During the Steel dissolution suit a number of competitors and of steel consumers testified that the big company had always endeavored to “steady” prices, a fact evidenced by the very holding of the celebrated dinners. That it had always been the last to advance, and was equally loath to reduce. They agreed, however, that the steadying influence was brought to bear, not to keep prices at levels where enormous profits could be reaped, but rather at such quotations as gave the manufacturer only a fair and equable profit on his investment, evidenced by the fact that the Corporation, unlike many of its competitors, fixed an approximate high-water mark for prices in boom times, and made no attempt, in fact refused to sell above these, although they were much lower, to use a phrase made familiar in the old days of railroading “than the traffic could bear.” These witnesses also asserted that the tendency of prices since the birth of the Steel Corporation had been downward and finally that the quality of the product, and these were men qualified to know whereof they spoke, had been appreciably bettered. In its decision the U. S. District Court pronounced itself as satisfied that the Corporation did not have the power, even if it wanted to, to force prices to an abnormal level. The Court found it proven that steel prices could not be advanced arbitrarily above the level quoted by any important competitor in the field, and that the so-called independent companies were themselves too large and too powerful to be forced to the wall by the methods that have been employed by some “trusts” to secure monopoly. Regarding the question of the course or tendency of prices the testimony of Professor Jeremiah Jenks is particularly illuminating. Professor Jenks, whose reputation as an economist is world-wide, verified and explained charts previously put in evidence showing that the purchasing power of steel, the real price obtained by what is known as the index system, recognized by economists as the best test of price fluctuations, had decreased decidedly between the date of the organization of the Corporation and the time of the steel suit, as compared with a similar period before the birth of the Corporation. The same table showed that apart from the economic test and merely on the basis of actual prices received the average prices of steel and iron in the same period had declined slightly between the same periods.