By his own testimony, Mr. Baruch was interested in copper concerns. What his holdings were during the war he did not disclose. But what his actions were has been very clearly set forth bit by bit in various inquiries.
Before the United States entered the war, Mr. Baruch rounded up the copper kings.
“I went to New York and saw there Mr. John D. Ryan and Mr. Daniel Guggenheim/’ he said in his testimony. This was in February or March, 1917, he wasn’t sure which, but he said it was “before we went into the war.”
Now, who were these gentlemen? Mr. Ryan was apparently in charge of the reorganized Lewisohn properties, while Mr. Guggenheim was chief of the seven Guggenheims who form “a business family and a family business.” They divided business during the war. The United Metals Selling Company, which sold the United States Government its copper during the JEWISH COPPER KINGS REAP RICH WAR-PROFITS 81 War, was the Lewisohn business reorganized, of which Tobias Wolf son was vice president; and the American Smelting and Refining Company was, apparently, the Guggenheim interests.
There was no competition between these two during the war!
How did it come about that these two worked to¬ gether? Their case is clear on paper: their answer is that Mr. Baruch asked them to! And Mr. Baruch is clear, too/; was he not a government official? And did they not show patriotism in doing as the govern¬ ment official bade them?
It came to this: the “Government” made a rule that it would do business only through the American Metals Selling Company as the representative of the copper producers of the United States. This meant, of course, that if the few competitors of this Jewish copper combine were to do business with the govern¬ ment, they too had to make arrangements with the American Metals Selling Company.