The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-02-28
MAYOR EXUM SAYS
 PETTY POLITICS IS ' BASIS OF CHARGES
CONTINUED FROM PAGE a)
BIRMINGHAM, ALA.


 it had been defrauded by these people. He showed us vouchers for all the busi- hess done with these people for F months and practically every voucher showed a shortage, cars of oats running short from 51a to 100 bushels, and the vouchers looked like they had been shot at with & double-barreled shotgun loaded with buckshot. I asked him if he had not .'smelt a mouse" in finding all of this stuff systematically short. He said that he had on each occasion called the pur- chasing agents attention to the same.
 Tn the grain business 1t is custom ary for one grain dealer. to allow the other l per cent for loss in weights, to cover transfer of cars, shrinkage, etc., but 1t is not customary for the consumer to stand this loss of l per cent. AS matter of fact, one car in ten will some times lose this, but this l per cent loss will not show up uniformly in a number of cars. Therefore I called Mr Peter sens attention to the fact that the weights on these cars had been padded And then, after taking off what shortage was found on the weighing cars, this l per cent was lost, which amounts to a large sum in the aggregate. That is, a car oE oats weighing 64,000 pounds would lose % bushels if we allowed 1 per cent for shrinkage. l also told MT. Petersen that if he would take the matter LID with the shippers that he would find practical 1y every car sold to him in the same shape as the Dr. Guerry car, Pennsyl- yania No. 22,639. He took this matter up for investigation and out of some 30 cars about which he made inquiry the shipper answers like this: Il. & N. car No. 1,413 was loaded by me on April 70 1910. contained 241 bales, 21 490 pounds of No. timothy hay" On examination of the city voucher covering this car it was invoiced to the city as 23,0O0 pounds, and described as No. 1 timothy hay. The usual difference between No. 1 timothy and No. timothy is $1.50 per ton.
 Another shipper answers that A. T. & s. F. 3210 contained 23,200 pounds, and 1t was invoiced to the city at 250O0 pounds. The answers are coming back right along like these.
 Now, after waiting on the mayor for some ten days to interview Dean, I ad- dressed him a letter asking him if he could not see my committee, and not re- ceiving an answer for day or two I called him over the phone and insisted upon my committee seeing him that day. which he granted and he preferred not to go into the matter until he had Dean present, but stated that he had seen Dean and Dean had an explanation, and his explanation was that the street commits
 
 told MT. Dean that he did not want any more. but would accept the car in ques- tfon. Whereupon MT. Dean stated that he "had it in mind" to refund the city $40 per ton, and he settled with the ship per on this basis. I asked the mayor f he believed a story like this, and he re- fused to answer, stating that it was mak- ing the matter too personal. He then stated to us that if We might hear ot anything happening to the auditor soon he wanted us to understand that it was not on account of'this matter. That or our previous visit when several of us were in the auditors office examining certain records, that the auditor had been heard to say that the city had not money tc meet it's current bills, and that Dean was connected with his the mayors, cam paign.
 Now, while the city of Birmingham is big enough to owe some money if it is not taking care of it's monthly bills fol feeding the mules, and it's grocery bills its financial department is certainly undel bad management.
 Letter to Wilkinson
 ''The mayor seemed satisfied witt Deans explanation. and seemed satisfied to close the matter.
 ''In the meantime MT. Lonergan ad dressed letter to MT. Wilkinson, who fin the meantime had succeeded me as president of the Birmingham Grain ex change, and requested that as he had only heard one side of the matter he want ed to come before the exchange and heal his side. The letter was refererd to mt by Mir. Wilkinson, as it had been moved end carried that I should remain chair nan of the committee Investigating thi: matter until we had finished the investi gation. l suggested to MT Wilkinson that we invite him to come. but on tha same day MT. Lonergan called on me ant stated that he wanted to explain the mat ter. He told me the same story that h' told the mayor. laying all the blame or MT. Dean. I stated to him that did no believe a word of it. and after confront ing him with overwhelming facts h stated that he wanted to do the righ thing. and wanted to know what to do.
 q stated that the first thing to do wa to get the money and requested that h remit these two shippers on the four car all that he owed them, sending me dupli cate of his remittance to them, which h very promptly did. He then stated N ne wanted me to talk with MT. Dean, he went up and sent Mir. Dean down. MT Dean related the same old story that h told the mayor. I told him that 1 woul not stand for it, and after confrontin him with facts he said that he saw tha