The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-02-20
SENATOR PRODUCES
 !. MORE EVIDENCE: ON !. AVIATION SERVICE
Does Not Want Probe Made by War Department, as It !. Has Already Failed
 to Act


 Washington, February 19.More evil dence in support of his charge that the army aviation service is ''contemptibly inefficient" was made public tonight by Senator Robinson, who declared he would continue his efforts for a congressional investigation despite the announcement of the war departmet that it would make an inquiry into the subject.
 Chairman Chamberlain of the Senate military committee, before which MT. Robinson testified yesterday, said he would ask the committee to vote Monday on the senator's resolution for investiga- ton.
 T introduced my resolution in Decem- ber," said Senator Robinson. T waited until yesterday. for the war department to act For months the department had all this information. As result of in efficiency several men who believed the machines were unsafe were compelled to fly and were killed. Now, I think the in quiry should be made by persons outside tho army"
 HAS MORE DATA
 The senator said further data regard ing the service had been laid before him today by persons claiming to have au- thoritative information. This, together with documents presented to the military committee yesterday, including the pho tographic copies of letters purporting to have passed between Lieut. Col. Samuel Reber, in charge of the aviation service,
 in CbqrQe of the San Diego station, will be placed at the disposal of any Investigating com mittee Congress may appoint
 The data made public tonight were gwen out in the form of statement by Sen ator Robinson, quoting from additional latters he said had been written by avia- ton officers
 .1n one letter. said the statement ..co,onel Reber wrote: The House mill tarv committee, which is MT. Hay, for req sons best known to himself, made up his mind to stick to $3oo,ooo, and he suc- ceeded in bluffing the Senate conferees. This is the whole story, and had we gone to some other committee we would prob ably have gotten as much money as the navy did
 WANTED MOTORCYCLE
 "A letter from Captain Cowan to Colo mel Reber, dated January 15 1915. asked for authority to spend ssoo for the pur- chase of 1915 motorcycle. My official reason wrote Captain Cowan, for want ing to purchase this motorcycle is that the latest modern motorcycle we have here is 1913. We should keep track os the improvements and be ready to recommend the type best suited for our work. My personal reason for wanting to purchase this motorcycle is to provide myself with a means of trans portation between North Island and my quarters at Coronado.
 Upon the quartermasters corps in the army is placed the duty of building bar racks and they have appropriations for that purpose Nevertheless, Colonel Re- Der on May 2e, 1915. wrote as follows to Captain Cowan: There is one thing l wish you would be very careful about and not let your quartermaster refer, in any way, to the structure we have erected A reouisition arrived the other day for something for the temporary barracks and the quarterma sters office fell down in fit They said that they had no temporary barracks and that they knew was their proper state of mind. as We have built barracks 7