Following the Stanley investigation came the Government’s Steel dissolution suit. That the one grew out of the other is easy to believe. In fact, it would be difficult to think otherwise. The United States Steel Corporation had been organized, had done business, and prospered under successive Republican administrations. It had been investigated by the governmental departments charged with such work but these had failed to find sufficient evidence to warrant the bringing of a suit against the big company. The Stanley resolution was passed by a House controlled by a Democratic majority and the measure had been applauded by a large body of voters who had been taught to believe by their political advisors that all big business was necessarily evil. The Republican Party was facing grave danger of defeat in the coming elections of 1912 and the advantage the investigation had gained for the Democrats among the class of voters referred to could only be offset, it seemed, by a political “grand-stand play” of the same nature. Here, again, we come to a question of motives, but all the evidence obtainable seems to show that this was at least one of the reasons why, on October 26, 1911, the Attorney-General for the United States, George W. Wickersham, caused to be filed at Trenton a suit for the dissolution of the United States Steel Corporation. It cannot be said that the suit surprised any one. The country at large had long wondered why no action had been taken against the Steel Corporation; why this great combine alone seemed to be immune from attack by the Federal authorities. Those unfamiliar with its conduct and policies and knowing it only as the biggest of the “trusts” could attribute the immunity only to political influence, while those better informed, although believing that the Corporation’s entire history had been such as to render attack futile, all violations of the law having been carefully avoided by it, and that the Corporation was not a monopoly in restraint of trade, felt that the force of popular opinion must sooner or later result in a suit. In the Government’s charges were reiterated practically the same complaints found against the Corporation in the Stanley report; and a complete dissolution was asked for. The Corporation replied denying in toto all the charges and asserting its innocence of any violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Jacob M. Dickinson, former Secretary of War in the Roosevelt cabinet, was put in charge of the prosecution, assisted by Henry E. Colton. An imposing array of legal talent was lined up on the Corporation side, its counsel including Joseph H. Choate, John G. Johnson, Francis Lynde Stetson, Richard V. Lindabury, Cordenio A. Severance, David A. Reed, and Raynal C. Bolling. The actual conduct of the case was principally in the hands of Messrs. Lindabury, Severance, and Reed.