Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-01-25

The Commissioners have changed their
views Of their real position in the matter of the
real estate purchases. At first they held that
they had employed agents to purchase, but
that the vendor, not the District, paid them.
Now they maintain that they have employed
no such agents at all. When the first publica-
ton concerning these purchases made Mr..
Webb, speaking for the Commissioners, said in
a public statement, of which the correctness
was reaffrmed by himself and Endorsed by
Commissioner wheatley:
at cannot be charged that the Commission
ers were wrong in employing an agent to make
the purchases in question, because purchases
of real estate are always made in that way:
but the difficulty seems to arise from the fact
that the agents employed have received in such
purchases more compensation for their serv-
ices than ought to have been paid
i will say at the outset that the Commits
sioners have had to purchase large number of
sites during the period of their official exist
ence, and have always made their purchases
through agents, because experience has taught
them that this is the safest and most economi-
cal method of making such purchases. / will
say further that | have generally employed
Mr.. Cox because he is a gentleman in whom 1
have the most unbounded confidence, and be-
cause the purchases made by him have always
been made at very fair and economical prices
The purchase of the police station
the agency of Mr.. Cox. simply because it has al
ways been deemed best to make such purchases
through an agent"
In reply to the inquiry of the committee of
Investigation the Commissioners. again speak
ing through Mr.. Webb, say in the letter print
ed in The STAR to-day:
with reference to whether any such pur-
chases we're made through persons designated
or employed by the Commissioners the Com
mia hQu to- hat
employed by them for the purpose indicated,
as there was no appropriation from which such
persons could be remunerated The Commits
sioners are unable to state what compensation
was paid by the owners of real estate who sold
their property to the District to any person
who negotiated such sale"
1t now appears that the wretched property
owners have not only paid several times the
amount of the regular commissions charged by
their own authorized selling agents to men
who, according TO the Commissioners theory
have hoodwinked them into selling to the Dis
trict, to which, in the absence of deception,
they would not have sold, and for prices lower
than they would have charged if they had
known the District was the purchaser.
but have actually employed these high
priced agents to cut down their own
profits and to find them an alleged I'M
desirable purchaser. The indignation of
number OF the vendors, who did not know
until their deals were consummated of the
existence of a District agent and middleman,
will be intensified by the suggestion that they
have uncOnsciously employed somebody to
practice upon them elaborate system of
deception, and have paid him thousands Of
dollars for the service rendered According
to this latest theory of the Commissioners the
dignified part which they have played in the
matter has been to request some agent, with
out compensation from the District, to get
himself employed by property-owner, and
then to cause him, with treachery to his
actual employer who pays him consciously or
unconsciously an extravagant commission, to
sell to the District property which, without
trickery, could not, according to their theory,
be obtained at the price charged, or at all.