The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-11-18
VOUCHERS MESSING

- he said, the treasurer of the board Sas
 only "an issuer of checks" oftsimes without supporting claim vouchers. VOUCHERS MISSING
 1 On November 1 of this year. the wit> | ness said, of the sum of $3,800, ,000,000 1 expended, there had been submitted to l the treasury vouchers to cover only
 s2, 700, 100000 Vouchers representing disbursements of sso0,o0o,oo0 had teen excepted to" by the treasurer beca lse
 of lack of sufficient supporting data, and there was yet to be presented vouchers amounting to s1.100. oe0,0 900. l Vouchers and data to. make possible the accounting so far obtained, he testified 1 have been obtained by going out into | the field starting with bank accounts of various firms and persons with whom the board and the emergency fleet cor ] poration had transactions and tracing l the accounts back to the board. In this
 work, he said, force of 300 men had been engaged
 In summing up his evidence, Csillen said che shipping board, had gone out and ob- taihed the best possible men to handle ! it's ship construction and in operating
 divisions. but it had failed to get q man big enough to establish and carry out
 a department of efficient accounting. l He said he had found no evidence of !, dishonesty on the part of any official of l the board-that they had done their very l best--but the energies of the board had 1 been concentrated on getting ships and 1 getting them into operation.
 l Testfying as to the securities found 1 in the vaults of Philadelphia trust
 company, he said they were intact and 1 had been well taken care of, but he did l not know why they were not in the pos- session of the treasurer The securities, ! including Liberty Bonds, he said repre- sented in part guarantees of ship con- | tractors for faithful performance of their l work.
 EXCESS PROFITS ALLOWED l The witness also testified owners of ! slips communicated by the government | ir. 1917 were allowed to make profits far l in excess of what this country permitted ! In it's other industries. He said ships, ! regardless of their age, were taken on ! a basis contract rental of s4.15 a dead weight ton. An allowance for profit, in- terest on investment, allowance of de- 1 preciation, based on the wartime earn 1 Ing value rather than on actual value, and other items, made 1t possible, he 1 said, for the owners to make on the l contract as high as 57 per cent. He said 1 ships 30 years old made this profit for 1 their owners.
 1 Compared with what Great Britain al- | lowed it's ship owners on commandeered
 vessels and oasns the computation at s466 to the pound sterling. he said it was shown thIt American owners re- ceived 230 to z'5 per cent more than the l British owners did, and the British fig- ureS continue1 after the United States I entered the war. These rates. he added, were fixed by the shipping board as it then existed. Tesaifying as to enormous
 profits earned bv ships under wartime 1 conditions the witness said he knew of one ship bought by a New York firm for | s200,000 on which allocations costing
 s475000 were made and which earned in six months over $so0,00o.
 "This ship was then sunk by subma : rine," Gillen added.
 Testifying as to taking over con l tracts of ships built in American yards, I he declared it was due to the precau- 1 ton of former general attorney of I the board, Joseph Cotton, that the 1 United States was not forced to pay | millions in Consequential damage I claims" He recited an instance where ! the board purchased from the British ! government. represented by the Cunard
 Line. contracts for ships under con
 struction amounting to ss4,o0o,0o0. On
 this account, he said. the Cunard Line
 had advanced $3,700,0o0. and an attempt was made by the contractor to except
 this payment when he settled with the shipping board.
 1 CITES JEBSEN CASE
 1 He cited the case of William Jebsen, l a Norwegian. who had a vessel on the ways in San Francisco. The original
 contract price was s1.500.000, and Jeb- sen. through agents in Norway, had paid the builder only $62,000. Govern ment officials. he added, turned over s2.045,000 for Jebsen's outlay and then spent $317,000 to finish the vessel l The witness also testified that under present valuation of tonnage, it was impossible for this country to operate
 an efficient merchant marine. He said
 the price should be cut to SIPS a dead
 weight ton and by establishing fair 1 value for tonnage there would be cre-
 ated sound investment market for ! shipping organizations. The present
 rates were not fixed by the authority f of the board, he said. but by Congress. i American people fail to realize that
 they have amortized more than $2.00o. 100000 of the value Of these ships built
 as war emergency, when bridge of
 ships was demanded he asserted. "A 1 loss must be accepted. due to the erner-