Mr. Garrett—“Yes.” Mr. Baruch—“And also in regard to the Lever Act, on the point that ‘no man could serve two masters.’ * * * There was no basis for it * * * because these men were not serving two masters. They did not make trades with themselves, but, with the instru¬ mentality provided, carried out the government’s wishes or orders or suggestions with reference to the particular industry which they represented.”
The “instrumentality” with which the copper men dealt, for example, was the American Metals Selling Company which, together with the American Smelting and Refining Company, was represented at Washing¬ ton by Mr. Mosehauer. The special copper commit¬ tee,' composed of Guggenheim employes, did business pertaining to the “instrumentality” which carried on the business of the combined copper companies.
It was dangerous. Some of the members seem to JEWISH COPPER KINGS REAP RICH WAR-PROFITS 87 have felt it before Mr. Baruch did. Mr. Baruch never seems to have questioned anything that he did. Why should he? He “had more power than any other man in the war” and he had the most powerful and auto¬ cratic backing that a man ever had. But the others, the non-Jewish members, were thinking of the law.
So Mr. Baruch solved it very nicely. He took the committees, comprising the same men, and had them named as committees of the United States Chamber of Commerce for their various industries, and although the process was not changed in the least, the legal aspect of it was changed. It was rather clever. It was more, it was typical.
And after that, Mr. Baruch who had previously in¬ sisted that he himself had picked those men and that the industries had not, thus clearly encouraging the inference that these men did not represent the in¬ dustries’ side, but the government side of the matter, he now insists that they represented the industry.