"The Most Despicable . . ."

One stormy night in Cleveland last winter a motorist picked up a stranger, was amazed to hear the rider babble of mysterious doings in the war plant where he worked. The motorist told the FBI, which quietly began investigating one of the country's biggest makers of aluminum castings for war planes, tanks and ships--the National Bronze and Aluminum Foundry Co. The FBI's findings caused a grand jury to issue the first indictments against U.S. businessmen tinder the World War I Sabotage Act.

Indicted: National Bronze's bespectacled mustached President John L. Schmel-ler; his brother Frank, general manager-another brother, Edward, chief metallurgist; four other top company officials, and the company itself. The charge-conspiracy to defraud the U.S. by selling defective castings to the Packard Motor Car Co. for use in Rolls-Royce airplane motors. The Schmellers and the others were ousted from the company and tried last week in Cleveland's Federal Court. There, more than 100 witnesses minutely detailed the plot against the U.S.

The Plot. Witnesses testified: when defective castings were rejected by Packard National Bronze plugged and welded the holes and cracks in a secret welding room, the dirty work guarded by a special alarm system to warn the welders when Packard officials and air-force inspectors visited the plant. When suspicious Packard officials rejected $130,000 worth of castings and ordered them scrapped--after repeated warnings to National Bronze that defective parts would kill U.S. flyers--the company patched up the parts, changed the serial numbers and shipped them back to Packard as new parts. Some of the castings were so weak they fell apart when touched. The trial brought out greed as the reason for the plot: National Bronze got $270 a Ib. for accepted castings v. only 15-c- a Ib. for those scrapped.

After pondering this a jury convicted the Schmellers, dismissed charges against the company and the others. Five days later, Judge Emerich B. Freed handed out thumping sentences to each of the Schmellers: 10 years in jail, $10,000 fines. Commented the Cleveland Press: "The crime ... is one of the most despicable that can be committed in time of war."

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