New-York tribune., 1921-01-26
8 New Charges
OF u. S. TASTE
Total Millions
War Department Said To Be
Prevented From Selling
Typewriters and Tractors
by Contract Clauses
Bid Manipulation Alleged
Graham, Planning Restitu-
ton Moves, Also Told of
Loss ON Powder Plant

From 1Ac 1rt1wNe's WasAtHOfon Bwrsdu
WASHINGTON, Jan. 2b~-Announce-
ment that William ). Graham. chair
man Of the select investigating COM
mittee Of the House, intends to force
tbe return to the government Of hun
dreds Of millions Of dollars. which, he
charges, was lost to the people by the
operation Of the surplus property di-
vision Of the War Department, has re-
suited in food Of disclosures here to-
day, which undoubtedly will be the
basis for work Of the special new As
sistant Attorney General whose ap-
pointment Mr.. Graham will urge.
One of these disclosures Is that hun
dreds Of millions Of dollars worth of
caterpillar tractors and other valuable
road building machinery is in the pos
session of the War Department, which
will not turn it over to the highway
building officials Of the forty-eight
states, As provided by laws now in
existence, the charge being made that
the manufacturers of some of this ma
chinery obtained the insertion in War
Department contracts that their prod
net should not be used for other than
war purposes.
Much of this machinery is said to be
rotting in open storage on the Mex1-
can border, notwithstanding the fact
that it is vitality needed for the ROAD
building programs of the various states.
Yypewxiters in Heaps
It is also. charged that 1000 type
writer's, many of them in their or
iginal crates, have been tossed into
great junk heSps in wooden shacks
in Potomac PaTk, Washington, where
they are now rusting and rotting
away. Clauses in the contracts Of pur-
chase of many of these provide that
the typewriters shall not be sold for
five years after the war, at which
time they will be obsolete.
A third disclosure is that the method
of the surplus property division OF the
War Department. in receiving bids was
susceptible of manipulation so that
favored bidders were in many cases
awards,..in the negotiations for sale.
1t is further asserted that business
men are charging that the advertising
done by the surplus property division
for secret bids was simply blind;
that in many cases, after bids were re-
ceived, they were opened and negotiated
bids called for.
Sunday Sale Costly
A fifth disclosure is that Che deal by
which the $79,ooo,OOO Old Hickory
powder plart became the property of
TIE Nashville Industrial Corporation,
financed by the Morse Bros, junk
dealers, of Denver, Col, for s3,5oo,ooo
was put through on Sunday, whereas
the charge is made that if the deal had
been held over until the following day,
Monday, the government could have
obtained several million dollars more
for the plant.
A sixth disclosure is that former
Congressman Charles Bennett Smith,
representing the Buffalo House Wreck
ing Plant, had estimated that the Old
Hickory plant, if sold for junk alone,
was worth at least $j,000.00O, so far as
the machinery was concerned, to say
nothing of anything else;, while if
sold as machinery it would have been
q good business proposition to pay
S15,000,000 to the government for it;
and that he communicated these facts
to the surplus property division of the
War Department..