Hammond Lumber Company Completely Frecd In Portland Trial

Much publicity was given in the press and on the air to the indictment of the Hammond Lumber Company for alleged false representations in their applications to federal agencies for the purchase of logging trucks.

When the case came to trial in Portland early in November the trial was stopped by Judge Claude McColloch after testimony by Harry C. Patton, the company's Portland manager, named jointly with the company in the indictment.

Judge McColloch in clearing the Hammond Lumber Company of any guilt, made a lengthy statement to the court. It was as follows:

"I think it is time now to recall that this is a criminal case. This is not a trial about rates, or conditions of employment, -or whether truckers have a good setup on the Hammond Lumber Company operations this is a charge that these defendants, the corporate defendant and the individual defendant, knowingly and wilfully committed a felony against the United States of America; That they defrauded the governrnent, that they defrauded it in a way that, if it were true, would seriously affect the war effort. It is a t:harge which, if proven, would require a penitentiary sentcnce to be imposed on the individual defendant.

"I find no evidence of fraud in the case as charged. I had that feeling at the end of the government case. But I felt that it was in the public interest to see that the defense developed its case by putting its principals on the witness stand particularly so that they might be crossexamined by the government. As they have now been cross-examined.

"No one knows in this room but that he tomorrow-it might come to me, it might come to anybody sitting in front of us-might be faced with a charge, which if proven, would cause his liberty to be taken away from him and his business reputation ruined. This is such a charge in this case, and our criminal jurisprudence, coming down from our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, has wisely provided that all such charges must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. In other words, they are not likely to be made, nor lightly to be considered by the trior, whether a court or a jury.

"I repeat that in this case the charge that a fraud was committed on the United States goyernment by a knowing and wilful falsification of material facts which caused the diversion of important war materials to this defendant, is in my opinion not established by the evidence, and I see no reason for carrying the trial further. The find and verdict will be for the defendants."