The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-07-15
RAINY CLAIMS PRESENTED WAR
 RELIEF BOARD

Relief Commissioners in connection with the effort of the Government in stimulation of war mineral produc- ton.
 The Commissioners, former rena- tor Shafroth, of Colorado, former Congressman Foster of Illinois and Philip N. Moore, formerly president of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, have spent the past four months trying to straighten out the tangle.
 When the news came that the ar mistice was signed, the bottom drop ped out of the market for tungsten manganese, chrome, pyrites and sev- eral other war materials, and mining communities which had grown up quickly in various states, were as quickly wiped out along with the for tunes invested in machinery and min- ing development.
 A convention was called by the American Mining Congress in Wash inGton, and a bill was introduced, ask ing for reimbursement for actual losses. There was a hard fight in Congress, it being charged by repre- sentatives from agricultural and man ufacturins states that the million aire mining operators were trying to put their hands into the pockets of the Government to line their own with unearned government money.
 The War Department was at that time endeavoring to secure reimburse ment for incompleted munition con tracts, amounting to more than a biI- lion and a quarter dollars. The War Minerals Relief Act was attached to the Munitions Bill An interesting contest followed, the friends of the manufacturers making a strong en- deavor to shake themselves free from the Minerals Relief rider, and the | mineral men organizing the repre- sentative5 and senators from mining states so thoroughly that a deadlock l resulted and for a few days 1t looked l as If the Munitions Bill would fail to | pass.
 | An interesting development has | been that while engineers for the Blu 1 reau of Mines reported that eight mill ! lions of dollars would cover all of the ] actual claims, more than thirteen l hundred claims have been presented l and the total claims are in excess : of eighteen millions of dollars. 1 Many distressful and amusing l claims have made the situation one of 1 the most unusual ever faced by the | government commission. One of the 1 oldest families in the South, which ' llfid lOi d CtHLuIy UT HlcIe Dccl rec | Ognized leaders in small business en-
 terprises and chemical manufactur- ! ing, found itself practically a bank ! rupt and publicly and privately dis ] credited, through having invested more than a million dollars in a much
 needed war mineral plant. Every ef- fort was made publicly and privately i to save credit of this family. But 1 technicalities have thus far prevented i a settlement, although many appeals . have been made to Secretary lane Tn ! person. Several claimants of from five thousand to one hundred thousand
 dollars showed that they were help
 lessly buried under debts and that un-
 less immediate relief could be giveyl that they, too, would be forced out of i business.
 f One particularly aggravated case ! was that of an old time miner fin ! California who attended a. meeting ] addressed by & representative of the 1! Bureau of Mines, and listened to an
 appeal for an immediate production K of more chrome to put into cannon and other munitions for the men in !: France, and who took the last dollar
 of his Hfe's services, even though he was beyond the age of active labor and converted it into the deveIopm ent of small chrome property, as a pat ! riotic sacrifice It was only about thirty thousand dollars, puc q conn.,
 fortab1e nest egg for this man and
 his aged wife. Their sacrifice was
 complete, for he had Just opened his E chrome mine and produced his first
 ton when the <stnistice was signed
 There are hundreds of such cases
 more or less serious for the commits
 sioners to pass upon, but technicali-
 ties will shut many ot these claim ants out of the relief that was in
 tended by the advocates in Congress
 Not all of the claims of the
 pathetic kind. and some funny stories
 have developed from evidence pres ented as for instance: The city of Sar Jose, California, was very proud ot
 a great manganese boulder in its city
 park. It decided to sacrifice its seen
 cry for the cause, and shipped a few
 carloads of manganese to the Pitts,
 burgh market, estimating the full val
 ue of the boulder at ten thousand dol
 lars. Among the eighteen million dol
 lars in claims is the one from the
 city. of San Jose, which will probab
 ly receive but little attention.
 | One claimant wanted to be reiTn
 bursed for a number Of electric trncts:
 purchased for the establishment of {
 transportation line. One claiman
 wrote that his claim covers five trip:
 to the mountains with his Jackasse: i loaded both ways
 i The smallest claim was for s39.75
 which the claimant stated was due tt l him for the valuable time he los
 while waiting for a letter from the United States Government.
 Some of the mining claims seem tc have been prophetica1ly named as fol | example, The April FooF' clain and the Great Catastrophe Mine-" } The War Minerals Relief Commis sioners are now visiting the various districts in which the largest numbe
 of claimants are located, and at thi time are in California Investigating | tungsten and chrome cases.