Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1920-01-17
SAYS SOVIET RULES FEDERAL PRISON AT FORT LEAvENW0RTH Crime FlOurishes at Barracks,
 Witnesses Say at
 Trial JUDGE ORDERS A N INVESTIGATION AT ONCE Committee, in Existence for More Than Year, Court Learns in Trial of Alleged Counter
 feiters' Gang

Kansas City, Mo-, Jan. 1G.-Follow- ing the testimony of witnesses today that the federal disciplinary barracks at Fort Leavenworth. Kansas, was governed by a "soviet" committee with the approval of the officers in charge, Judge John c. Pollock, of the Kansas City, Kansas, federal court, ordered sweeping investiga- tion of the barracks.
 The testimony upon which the courts order was based was given at the trial of II former inmates of the barracks charged with being inn pllcated in a plot of nation wide ramifications to print at the bar racks and circulate fradulent gov ernment treasury certificates.
 After witnesses had testified that crime flourished at the barracks following the organization of the committee, which was known as the Conference committee" Judge Pol lock turned to Francis Ham, of Chicago, an intelligence agent of the central department of the army, who has been attending the trial and declared that he proposed to order the investigation.
 ''The honor, dignity and standing of that great department of the gov ernment (the war department) has been besmirched by the evidence that has been given at this tral,' said Judge Pollack.
 Probe Is Ordered.
 "Of course, if it should be deter mined the evidence is false the de- partment of justice will prove guilty those giving that false evidence. But if the evidence is true, it must not be in our country that we turn over any branch of it or any part of it to anarchy or the soviet form of government. The people of the United States are not ready for such thing"
 MT. Hanna announced that he would cooperate to the fullest eX- tent in the investigation.
 Judge Pollock then directed Fred D. Robertson, United States district attorney for Kansas. to begin an inn mediate inquiry into conditions at the disciplinary barracks.
 Soviet Year Old.
 Judge Pollock instructed the dis trict attorney to make his investiga- tion IS sweeping and comprehensive as possible" He also directed that a transcript of the evidence be for warded to the war department and department of justice and 'recom- mended to Fred M. Tate, head of the local secret service, that he re- port in detail to his superiors in the treasury department with the sug- gestion that that branch of the government participate in the in- vestigation.
 The courts orders for the investi- gation overshadowed the trial of the II defendants, the cases of 10 of whom were given to the jury during the afternoon. Eight of them were released after Judge Pollock had directed verdict of mot guilty" on the ground that there had been no evidence to show they were implicat- ed in the fraudlent certificate plot No verdict had been returned late tonight in the cases of Louis Oster- weiss of New Haven, Conn.,, and John Conway, of Hattiesburg, Miss, whom the government charge with being leaders of the plot. Alphonse Jones, negro, was discharged. He testified for the government.
 According to the witnesses the "soviet" or "conference committee" as it was known, was formed follow ing the general strike of prisoners at the barracks in January, 1919. The strike, witnesses testified, was the result of unrest due to the discharge late in 1918 of 113 conscientious ob- jectors.
 The committee, it was said, which numbered 35 or 40 members, soon be- gan assuming authority and within a short time had full control of the barracks.