Crossville chronicle. [volume] (Crossville, Tenn.) 1894-current, 1920-12-01
SHIPPING BOARD SCANDAL
Investigation Shows Billions
Wasted in ShipSuilding


h~ --nerican people. In all the war
orgy of waste and thivery, there is
har, } anything to match its reveia-
tions of sordid infamy.
When one stops to think how the
decent people of the country have
breen pinching and scrimping, de-
priving themselves of this and deny
ing themselves that-many thou
sands of them actually hard pressed.
at times to obtain the bare necessi-
ties of life in spite of the ever-moun-
ting bill for living expenses--while all
! the time a despicabie crew of scoun-
drelS, ranging all the way from petty
sneak thieves to wholesale swindlers
and robbers, have made an unchal-
1enged loot of the millions upon mil
lions of money resultant from this
patriotic self-sacrifce: when all this
comes home, as it does come home in
the Shipping Board exposure, it is
difficult to express in any measured
terms the indignation which the rev.
elation arouses.
1t is nocampaign document, this
Shipping Board report. Not an item
in all the disgusting document can be
charged off or discounted as an at
tempt to make political capital. The
election is over. No partisan end can
be served by the revelations. 1t is
just a cold recital of carefully estab-
iished facts.
And such facts IF that Shipping
Board may be taken as fair cross
section exhibit of American standards
OF offl,ial competence and of our av-
eraee business integrity, then-God
cradle mess which two specially ap-
help America To analyze this mis-
pointed investigators for the Con-
gressional Select Committee on Ship
ping Board Operations have spread
before the country, involves explor-
alton of almost every resort of COM
mercial iniquity known to man. Ev-
cry crime in the calendar of business
seems to be involved, from
mere sneak thievery to murder it,
self-and a particularly cowardly
form of murder at that.
1T is a comparatively easy thing"
says the report, ito accidentally drop
a bar or wrench into ships hold
when staight time-keeper, or in
spector. is standing nder."
The reward of honesty under Ship
ping Board Operations, in other
words, was that the honest mans
brains we're knocked out. Just how
many of these -blooded murders;
were committed is unknown, and will
remain unknown. Just how many mill
lios of the American peoples money
was stolen is unknown. That, TOO,
will probably remain unknown. The
best that the investigators can say
on this score is that the amount will
perhaps run into billions.
Just where official incompetence
leaves off and official criminality be-
gins in the abominable business is
problem for the future to solve. Bar
keepers paid $4,000 a year as book
keepers; private detective in a New
York hotel who never was aboard
4 ship and who kept right on at his
lotel job drawing salary as sail
or; )" common laborers paid expert
need mechanics wages; selling ma
erial at I3cents on the dollar while
,uying precisely the same material
It 50 per cent above the established
Wholesale market price for it; stew
lrd throwing overheard an entire
hips supply of food, bought five days
'efore by his predecessor, in order to
make room for fulfreesh supply
ought with the customary stewards
rake-off" ff"-these may be counted
mong the humors of the colossal
rgy.
And then there was that spirited
title episode of captain stealing his
Shipping Board vessel bodily and
awking her about foreign ports for
ale. To be sure, in this instance the
aptain had to go abroad. He had
lst engaged in alittle So 600 bunker
&c steal. Grapefruit knives at $3.50
ach and Strawberries at TO cents
uart were supplied to every member
f forecastle crews. These are the
pera-bouffe, "Pinafore" features of
ne magnificent debauch. Like the
ayment of sos for an eight dolla
ID of headlight repairing, they are
ather Tightening and cheering than
therwise as seen against the black
of the really serious,
ealing by fraudulent contracts, in
'ooked sub-contracting, etc.
And now what is going to be done
,out it? Are these crooks, official
Id plain, to go unwhipped of justice
ith the millions which they have
olen from the American people?
re they to go scot free? Or are they
be hunted down, convicted, and
It in the penitentiary where they
long?-Harvey's Weekly.