Business & Finance: Footing the Bill

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Saul Singer at 15 was proprietor of a hardware store in Sebastopol. At 17 he was earning $4 a week in a Manhattan sweatshop. He became in due course president of the $15,000,000 Garment Centre Capital buildings, president of the Cloak, Suit and Skirt Manufacturers' Protective Association. At 47 he has a rambling colonial house of 25 rooms and a large forested estate on Long Island where he employs two chauffeurs and three gardeners, owns saddle horses, a station wagon and two limousines.

Isidor Jacob Kresel is a diminutive man and an able lawyer. Austrian by birth. American by 40 years of residence, his record in the Bar includes investigation of the famous insurance scandals of a quarter of a century ago. He was a prosecuting attorney in the impeachment of Governor William Sulzer of New York. For the U. S. Government he investigated the meat packers in Chicago and was just delving into the building trades when Attorney General Harry Micajah Daugherty discharged him from the Government employ. Three years ago he unearthed a series of "ambulance chasing" scandals in Manhattan. Recently he has been at work investigating New York City Magistrates with the result that three have resigned (TIME, Aug. 25 et seq.). Altogether little Mr. Kresel has a great reputation for ferreting out evil. His present position, at the other end of an indictment, is a novelty.

The Legal Duel Great was the array of legal talent which the Bank of U. S. affair brought last week into the New York courts. For Messrs. Marcus and Singer appeared Charles Henry Tuttle, last year's Republican candidate for Governor of New York. C. Stanley Mitchell, chairman of the bank's directorate, was represented by famed Martin Wiley Littleton. Mr. Kresel himself appeared in court with his counsel, John William Davis, erstwhile Democratic candidate for President. They were but a few of the bank officials' lawyers. On the other side appeared District Attorney Thomas C. T. Grain and above all Max D. Steuer in the double capacity of Special Deputy Assistant Attorney General and Special Assistant District Attorney appointed for the case. For his services in this case the soft-tongued Mr. Steuer, who has pocketed enormous fees, who has a reputation in the law of having outsmarted more men than Odysseus, is to be paid $1. It was he who presented the case to the grand jury and secured the indictments. So unwelcome was his participation that Messrs. Marcus and Singer made a futile effort to have him removed as illegally appointed.

Towering in interest above the other legal experts of the case, was the fact that here were Messrs. Kresel and Steuer standing face to face in battle—Mr. Kresel somewhat wobbly to begin with, because he had risen from his sickbed against doctor's orders so as to appear in court. Here, reasoned prize fight fans, was the setup of master battle, a battle of two cruisers each hungering for blood.