The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1915-05-14
MULCT|NG THE GOVERNMENT
By CLYDE H. TAVENNER.


Why has the war department been
paying the ring $3.50 for a 3.S inch
common shrapnel when it can manu-
facture and is manufacturing the iden-
teal article at Frankfort for 1874?
Seventeen dollars and fifty cents is
more than twice 1874. The govern
ment could manufacture two shrap-
nels for the price it has been paying
the private manufacturers for one and
have $1.62 remaining to the peoples
credit on each transaction. Is it any
wonder we do not have as much am
munition as we should have for the
money that has been expended? 1t
is the public funds that are being
spent here, and the people have a
right to have these questions an
swered.
We are manufacturing a 31-second
combination fuse in the government
arsenal for 1922 for which we have
been paying the ring 81.
These illustrations are not excep-
tional, as l will endeavor to show by
the fact that on contract given to
valued at $1,9OO,O64 we are saving
$979,S40; or, in other words, we are
saving approximately $1,OOO,O0O on a
100000 order as compared with
what it would have cost had that con-
tract been awarded the ammunition
ring.
In a recent speech before congress
President Wilson stated that like
good stewards, we should so account
for every dollar of our appropriations
as to make it perfectly evident what
it was spent for and In what way it
was spent" Surely no such thought
was in the minds of the army and
navy officials who have been doing
the purchasing for those departments.
Realizing the government was be-
ing overcharged for turbine rotary
drums, Secretary of the Navy Daniels,
who, with one exception, is the only
secretary of the navy that l can find
any trace of who has ever made
real fight to escape the eXtortions of
the armor and ammunition rings, in
duced an Independent English firm to
submit a bid. The Bethlehem and
Midvale companies bid $169,56S and
$160,272, respectively, while the Eng
lish firm offered to furnish the drums
for $57,436, a saving of $102,S36 to
the government over the lowest bid
of the ring. l am not referring now
to armor, because the secretary has
not been able to obtain armor abroad.
Recently the secretary awarded a
contract for building 100 torpedo
TASKS, including heads. He induced
a new firm to slip IN with bid, and
was able to purchase for $58,246 ma
terials which under normal conditions
would have cost $115,O75. The bids
of the Bethlehem and Midvale COM
panies, under real competitive bid
ding, showed a reduction of Al per
cent. as compared with bids for sim
liar forgings submitted by these COM
panies only four months previous.
Personally, l believe that these of
ficers who, in the expenditure of the
peoples money, have been paying
$115,075 for supplies which could
have been obtained for $5S,246, should
somewhere or In some manner, be
required to make public accounting
for their acts. The thing that rifles
the blood concerning the manner In
which the millions have been squan-
dered by our army and navy officers
is that this money did not come from
the pockets of the rich, but that 1t
has been wrung from the poorest OF
the poor. All of these wasted mil
lions have been collected by tax on
the things that the people eat, wear
and use, none of it having been col
lected by direct taxation, but every
cent of it having come through the
customs houses and internal revenue
offices, which means that the people
have been paying the cost of militar-
ism in the form Of increased cost of
living.