The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1920-11-10
MANY CHARGES
OF. |RREGULAR|TY
CORRUPTION OF EMPLOYEES
AND OFFICIALS OF SHIPPING
BOARD EMERGENCY FLEET
CORPORATION AND OTHER
ALLEGATIONS BROUGHT FOR
WARD BY FORMER EMPLOY
EEs TO HOUSE COMMITTEE

of employees and officials of the
shipping board emergency fleet cor
poration, graft in purchasing supplies
for and in repairing government own
ed merchant ships, and the use of po-
litical or other influence in obtaining
contracts for ship construction and
the ALLEGATION of completed vessels to
operating companies are among
maze of charges made in report
submitted to the house committee on
shipping board operations by A. M.
Fisher and J. W. Richardson, former
employees of the board.
Chairman Benson, of the shipping
board, refused tonight to discuss the
report, declaring that any statement
he might have to make would be
made to the house committee which
now is continuing its investigation
of the boards operations.
The report was made public to-
night by the committee of which
Representative Walsh, Republican,
Massachusetts, is chairman. 1t cov-
ers more than 100 printed pages and
deals exhaustively with many phases
of shipping board operations as OBJ
served by the committee investigat-
ors over a period of more than a
year.
Mr.. Fisher, who formerly was con-
nected with the federal trade COM
mission, made a survey for the ship
ping board as to record keeping sys-
TENS in the office of the Lumber ad-
ministration. Mr.. Richardson, for 20
years newspaper man, was employ
ed for several years in the boards
department of investigation.
Other Subject. Untouched"
In presenting the report Mr.. Fisher
explained that it was designed to
deal only with problems which could
be solved wholly by the shipping
board itself and cleft untouched IA
general subjects in connection with
the boards operations. Among these
were enumerated organization of the
board, technical errors in the con-
struction program; German-American
deals, assumption of diplomatic func-
tions by board officials, enforcement
of the new merchant marine act and
evasions of the selective service act.
Chairman Benson, of the shipping
board, refused tonight to discuss the
report, declaring that any statement
he might have to make would be
made to the house committee which
now is continuing investigation of the
boards operations.
Taking up in detail seven general
phases of the boards executives, the
report charged gross waste of gov
ernment funds, improperly drawn
contracts which cost the government
large sums and failure of the various
divisions of the board to cooperate
efficiently and the almost complete
failure of some of the divisions to
function properly.
J Padding Of payrolls by firms re-
pairing shipping board vessels, own
ership by companies operating gov
ernment vessels of stock in compan-
les furnishing supplies to these craft
at prices anywhere from 40 to so per
cent above wholesale costs, wholesale
theft of supplies and equipment from
ships and the loss OF mllnons of dol
lars through improperly secured loans
made to contractors building govern
ment vessels also were charged.
The investigator alleged that in
some cases the fleet corporation loan
ed money to contractors and accepted
as security bonds issued by companies
incorporated by fthe contractors,
which bonds have since been found to
be worthless. The charge was also
made that in many cases ship build
ing plants with materials (which are
going concerns are turned back to
contractors as salvage propositions
and the contractors thus reap large
profits at the expense of the fleet
corporation.