"Nothing Short of Criminal"

When Government lawyers opened their antitrust suit against 17 investment bankers in Manhattan 16 months ago (TIME, Dec. 11, 1950 et seq.), Federal Judge Harold R. Medina asked that they lead him along "like a child" through the complexities of investment banking. Since then, Medina has often complained that he was being led through nothing but fog. But last week his hopes went up again. On the stand as a prosecution witness was Chicago's Harold L. Stuart, president of Halsey, Stuart & Co., which floated the biggest dollar total of new issues last year.

For five days, the Government lawyers questioned Stuart, trying to support their charges that the defendants had frozen out such companies as Halsey, Stuart from security issues. Then Government Attorney Henry V. (for Vincent) Stebbins abruptly announced that he was about finished with Stuart. Medina was flabbergasted. It was "nothing short of criminal," he said, for the Government to end its examination without bringing out facts which he had been "dying to hear for a year and a half." Snapped the judge: "This is the most tremendous waste of time I ever heard of. I just cannot stomach it . . ."

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