the industry, is the most important
of the precedents set by the indict-
ment. Not only has there never been a
criminal prosecution of a labor leader
under the Sherman anti-trus: law in
the thirty-one years since it was en-
acted, but in 1914 the Clayton anti
trust law was passed largely to pre-
vent the application of Federal anti
trust statutes to labor unions.
The government refrained from ask
ing the Indictment of the labor leaders
alleged to have been connected with
the tile combine because of the i'm
munities granted them by the Clayton
law.
The second controversial point raised
by the Indictment is the application Of
the Sherman law to conspiracy in re-
straint of manufacture. In the Sugar
Trust case in 1895, an equity suit, the
court held that manufacture and COM
merce were distinct.
The third question at issue is as to
! the illegality of the form of combina-
i tion in which the glass manufacture
ers are alleged to have operated. This
was the employment of the Johnston
| Brokerage Company as exclusive dis
Novel Scheme Revealed
In discussing the interlocking opera
tion of this method of distribution with
the alleged conspiracy with the union
leader, Colonel William Hayward,
United States Attorney here, who has
taken an active part in the work of
! David l.. Podell, Leland B. Ducr, Ben
jamin s. Kirsch, Raymond L. Wise,
Nathan Probst and Susan Brandeis,
I, special assistant United States district
attorneys. which resulted in the indict-
ment, said yesterday that the inves-
tigation had revealed "a truly novel
scheme for cxtortionate price-fxing."
"Ordinarily among these combina-
tions we find an open price plan or an
open competition plan," he explained.
"The defendants in this instance took
no such chances with each other. They
simply designated one concern as an
exclusive selling agency That sales
agency just fixed prices for the group,
and allocated the various Jobs to the
various companies.
"To make certain that this price-fx-
ing scheme would not be handicapped
by an oversupply of window glass in
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