The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-10-16
DREW TOO MANY CHECKS
Bank Examiner Pope Unearths Seri-
GUS Irregularities and Discrep-
ancies in City Pay Rolls.
Two Warrants Drawn in Favor of
Same Man on Same Day With
out Apparent Justification.

Discrepancies and Irregularities of
serious nature, it is claimed have been
unearthed in connection with the pay roll
OF the city street force While but little
has been definitely ascertained as yet,
enough is certainly known to warrant
the belief that further investigation will
reveal the fact that there has been IN
he past a considerable number of
phony names carried on the citys pay
rolls, and that someone has profited to a
considerable extent at the expense of
the taxpayers of the city. Street Com
missioner Steeg and John F. Gehan. a
bcekkeeper in the Office of City Engineer
Claussen, are SO far the only ones whose
names have been involved but the in
Vestigation being made by Public Ex-
am1ner Pope and mis- deputies gives cred
ence to the whispered story that
scandal of no small sized proportion Will
shortly be unearthed
Mr.. Gehan so far has had to bear the
brunt of the accusations made. 1t Is
alleged that, as bookkeeper to Mr. Claus
sen and the custodian of all time sheets
and pay rolls, he padded the latter To
the extent of placing in the hands OF
unknown parties, bogus warrants for
various amounts. 1he warrants in each
case are properly made out and to
parties whose names adorn the pay roll,
but the amounts are in excess of what
they are really entitled to, according to
the ime sheets.
The unearthing of the prospective
scandal really dates from last Friday
when Bank Examiner Pope and his
deputies began their yearly examination
of accounts in all the city offices. An
irtimation of what might be found it is
said, was furnished Mr. Pope through the
medium of number of letters, some OF
them unsigned.
STARTED BY LETTER
One of these, Mr. Pope says, made ac-
cusations against Street Commissioner
Steeg and this is Nhow he became in
volved. The author of the letter, accord
ing to Mr.. Pope, was woman and in
substance it accused Mr.. Steeg of offering
her boy S. if he would say that he had
worked for the city during June under a
subordinate, Mr.. Swanson. She CLAIMED
that he made the same offer to a num-
ber of others.
Several other unsigned letters spoke OF
existing fraud in general terms and made
accusations of various kinds, one of them
being that the men had been informed
that if they were short of money a Ger,
tain broker would accommodate them if
they brought their time checks. Wihout
further delay Mr.. Pope gathered up all
time sheets and pay rolls together with
the cashed warrant stubs and took them
to his Office in the capitol, where they
were put under close scrutiny The eX-
lstence of Irregularities was apparent,
though up to late yesterday Mr. Pope
had not proceeded far enough to es-
tablish amy approximate amount that the
city was out, or even that Mr.. Gehan
was guilty of fraud.
The nature of the irregularities and
the method by which it is claimed the
pay rolls were tampered with, is best told
in the language of Bank Examiner Pope
In an interview last night he said:
PROOF IRREGULARITIES
1--WE cannot at this time tell even ap-
proximately what the extent of these ir-
regularities in the pay rolls of the city
engineering department has been, or, for
that matter, just who are the persons
most directly responsible, but we have
what certainly appears to be conclusive
proof that there have been Irregularities
Thus far our attention has been chiefly
olrected to the months of June and July
last, and so far the individual amounts
of the overdrafts discovered have been
small. OF course, if there is sufficient
number of them they will aggregate a
considerable sum. Then, again. it may be
that we will discover in some of the other
months overdrafts much larger than any
thing that we have yet come across
Therefore it would be impossible now to
attempt to give any figures.
I'm a number of the cases the dis
crepancies which have been found lie be-
tween the time rolls and the pay rolls.
The time rolls merely show the number
of days the different men have worked,
or in other words, the time they have to
their credit, without giving in dollars and
cents the amount of pay to which they
are entitled. The pay rolls show what is
due them in dollars and cents, and from
these the warrants are drawn. We find
that in many instances two warrants
were drawn in favor of the same man on
the same day, and that while one of these
warrants would check with the time roll