The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-05-24
Sum Total of the DisaNoW-
 ances Was $932
$7 INCORRECTLY AUDITED
Mir. Castle Says TuIloch Shares In Mis- apprehension That an Auditor Is Charged With Responsibility of
 Keeping Officials Honest.

Washington, May 23.-Postnaster Cen eral Payne today made public the an- swers of Henry A. Castle. the auditor of the treasury. for the postonice depart ment and Comptroller Tracewell of the treasury, regarding the Tnllooh charges of Irregularities in the postal admins tration. The answers specifically deny al- legations of wrongful procedure. Comp troler Tracewell charges T. w. Glmer formerly an expert of his office. with ab- stracting. but subsequently returning up- on demand, the letter authorizing Mir Gilmer to examias the accounts of any postoffice, except Washington and New York. Mir. Tracewell alleges this letter was written by Gilmer himself without any suggestions from the comptroller MT. Castle says that the sum of the ten- tative disallowances by Expert Gilmer and the comptroller aggregated S932; that the credits finally disallowed out of total of quarter of a million were slG5 of which he claimed only s7 was ncor- rectly audited. This, MT Castle says. is the basis of MT. Tulochs charge of dis allowances Of $sOOoo or sio,ooO
 Shows Up MT. TulIoch. sg
 The postmaster generals statement says that the letters are made p1 zsi the request of the two officials, and that 1t will appear from them how much foundation there was for the Tulloch statement.
 Mir. Castle. in his answer. says that MT. Tulloeh shares in a prevailing misap-
  prehension that an auditor Is charged with the responsibility of keeping ether ofcicials ."correct and honest and in de- terminlng the necessities of the service. The auditor says that such functions would be fatal to administrative freedom by the head of a department.
 Regarding tae settlements and snhse- uuent revision of an account of the late Postmaster wiuett of Washington, which involved alleged irregularities in Porto Rico during the military operations there. the auditor replies that every item be- lieved to be Illegal was disallowed by the auditors office.
 The wide discretion given in the lan- guage of the appropriations for military postal service, according to the auditors answer, shows that congress intended to exempt the disbursements of those ap- propriatons from many of the ordinary regulations. The auditor adds.
 Men could be employed. compensation fixed and expenses allowed as circum- stances demanded
 Expenditures Authorized.
 "Every expenditure made was author ized in advance by the departments every voucher approved and actually paid by postmaster weeks or months before the presentation to the auditors office for allowance Many expenditures were un- usual and a few of them were by us held to be Illegal and disalowed. As to wheth- CT the service was necessary or the com | pensation extravagant the department was the sole judge. But 1t is significant on those points. and especially on that of the $500 GOO appropriated. thta only $249,66s was actually expended in two years, the balance being covered back into the treas ury.
 Some months after one of the quarterly accounts of the Washington postofce re- porting $255. .996 in expenditures for all pur- poses with several thousand distinct items had been settled, T. w. Gllmer, represent 1 ing the comptroller of the treasury, withdrew the same for revision, as author l ized by law He was new to postal work and raised many entirely irrelevant ques- 1 tions in letter asking for explanations. which MT. Tulloch enormously cites as | letter from the comptroller disallowing' certain amounts.
 "One after another the objections was abandoned by Expert Gilmer or over ruled by the comptroller (who had secured from the officials pledges that the irreg- ular practices exposed by Tulloch would be discontinued) until the amount ult- mately disapproved was reduced to ssS2. &C.,"