construction of the various buildings. We went to Mr. Taylor's office
and were informed that Mr. Taylor was busy and could not see us. Mr.
Taylor's secretary, Mr. Carl Hoblitzelle, took us into an adjoining
room. He did not ask our names, and we did not tell him who we were.
While we were waiting in this room--I presume we were there about five
minutes--Mr. Frank Harris, a member of the Chicago House Wrecking
Company, came into the room. It looked to me as if he had been posted as
to our, being there and came to see who we were. Mr. Harris remained
there three or four minutes and then left. We asked the clerk in charge
of the office there for the plans of the various buildings to be
wrecked. He handed us two sets of plans--one for the Agricultural and
one for the Horticultural Building. We requested more plans of him, but
he said he was too busy to take them down and immediately left the room
and remained out all the time we were in there. We went to the shelves
and took out the plans ourselves and looked them over. After we had
looked over the plans for a couple of hours we went out on the
exposition grounds, and spent the rest of that day and the next on the
grounds, and on the following day we returned to Chicago. The bids were
to be in Mr. Taylor's office by 12 o'clock noon Thursday, November 10,
1904. Mr. Schmitt, my bookkeeper, and myself went to St. Louis on
November 9 and were present at Mr. Taylor's office in the Administration
Building before the hour of 12 o'clock noon, November 10. I had prepared
my bid. At this time I only bid on the stock barns, live-stock forum,
Congress Hall, Agricultural and Horticultural buildings. I also had a
separate bid prepared for the Transportation Building, which I
submitted. I took my bids and handed them to Mr. Carl Hoblitzelle, Mr.
Taylor's private secretary. He placed them in his desk and said he would
bring them to the attention of the committee when the time came to open
the bids. Mr. Schmitt and I then went into an anteroom, where the other
bidders were gathered. There were present at the time Mr. H.S. Albrecht,
of the firm of Schoellhorn & Albrecht, St. Louis; Mr. Charles McDonald,
of the St. Louis Steam Forge Company, St. Louis; Mr. W. Ware, of the
Columbia Wrecking Company, St. Louis; a Mr. Schaeffer and son, of St.
Louis, and Mr. Frank and Abraham Harris, who represented the Chicago
House Wrecking Company. There were one or two other gentlemen present,
but I can not n