Daily State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1861-1865, 1865-09-01
The Greatesf SwSndIe 81 Ali-Frauds
in the Army Fay Department..

III inc army ray DcpnEtmeut
The embszzlement. fraud and forgery that
discovered TO have been carried on IN the Pay
Department of the United States Army will
prove to be the gigantic operation of this swind
| ling period. ketehun, With his two millions,
will sink out of sigh. when all the facts Of this
affair are made public One fact already known
indicates this pretty clearly. That fact Is, that
Norfolk bank, whose securities are less than
one hundred thousand dollars in amount, was
| entrusted, by the manipulstions OF paymasters,
with seven million dollars of Government money.
| Corruption of the most extensive character is ev
ident in that simple statement. 1t would be Wis
ionary 20 expect an honest purpose where we
| End such dlsproporti0n between the trust i'm
| posed and the security exacted, and it would be
| perhaps equally visionary TO suppose that off
Gals would be superior to such temptation if this
distribution Of Government money resulted from
accident or oversight.
This grand piece of vilany first comes TO light
| in the kiehmoa pay district and that il CONES
to light at all at present, perhaps results from a
quarrel between the national banks there and
those at Norfolk. The rogues fell Col
Binney. recently chief paymasser in that district
seems just at present to De the head and trent OF
il, and it Is already reported that fourteen other
paymasters- Binney OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
in the frauds 1t will be found that the opera
ton has extended beyond the one district named
|
suspicion that SO large number of Northern pay
masters involved in similar transactions - and
| hints at what may have been done in toe im mense
disbursements made at the various depots at whick
the homeward bound troops have been sent from
the seat of war. simultaneously with this it
turns up that corrupt practices of some character
are Just coming re light in the Pay Department
| of the United States Army In this city One
arrest has been made, aud there ia undouoted
evidence of the guilt of the arrested party IL is
alleged that the crime in this case involves for
gerry. and there is attempt TO give the impress
siOp that II is merely matter OF selling forged
discharged papers to soldiers. This is probably
a blind There is no doubt a very intimate con
nection between the smindiing here and that in
the Southern cities They are parts of one sta
pendeus scheme OF plunder, in which the unscTu
pueus creatures OF the Pay Department have
worked together. and in which the Government
| has been victimized TO an extent Of which the
| figures that have already leaked out hardly give
| an intmatien
How the swindlers operated is not yet certain
but it appears TO have been by means of the
seven-thirty bonds. In one statement it is al
legged that seven thirties were drawn by the pay
masters anterior to the date at which their in
terest began, and that the government allowed
interest from the date of sale; that the officers
paid the troops in the bonds and pocketed the
| interest allowed above what was borne on the
| face of each note. And the statement is that
the psymasters, being in collision with all the
brokers and bankers in the Richmond district
paid the soldiers in seven-th irtes and then re
asEei large discount for the exchange of the
bends for legal tender notes. But these epaulet-
TED finauciers never submitted their money N k
| ing purposes 10 any such slow or inadequate
machinery as this The financial condition of
the Richmond district especially shows that they
operated in q bolder way. There are three banks
in Richmond and two in Norfolk and each Of
the five has capital Of only $780, 900. Doubt
less all are in the hands of the paymasters.
Binney interested in the Norfolk banks, and
we hear that Stanton, his successor is interested
in those at Richmond By means of these inst
tutions the paymasters were using Government
| money to such extent that bank held
seven millions. The full figure of the FIVE banks
will foot up tremendously. Men with such
financial machinery as this az their disposal were
not satisfied with making eight dollars on a
thousand, or even four on hundred Keeping
so near shore as that was for smaller boats than
theirs. The forgeries spoken Of in the arrests
here point also to larger operation. We have
heard throughout the war of the discrepancy be-
tween the number Of men who appeared on the
pay rolls and those who appeared IN the line of
battle. Perhaps these forgeries will let US fur
Their into the history of that discrepancy. II
there were thousands of bogus soldiers there
would also DE thousands oil bogus discharges, Tor
which the forger would not get FIVE, ten or ffty
dollars from poor devil of soldier, but tens OF
thousands of dollars, drawn from the Govern
ment "a the supposed pay of whole regiments
| that never bad any existence. The forgeries
in that direction.
| The Pay Department OF the United States
Army was constituted. to a great extent, for Just
such result. as this. There are in it, and through
the var have been, hundreds of men who went in
purposely to take every chance to make money
men utterly without patriotism, honor or con
| science. Never such an immense amount
of money discussed so loosely; and If ever the
fall history is known the records of all other
thievery will be white to IT, just now the proper
authorities owe il to public sentiment to vigor-
ously examine into these operations, and TO pun
! ish the swindlers 10 the utmost possible extent.
The miseraby mistaken notion that all this vii
lany should be hushed up and the Williams
shreuded out OF regard for the army should be
gotten rid OF st once. ANY failure on the part
| OF the Government to act with the utmost vigor
on this case will have great dsmorslizins ten
dency, and the public will inevitably confound all
| who uphold the rogues with the rognes them
selves-New York Herald