Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1912-08-12
Rufus A. Lyman, r Secretary of Liquor License Commits
sion Found with Shortage of Thousands According to
Statement by Expert Accountant

cense stub book, but found one ex-
cuse after another for not keeping
the promise, until finally he took
sick" and could not be n hand. Field
tlereupon did some detective work
Oh his own account anJ was assist
ed by Editor Kinney uf the Hilo
Tribune and License Inspector Tetter
In a comparatively few hours after
he got started, Field En5 wnat he
went after, and no one N HIlo CT any
consequence now questions that all
the money paid Field was a mighty
good investment.
The claim in Hilo is, that Rufus
Lyman, although holding a subordi-
nate position in the C0nnry Clerks
office, has been a general "pooh-bah'
CT the county. If Hilo had a boss.
Lyman was it. How lax was the ad-
ministration of the County nr Liquor
License Commission affairs is evi.
denced by the possibility of pulling
off a proposition so raw as that which
Lyman's appears to be on the sur
face. The check was cashed and the
licensee presumably stood off on the
delivery of his license. The wonder
is that the scheme could be carried
along for even a month without be-
ing found out.
The attitude of the Hawaii Board
of Supervisors will be watched with
no little interest. That body up to
Saturday AFTERNOON had no use for
Field. The members decided that
h. Fol-
they based on some figures and con-
illusions he presented in his first pre-
liminary report to the Board of
Trade. At that time he gave opin-
ions which the Supervisors claim
were based on figures that were en-
tirely erroneous. AS one man put it:
Field took his figures from some
penciled memoranda of Auditor Ma
guire when the books were available.
These memoranda were just rough
figures and amounted to nothing, and,
as the completed books were avail
able, we decided that Field didn't
know how or did not want to know"
Fields position is that he had to
throw the outfit off their guard" in
order to get at the root Of things and
find out whether there was any foun-
dalton for some of his suspicious.
The supplementary report of Mr.
Field read at the Saturday meeting
follows:
Field Report on Liquor License Col.
lections for County of Hawaii. 5
In my supplementary report to the
Board of Trade of Hilo, dated the
2Gth of last July, on some of the
phases Of the present accounting
methods of the County of Hawaii,
stated that the accounts of Rufus A.
Lyman, the Secretary of the Board of
License Commissioners, had not
been audited by the County Auditor
from July LIST, 1911, to the date of my
report, although it was known that
license fees, aggregating 1885,. 90
had been collected by that official
for liquor licenses during that period.
Naeulre's o. X.
On August 7th, 1912-some eight
days after my report was read-the
County Auditor informed me that he
had just audited these accounts and
found them o. K, and that he had so
certified on the cash record of the
Board of License Commissioners.
Upon questioning the County Aud
itor as to the manner in which
he conducted the audit, l found
that he had entirely neglected
to compare the licenses issued, as
per the stubs in the License Book,
with the cash receipts, but simply
had checked the totals of the cash
receipts, as posted, to see that they
agreed with the remittances by Ly-
man to the County Treasurer: this
procedure, for purposes of an audit,
was next to useless.
Lyman Promised.
On the same morning, I requested
Rufus A. Lyman at his office in the
county building to hand me his Ii
Cense Book so that l could verify the
figures in his cash record; this he
promised to do the following morn
ing, Lyman's cash record book to re-
main in the safe of the County Audi
tor until that time. Lyman, however:
did not come to his office that morn
ing, and, furthermore, he had taken
his cash record book away from the
County Auditors office the afternoon
AS Lyman did not keep
his promise to me to turn over the
license books, sent the Deputy Coun-
ty Auditor to Lyman's home for the
same; Lyman handed him the cash
record only, but no license book.
then requested Captain Fetter, the
liquor license inspector, to get from
Lyman the record of the licenses is
sued, vas unsuccessful also in
this, as Lyman informed Fetter that
the licenses had not all been paid for
and he had not the license book.
Field Blocked.
Being blocked in my investigation
by Lyman, l then obtained through
the courtesy of the Hilo "Tribune" a
list of the licenses granted on May
2Sth, 1912. In this and subsequent
investigation l received assistance
from Editor Kinney of the Tribune"