Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1885-06-13
THE RECORD OF ROACH.
Some Facts and Figures for His Ad-
miring Friends.

The apologists of Robeson and Roach
have made so many excuses for those
worthless, and by concealment and false
pretense have so obscured their real cul-
pability, that the letter from Washington
published in the Herald of Sunday will
be of great service in refreshing the minds
of the people concerning the greatest
crime committed against them in twenty
years. Briefly put, the business of Roach
and other ship-builders, in whose enter
prises he was a silent partner, was to Sc
cure a contract BODYBUILDING or repairing
some vessel and then accept in part pay
ment lot of other vessels, on which he
| allowed the Government 13I cents per
pound for the iron which they contained.
When it is remembered that these con-
tracts were let without advertising or
bids, and that the vessels to be broken I'D
were turned over to him without being
subjected to a survey or offered for sale at
auction, 1t becomes very clear that the
aim OF the ring was something else than
the construction of ali effective navy.
The five great Robeson monitors,
which are now on the stocks, and which
1t is estimated, cannot be finished for less
than $6,00O,000, represent the destruction
of nineteen war ships which cost $15,-
600, 900 and a cash expenditure of about
$7,000,000. If they are ever completed
they will have cost the government $685.
600, 900 and will be without exception the
i've costllest men-of-war in the world.
AS to their value opinions differ, but
every one agrees that they will be prac-
ucally useless for sea-going purposes and
that much more effective ships might be
built for one quarter of the money. In
fact, they will be, when finished. lust
about such vessels as the government
gave Roach and his friends to break up.
by pursuing this policy for ten or twelve
years longer there would not be an
American war vessel afoat, and Roach
would have perhaps dozen ungainly
monsters in his various yards represent
ing the great achievement of putting ten
ships into one.
One of the first acts of the Secretary of
the Navy Thompson in 1877 was to retire
Constructor Hanscomb from his place.
He was Robeson's most efficient lieuten-
ant, and whatever his superior failed or
lacked to do he was ready to take in
hand at once. The mere fact that the
eleven vessels given outright to Roach to
be broken up and used in the reconstruc-
ton OF the "Miantonomah'' and "Pur-
itan" cost So, 100000, and realized to the
government when sold for the scrap iron
that they contained only $297, 900, shows
how scoundrelly was the bargain that the
greatest American ship-builder'' drove
with the perfdious representatives of the
people. Probably nothing in the history
of corruption and malfeasance from the
earliest days of human government to
the present equals this transaction in
point of downright scoundrelism.
These disclosures reveal the fact that
the so-called expenditures for "repairs."
resulting in even poorer ships than were
originally given into the hands of the |
builders do not cover the entire field of |
naval mismanagement and crookedness. |
BESIDES the enormous cash outlaws re- |
sulting in nothing of value, scores of |
reasonably good timber and iron ships
were literally given away as junk. This
is why, after an expenditure of millions
OF dollars since the war, the country has
no tlrst-class war ships and only very
few war ships of any kind, whereas twenty
years ago we had enough to blockade the
sea coast from the Chesapeake to the Rio
Grande.-ChicdgO Herald.