No. 26,900

A few minutes before ten one morning last week in his chambers on the sixth floor of Chicago's old Federal Court Building. Judge James Herbert Wilkerson initiated the Northern Illinois judicial district into a new custom by donning the first black robes ever to be worn in Chicago. Then he stepped into the courtroom to open case No. 26,900, the United States of America v. Samuel Insull and 16 codefendants. The charge: using the mails to defraud in the selling of $143,000,000 of securities in the Insull-controlled Corporation Securities Co.

On trial were officers from every company dealing in the issue: Corporation Securities, Halsey. Stuart & Co., Utility Securities Co., Insull Utility Investments Inc.

It took but two days for opposing counsel to agree on a jury from which Insull investors were rigidly excluded. Their choice: three small business men, three salesmen, two unemployed, a laborer, a retired sales manager, a farmer, a bookbinder.

Then U. S. District Attorney Dwight H. Green, who helped prepare the case against Capone, stood up before the Judge who sentenced Capone. to outline the Government's case. Because he has no star witness Attorney Green's case will be built entirely from Insull records. And because a volume of records may yield but a line of guilt, Attorney Green will be forced to recite the Life of Insull to get at the fraud of Corporation Securities. To help him are 2,500 exhibits, 200 witnesses to identify the exhibits, a freshly made 22-ft. bookcase in the courtroom to hold the exhibits. At the end of last week he was still busy having his mute witnesses identified by a voluble line of clerks and accountants. He will need at least four more weeks to com plete his presentation of the case.

Although he has permission to absent himself from the trial if the strain be comes too much for his health, old Samuel Insull taxied or bussed over from the Hotel Seneca to the courthouse every morning before ten. He submitted grace fully to daily photographing and interviewing, nodded to friends in court. Said his old protegee, Singer Mary McCormic, from the spectators' benches: "This looks like comic opera to me." Far from comic to old Insull, however, is the Government's threat: a maximum sentence of 50 years in jail and $250,000 fine. If acquitted, he will be tried under the Bankruptcy Law. If again acquitted, he will be tried by the State of Illinois.

No less in jeopardy than old Samuel last week was young Samuel Jr. His arm still black-banded for the death of his wife last February, he hovered solicitously over his father, grinned at the Press, was quieter in court. Occasionally he stole a glance at the second row of the spectators' benches. There, straight and prim as a Quaker, sat his pretty mother. Last July she had followed her husband back from their European exile, travelling tourist class on the Majestic, announcing that she had come to stand by him. In Chicago she had abashed vociferous newshawks by gravely quoting : "Sweet are the uses of adversity."

Not present were two other Insulls: Samuel Insull III, because he was only three; and Martin John Insull because he had been extradited from Canada on a State charge, was therefore immune to Federal prosecution.

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