Sorry Story's End

The first major scandal to besmirch a big-time war producer hit the headlines just over a year ago (TIME, Jan. 4, 1943). In Fort Wayne, Ind., and Pawtucket, R.I., the Anaconda Wire & Cable Co.* was indicted for deliberately delivering to Russia and to the U.S. Army Signal Corps equipment dangerously below standard. Last June the Fort Wayne case wound up with the maximum fine ($10,000 and costs) for Anaconda Wire, lesser fines for five officials and suspended jail sentences for three of them.

Last week a Providence, R.I. judge put a much more violent end to the whole sorry story. Four of the five past or present local plant men included in the indictment got jail sentences running from a year & a day to 18 months, while the fifth was put on probation "with reluctance" because he had turned State's evidence. But the big blow was dealt to the company itself. Besides the maximum fine, Judge John P. Hartigan delivered a stinging rebuke that would cost any company far more in good will than a mere $10,000. The defendants he had just sent to jail were motivated, he said, by "blind loyalty to a corporation that didn't seem to appreciate the loyalty it owed to the U.S. . . . Anaconda Wire & Cable Co. [was the] chief culprit."

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