The Chattanooga news. [volume] (Chattanooga, Tenn.) 1891-1939, 1920-11-17
SHIPPING
KEPTNORECORD
Former Special Assistant to
Payne Names Some Big.
Figures to ProberS.
LAX METHODS REVEALED

New York. Nov. 17.-Q. n. So
The United States shipping board exl
pended nearly $4,000,0OO, 900 on Amer
ica's shipping program and earned
nearly $40O,0OO,0O0 by Its operation OF
government-ow vessels, but II has
no system of accounting for these tre-
mendous sums, and up to Feb. 27,
1920 never knew where 1t stood fnan-
cially, according to the testimony be-
fore the congressional investigating
committee by Martin J. Gillen, OF RN-
cine, Wis. Gillen was formerly asf 4
ciated with the war industries bg g
and was special assistant to
Barton Payne when he was he e Z
the shipping board. -
Gillen cited one instance wh( Ri
yate shipping companies wed
$l20000.000 from the opeF of
government owned ships, Va, he
said, became lost" so thai. .,e was
no record OF 1t at Mashif% J. Pri-
vate shipping companies Atangled
their accounts that the 81 ng board
had no accurate idea of whecher there
had been profit or loss on the opera
ton of its ships, Gillen testified. "On
Oct. 8, l919,"' he continued, 1--WE
started drive TO ascertain where the
shipping board stood. Some 400 clerks
were put to work disentangling gov
era1ment accounts from private ship
ping firm books. ss
Startling Testimony.
There was no record at Washing
ton OF the excess moneys received by
private ship operations from govern
ment ships, amounting, we ascer-
tained, to $l20,000,000.
There was no system OF account
ing at Washington on DOT. /, 1919, to
show where the money was, and no
system whereby information regard
ing this money could be traced"
Startling testimony as to the lax
methods OF handling huge sums was
placed before the committee by Gillen.
1--WE found" he continued, "that OF
5000 voyages made by government
ships there had been audits on only
eight OF these.
Not In Boards Name.
I'VE knew there were vast sums
from the voyages belonging to the
government, but there was no record
in the United States treasury or the
accounting department Of the ship.
ping board. | came to New York and
at eight of the twenty -seven banks
where shipping board funds were sup
posed to be deposited ! found there
was $21, $4,000 most OF which was
carried in private accounts. and not
in the shipping boards name. and
that in the varying from 2to 31h per
cent. was being paid.
Later we found that in all the New
York banks there was about $35,000,-
900 being carried as shipping board
funds. one tenth of this sum would
have been sufficient.
"Our audits showed that one ship
ping Arm alone had on its hands $26.-
100000 Of the shipping boards
'asafsaa uifisn satd tli,ss ss,sas.eo6, 900 hadl
been approved for the governmentls lsl
program, and to this
amount should be added 100000, 900
received from operation of the ships
built.
"All Of this $4,000, 100000 except
about s50,000,000 has been spent" Gill;
len said.
Concerning the item of the $780,
100000 which became lost" Gillen
said John Barton Payne instituted
search for II, found It and then estab-
lished a weekly auditing system
whereby some track was. kept Of the
shipping boards vessels. which were
operated by 1877 companies.