Receivership for Long-Bell Log Shodage Faced in Columbia

Denicd River District

An application for a receivership for the Long-Bell Lumber Company and its subsidiaries was denied by Judge Merrill F. Otis of the United States District Court in Kansas City, Mo., on October 15. Bitls in equity seeking the receivership were ordered dismissed.

The two receivership petitions filed in January, one naming William G. Hutson, of Lawrence, Kansas, as the petitioning plaintiff, and the other filed in behalf of W. Verdner Carson, of Quincy, Ill., were consolidated several months ago by Judge Otis. The action was opposed by the company and supported by a bondholders' protective committee.

Judge Otis' action in dismissing the receivership suit was taken on amended complaints filed after the original bills had been found lacking in weight, the demurrer of the lumber company's lawyers being sustained last spring. In the revised suit, Mr. R. A. Long, founder of the company, personally chose that the company lawyers should not rest on a demurrer, but try the case openly and fully. The hearing occupied virtually a week. Mr. Long appeared on the witness stand giving a history of the company from the beginning to its present position in the industry. During the hearing it was brought out that a plan for reorganization of the company is under way which will enable the company to continue operating under its own name and with ample financing, the aid and cooperation of bankers looking to this end was assured.

In the last section of his opinion, Judge Otis paid an excellent tribute to Mr. Long and his associates. He said:

"The history of the Long-Bell Lumber Company, as the evidence in this case discloses, is inspiring. Long ago was its beginning. In a little town in Kansas one man started it with a carload of second-hand lumber as his stock in trade.

"One man builded it until it became the greatest institution of its kind in the whole world. For sixty years its reputation and his not only have been unsullied, they have stood out for emulation. This man still is the dominating spirit of the business which he builded. The fourscore and two years he has lived and labored, marvelous to say, have taken from him nothing of moral or mental power.

"A world-wide depression which has wrecked even governments and great business enterprises everywhere has brought his company, too, into a sea of troubles. It may not be possible for the ship to weather the storm, but the captain is not responsible for the storm. He and those who have worked under his direction have done everything it was possible for them to do to make staunch the vessel against the threatening elements and whatever has been done has had that as its sole object."