Du Fonts on Trial

In Chicago last week, after 3 1/2 years of legal skirmishing, the Government's antitrust suit against the Du Ponts was finally under way. In his opening statement, U.S. Attorney Willis L. Hotchkiss outlined the charge: 117 members of the Du Pont family--59 of them minors aged four to 20--had conspired to restrain trade through a $5 billion empire composed of the Du Pont chemical company, General Motors and U.S. Rubber. Hotchkiss wanted the court to force the Du Fonts to sell their chemical company's 23% common-stock interest in G.M. (now worth $1.3 billion) and the 18% interest in U.S. Rubber ($27.6 million), and to cancel all existing contracts between the three companies. But after seven days in court, the trial was suddenly halted.

The strain of preparing the Government's case had been so great that Attorney Hotchkiss collapsed from nervous exhaustion. The Government was granted a five-week adjournment. This development raised the question whether the entire Government case might not collapse if Hotchkiss is unable to continue. He has been working on the case since 1949, has plowed through 100,000 documents almost singlehanded, and whittled them down to 1,200 for trial use. Thus, he is virtually the only Government attorney with the background to prosecute the case.

The delay raised another possibility. Herbert Brownell, who will take over as U.S. Attorney General on Jan. 20, has promised to review all antitrust cases pending in the Justice Department. If he doesn't like how they have been conducted, he can change the teams of lawyers assigned; if he doesn't approve of the cases themselves, or thinks they are too weak, he can drop them.

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