The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1909-04-26

Sugar Refining Company for duties out
of which, it is alleged, the government
was defrauded in the six years preced-
ing November, 1907, William Loeb Jr.,
the new collector of customs at the
port Of New York, not only started out
on his new job in a strenuous fashion
worthy of his former chief, but proved
that political considerations will not
have great weight with him when it
comes to the question of getting what
rightfully belongs to Uncle Sam under
the tariff laws.
/ 1t has fallen out that the entire work
of exposing the clever trick whereby
States-and incidentally the people
from whom it bought its sugar-for
many years, has been done by two for
mer private secretaries of Theodore
Roosevelt. William j. Youngs, United
States attorney for the Eastern district
of New York, with headquarters in
Brooklyn, is the man who directed and
carried to successful conclusion the
criminal prosecution of the sugar
trust s employees who were guilty of
tampering with the scales on which the
weight of the sugar for 1.-The payment
of duty was determined, and thus laid
the foundation for the suit in which
the government has just been awarded
$134, 900 against the trust. Mr. Youngs
was Col. Roosevelt S private secretary
when the latter was governor of New
York
On the strength of the information
developed by Mr.. Youngs, Mr.. Loeb,
who was Mr.. Youngs s subordinate in
the executive office at Albany and
afterwards became secretary to Presi-
dent Roosevelt, now calls on the sugar
trust to pay more than million and
a quarter dollars to the government,
as settlement for duties which it with
held through fraud. The only reason
he does not ask for nearly three times
as much is the fact that the statute
of limitations bars him from going
back farther than six years prior to
the discovery of the fraud. Testimony
EifSH III blC JI1dlS III luC dCbudk
prits in Brooklyn indicated that the
frauds had been going on for more
than twelve years.
These frauds, on which the present
claims are based, relate entirely TO the
Justification of weights. There are
other charges, relating to fraud in the
polariscope tests of sugar as to its
quality, which have not yet been fully
developed They come under a differ
ent branch of the serviee-that of the
appraisers of merchandise, who deter
mine the quality of imported goods,
while the weight or volume of imports
is determined by the surveyor of the
port The complicated sugar tariff is
calculated on both weight and quality,
the tariff ranging from half cent
pound for the lower grades to nearly
two cents a pound for the best grades.
On high grade sugar, therefore, every
ton would have to pay the government
nearly $40 in duty, and on a large
cargo, the saving on small percen-
age would be big item to the trust.
just how this worked out can best be
told by relating the story of the dis
covery of the weighing frauds on the
Havemeyer & Elder docks at Brooklyn.
Early in November, 1907, man who
had been discharged from the Have
meyer & Elder refinery, owned by the
trust, called at the Office of the sur
veyor OF the port and declared that a
systematic scheme for cheating the
government on sugar weights had
been going on at the refinery docks for
years. His story was received with
incredulity, but he was turned over to
Capt. William Cross, chief special agent
of the Treasury department, with in
structions to investigate. The story
the man told to Capt. Cross was so
circumstantial IN every detail that it
was decided to look into it,
Perhaps nobody connected with the
refinery noticed the next time cargo
of sugar arrived that there were more
than the usual number of customs IN
spectors on the dock 1t was big
ship from Java, with seven thousand
tons-fourteen million pounds-of the
finest grade of raw sugar in her cargo.
Along the dock between the point
where cargo is discharged and the re-
finerv. are the six scale booths. Be
fore the cargo is preached, every scale
booth contains deputy surveyor OF
customs. In front of him is the beam
of the platform scale, the platform It
self being outside on the dock, where
he can see it through little window.
Then the longsheremen begin to wheel
the sugar to the warehouse, stopping
each at one of the scales, where the
weight of the bag of sugar on his truck
is noted by the surveyor in book
kept for the purpose, and so on, I'M
til the cargo is unloaded. On these
weights the duty ON the sugar, after
its quality has been determined by the
polariscope test, is calculated and col
lected from the company. On these
weights. too, the payment for the sugar
is made by the company to the CON
signers.
Sitting at the left elbow of the sur
veyor in each booth is a man employ,
ed by the refinery, whose ostens' BILE
duty is to check off the weights and
enter them in a book for the protection
of the company s interests. In charge
of the work of unloading and weighing
is the company dock superintendent,
while a customs inspector is on hand
to keep an eye on the whole proceed
ing.
That was the stage setting Captain
Cross and his deputies found at the
10 ,Eap