The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-01-03
''DO[LAR-A-YEAR" MEN AND SENATE COMMITTEE CLASH
Eisenman and Kaplan Tell of Methods Used in Sup plying the Army With
 Clothing

Washington, January 2.-Army supply contracts given through the supplies com mittee of the council of national de- fense to concerns in which committee
 members are interested were investigated today by the Senate military commit tee.
 Charles Eisenman. vice chairman of the supplies committee and retired clothing manufacturer of Cleveland, and Samuel NJ. Kaplan of New York, one of the dollar-a-year volunteer members were the principal witnesses. The latter's testimony was confined almost entirely to a contract with the Base Sorting
 Plant Qnc) of New York, in which his
 brother, Ira I. Kaplan, has third in terest for sorting army clothing scraps which was said to promise profits of si00,- 600 annually. The contract recently was cancelled.
 EISENMAN PRAISES WORK Work of the supplies committee was highly praised by Mr Eisenman, whc said it had negotiated orders for sup plies worth sS00,Ooo,00o for the quarter
 master generals office. He defended the committees practice of approving con- tracts with firms of members, explaining that in such cases interested committed
 men were excluded from the negotiations Senator McKellar wanted to know il
 this was not an evasion of the law, but MT. kisenman insisted that the com
 ~,ittees practice was followed to con form to the law. The committee mem 'entlan stated, were selected iron
 men in the business who had prover l ,g,,I hot, firms were made because full use of the country's manufacturing facilities was necessary.
 LIVELY CLASHES Both Eisenman and Kaplan had lively clashes with committee members. Sena tor McKellar admonished the latter who emphatically resented having his mo- tives impugned, to speak respectfully and Senator Weeks heatediy declared ht was about as impudent man" as ht had ever seen.
 | Statements of Quartermaster Genera Sharpe regarding shortages of army clothing due to failure to receive clotf ordered through the supplies committed were squarely contradicted by Eisenman He asserted that supplies of cloth were delivered on time and faster than it could be manufactured by the factories under General Sharpe. He also declared the QuaFteTlndStST general OuiCe was re sponsible for some shortages, by mis- takes in routing clothing to cantonments Eisenman told the committee he ha6 recommended and the quartermastel general had approved, reducing the woo content in overcoats, blankets and other clothing, and substitution of wool sub
 stitutes. or 'shoddy." saying the quail. ty was not impaired ana that as good oi better garments were secured EISENMAN PROTESTED The scrap sorting contract, both Eisen- man and Kaplan asserted, was intended to- give the contractors a profit of only 1a cent pound, all over that to be re turned to the government. He protest ed againstnats recent annulment by Gen eral Sharpe who said the price of cents pound for sorting was exces sive.
 Eisenman, Kaplan and other members of the supplies committee will be re called later Tomorrow the committed will hear Michael F. Driscoll. superin- l tendent of the Raritan (N. J) WooleI Mills, regarding cloth contract negotia l tions with the committee.