But despite the many physical manifestations of unusual activity, officers and Directors of the companies mentioned as those on which Germany had set her eyes were uniformly non-committal when they did not positively deny that there was truth in the story. William J. Bruff, who is President of the Union Metallic Cartridge Company and a Director of the Remington Arms and Ammunition Company, said: "I don't think there is any truth in it. Yes, I am certain that no offer of any kind has been made by Germany to buy the two companies. I would know if such offers had been made and I haven't heard of them, except such reports as I have read in the newspapers." Henry Bronner, a Director of the Bethlehem Steel Company, said: "I have not heard that Germany or any one else has offered to buy the Bethlehem Steel Company. If such an offer were made, Charles M. Schwab would be the man who would know it." THE NEW YORK TIMES _of June 10, 1915, included this report of Charles M. Schwab's purposes with respect to the control of the Bethlehem Steel Company:_ There is not the least danger of German interests getting control of the Bethlehem Steel Company and breaking the concern's contracts with the British for arms and ammunition, it was made known yesterday from an authoritative source. This same authority had no information that, as alleged by The Chicago Herald and The Providence Journal, and quoted in THE NEW YORK TIMES yesterday, the same interests were seeking to obtain control of other companies. What blocks the attempts of the German agents, in the case of the Bethlehem Steel Company, for one thing, is that the majority of the stock of the concern is not in the market. Contrary to rumors that have lately been floating about hotel corridors and into and out of the brokers' offices adjacent to them, Charles M. Schwab still owns the majority of stock. This much Mr. Schwab emphatically confirmed to a TIMES reporter yesterday at the St. Regis. That he had no intention of selling he asserted just as emphatically. At the same time the information is authoritative that agents representing the German Government or German interests have approached Mr. Schwab, not once, but several times, since the beginning of the war, asking that negotiations be opened. It has been intimated that interests, private or Governmental, were willing to pay any price that Mr. Schwab would name for his controlling interest. Figures running into scores of millions have been named in offers, it being the understanding that the prospective owners simply wished to buy the big plant--the only one in the world that now compares with that of the Krupps, with the possible exception of that of the Schneiders at Creusot--and shut it up, in order to stop the vast sales of munitions of war to the Allies, and the filling of contracts so big that their delivery has hardly begun. Mr. Schwab, it is understood, could get today $100,000,000 or more for his stock in the Bethlehem Company.