366
The Green Bag
the Panama affair. Judge Anderson ruled against the Government s contention that it was not essential for a committing magis trate to hear evidence, and heard the argu ment of counsel for the defendants that the indictment was baseless. The Court called attention to the fact that malice in a prose cution for criminal libel must be express rather than implied, and refused to make an order that the defendants should be re moved for trial before it was satisfied that there was probable cause for the indictment for criminal libel. While the owner of a newspaper might be held civilly for anything that appeared in his paper, the Courtjseemed to be of the opinion that he could not be held criminally for a vicious article printed during his absence on a yachting cruise. Despite the protests of the defense Judge Anderson consented to a continuance, and the Government will introduce its witnesses in court at Indianapolis on October 11. The Pennsylvania Sugar Refining Company sued the American Sugar Refining Company for $30,000,000 damages in the United States Circuit Court at New York City before Judge Holt. Segal built the new plant of the plaintiff company in 1903, and secured a loan from Gustav Kissell, a broker, which was made on condition that the holders of col lateral should name the directors of Segal's company. Kissell was acting as agent for the defendant company, and named as directors himself and three clerks, who voted not to open the plant. When the evidence was ready to go to the jury, seeing that the jury might assess damages up to $10,000,000 under the Sherman Act, the defendants thought it advisable to make a settlement out of court by a huge payment. It is believed to be the first case on record where a business has recovered from a competitor cash where with to start active competition. A suit in connection with the same matter also for damages was brought in the state of New Jersey and is pending on appeal in the Court of Errors of New Jersey from the decree dis missing the suit. Other phases of the matter are pending in the courts of Pennsylvania. The compromise of the civil suit of the Pennsylvania Sugar Refining Company against the American Sugar Refining Company, which is stated to have been made on the basis of the return of $7,000,000 par value of securities held as collateral, the cancellation of a loan of $1,250,000, and the payment of $2,000,000 in cash as damages for the loss due to the closing of the plaintiff's plant by the defendant in pursuance of an unlawful re straint of trade, drew the attention of Presi dent Taft and Attorney-General Wickersham to a possible criminal violation of the Sherman Act, in view of the defendant corporation's practical confession of civil guilt. Receiver George H. Earle of the Real Estate Trust Company of Philadelphia, who declared that
"THE EASIEST WEIGH." —From the Boston Amtrican. the federal government refused to act when similar evidence to that now available was laid before President Roosevelt in 1906, offered to give the government all the evidence in his possession if it was desired, and Mr. Earle, with his counsel and eleven other witnesses, was subpoenaed to appear before the United States grand jury in New York, which began its investigation June 21, under the direction of Assistant United States Attor ney Crim. Attorney-General Wickersham had asked United States Attorney Wise and the other officers of the Department of Justice to push the criminal prosecution of the corpo ration for violation of the anti-trust act with all possible speed. Adolph Segal, who got the $1,250,000 loan which lies at the basis of the federal investigation, testified before the grand jury June 22.
Personal— The Bench Judge Richard E. Sloane, the new Governor of Arizona, formerly Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Arizona, was born in Ohio, and is a graduate of the Cincinnati Law School. Judge Emory Speer, of the United States District Court for the southern district of Georgia, on account of official duties, had to decline invitations to speak in June at the annual meetings of three of the great state bar associations.
