The Life and Adventures of Carl Laemmle (1931)

VICTORY I27 In the course of the investigation a hundred and twenty witnesses were called, and three thousand six hundred pages of testimony taken. It was not until the middle of April, 19 14, twenty months after the suit had been filed, that the hearings were closed. By that time it was clear that the revelations, inexorable as they were tedious, had damaged the Trust beyond repair. The truth, obscured through interminable delays by the smoke-screen of seventeen lawyers, had at last been painfully disclosed, and a very ill-featured truth it proved to be. The evidence taken, a further eighteen months were to pass before the Court handed down its final judgment. Assured though the result might seem, it was for Laemmle a period of prolonged suspense. Surely, after all that, but one verdict was possible? And yet, seventeen lawyers never resting, the caprices of human reason, the fallibilities and loop-holes of the law — who knew what even now might happen? All the auguries were fair ; but if after all the issue should betray the promise? It could never be re-opened. If the Trust could survive this ordeal, it would henceforth be invulnerable, and the effort that had been so gallantly endured through nearly five years, could not permanently withstand this monstrous weight of combined interest. The enterprise and the achievements of Independence had been possible only in the conviction that the Trust would ultimately be destroyed. So long as