The Legal World Important Litigation A federal jury at Covington, Ky., has found the Kentucky tobacco farmers who had been indicted for taking part in the Night Rider girsecutions guilty of a violation of the erman law. In the same court, $6,000 damages was awarded to W. S. Henderson, a merchant who had sued twelve tobacco farmers of Bracken county. Another trust was indicted A 'l 8, when the directors of the lm rial indow Glass Company were cha at Pittsburg with acts in violation of the Sherman anti-trust law. The indictment charged the establish ment of a combination and the maintenance of unreasonable and non-com titive prices in excess of those which would ave prevailed if the defendant had not engaged in an unlawful conspiracy. In the noted case of Loewe v. United Hatters 31' North America it will be recalled that the efendants were found guilty last February at Hartford, Conn., of injurin the business of the plaintiff in violation 0 the Sherman act by means of a boycott (see 22 Green Bag 259). An appeal tothe United States Circuit Court of Appeals has now been taken on behalf of the American Federation of Labor, with whigh the Hatters’ National Union is affili ate
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Attorney-General Wickersham, in his speech delivered at Chicago April 9 in defense of Mr. Taft’s administration, gave the first intima tion of the fact that the Government was planning to break up the combination of dealers in bituminous coal. He laid much stress on the Government's prosecution of the Standard Oil and Tobacco cases, and also showed his interest in the proceedings brought in the United States Circuit Court at
Philadelphia against the anthracite coal com bination.
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The Interstate Commerce Commission made an important ruling April 10 reducing Pull man rates and ordering differential charges between upper and lower berths, which is likely to be carried to the courts by the Pull man Company. Chairman Kna and Com missioner Heslam dissented. e uniform rate of $12 for upper or lower berths from St. Paul to the acific Coast was ordered reduced to $10 for lower berths and $8.50 for upper berths The Commission also took thin-‘position that a short night's journey sh d not carry a rate of more than $1.50 for a lower berth and $1.10 for an upper, and ordered other reductions.
The United States Circuit Court last summer at Chicago permanently enjoined the Inter state Commerce Commission from enforcing a lower throu h rate from the Atlantic sea board to the issouri River, in the so-called Missouri River Rate cases (see 21 Green Ba 533). Appeals both by the Commission an by Missouri River shippers were taken into the Su me Court of the United States, and on April 1 what is likely to prove the biggest rate fight since the passage of the Hep urn bill entered u n its fina stages when the Government ed a brief in the same court. If the litigation is successful, the order of the Commission will lose its effect because of the two-year limitation, but. the Government will have achieved a victory in a controversy in which the power of the Commission is felt to be at stake. Judge Holt, after a verdict had been brought in for the defendant April 13 in the suit brought by Clifford W. Hartrid against Mrs. Mary Copley Thaw for 8 3,000 for counsel fees, considered the facts which had been brought to his attention sufficiently
grave to require him to make the unusual move of ordering the record and exhibits impounded for presentation to the District Attorney and the Grievance Committee of the Bar Association. The evidence of the defend ant had included‘ payments made to women to keep them from telling to the secuting officials stories detrimental to T w's case, and covered work for one hundred and ei hty nights in the Tenderloin district. Judge olt remarked that if these payments were not correctly stated, the defendant was subject to a charge of perjury, and if they had been made‘ there ought to be an investigation to determine whether the defendant had ob structed justice or been guilty of professional misconduct. The anti-bucket shop crusade of the De partment of Justice indicates the belief of the officials of that department that they have power not only to prosecute those con ductin bucket shops in the District of Columbia, but persons in other cities con nected in any way with the firms having oflices or representatives in the District. The twenty-nine rsons indicted by the federal grand jury o the District of Columbia, whose offices in New York, Philadelphia, Jersey City, Baltimore, Cincinnati and St. Louis, were raided at the same hour on A ril 2, were all connected with three firms, t e first main taining oflices in New York and Philadelphia, the second in Baltimore and New York, and the third in the four other cities above named, all three firms maintaining numerous branch
offices.
The principal charge is that of con
spiracy to commit an oflense in violation of
