368 WALL STREET AND THE WILDS 



while the president of the latter company, 

 George H. Earle, Jr., undertook the legal direc- 

 tion of the case and put it in the hands of his 

 personal counsel. The suit was brought in the 

 name of Frederick W. Rhinelander for himself 

 and other bondholders. 



For three years the litigation proceeded be- 

 fore reaching the Court of Appeals which then 

 took six months to render its decision. That de- 

 cision was unanimously against the trust com- 

 pany on the merits of the case. It had been 

 guilty of a gross breach of trust and was legally 

 liable to the wronged bondholders to the extent 

 of their injuries, some twenty million dollars. 

 There was no palliation of the wrong, none was 

 possible, no impeachment of the justice of a ver- 

 dict against the defendant, but a hole must be 

 found to crawl out of and four members of the 

 court found the hole, or rather made one, for their 

 plea was an insult to the intelligence of a child. 

 If the decision had established a principle of law 

 instead of being a mere subterfuge for the occa- 

 sion it would have destroyed the faith of inves- 



