The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1922-10-19

directing him to proceed on 4 mission
lid connection with the sale of TO-
900 900 pounds u surplus canned
meat.
Other startling excerpts from the
american Legion sharges follow:
One of the methods by which the
government has sustained heavy loss
Ell is through salts TO favored firms
without c~omeptition by means DC ne
gotiated III informal bids. Many
such corporations have been: shoe.
string affairs in which ex-arrny of-
! fiicers and ex-employes Of War De.
partment sales branches have been
heavily Interested" S* 1f.
{ January /, 1920, 517,1O4 yards Of
% p. waterproof duck which cost
$$1.93 4 yard was declared surplus, and
five days later 2339 ,1O4 yards of ii
was sold BY negotiation to FL. Miller
& GO. Of New York, affirm prominent
in surplus transactions, whose back
ers separated under q half dozen diff
ferent names. Miller paid 65 IA cents
a yard, but on Feb. II the price was
reduced to AT ID cents when Miller
IconteIded the material was full Of
oil and has d bad SMELL Four days
late much Of this material was sold
by II. Miller e GO. to wilson d. True
blood, Inc, Chicago, for $1.41 a yard.
Trueblood informed the Department
} Of Justice it was in good condition and
he was able to resell it for Sits.
t"This is only one of a series of ex-
~traordinary transactions in army duck
which could be cited" ..<.
"How many soldiers or sailors of
our 7erstwhile fighting forces discov-
cred taps a signal to crawl under a
nice new $4.65 mosquito bar and
make faces at the New Jersey night
ingales? If you weren't among them
it may be because your mosquito bar
was among the 2,313,o00 such that an
astonished Quartermaster Corps
found to be on hand after the Armis-
tice. For these the government had
paid $~10,755.450. In December, the
Zone supply officer at New York was
told to sell 100000, bars" /.
1.-THE Atlantic Export Products
Company offered him so cents a bar
for 100000 bars and sent in a certi-
fled check for $4,000 to bind the
agreement, and a few days later noti-
fled the government it had disposed
of the bars to a Philadelphia firm.
The government promptly cancelled
the sale. A. Ell, Eastmond, vice-presi-
dent of the Atlantic company, pro-
tested to Secretary Baker, claiming
unjust discrimination and that the
War Department officials were 'out,
cunning for our treasurer"
Eventually" the article shows, an
offer from Charles Cohen, Of New
York, to buy all bars at 17'1-2 cents
for new and 10 cents for reclaimed,
was snapped up the day the offer was
made and the transaction concluded
without competitive bids.
major w. Watts, executive Off
Ger, surplus property division, protest
ed in a memorandum to his chief
against the nature of tht mosquito
bar and other sales, which brought an
investigation and criticism by Lieut..
Col. w. C. Jones, confidential officer
of the Quartermaster General.
$50 fast did the armv get rid of
Camel cigarettes, 100000 being sold
to the r. j. Reynolds Tobacco Com
paIy, who made them, for 6 1-3 cents
each, (which did not include the s
cents the company had to pay later
as a stamp taxi that in less than q
year the army commissaries were
calling for Camels. The army bought
them back at ID 1-3 cents a pack, los
ing $201 ,263 on the deal, though for
tunately, IS per cent of the loss was
covered by tax dues collected by the
Department of Internal Revenue.
"On July 26, 1919, when sugar was
highest ard scarcest, the small deal
ers were going to jail for making too
much profit, the War Department
found a surplus of 100000 pounds
which had been purchased for 8 3-4
cents a pound. The public was paying
from 20 to 80 cents a pound at the
corner grocery. The government sold
46, ZOO, 900 pounds at s and "a cents,
and on the next day e. G. Morse, d.
rector Of sales, recommended that the
armys active sugar reserve be cut
from a six to q three months supply.
The Department of Justice has evil
dence that some of this sugar was
resold at 20 IL cents. In the same fis-
cal year the armys supply. gave out
and the army went back to the sugar
men and bought 35,,500,000 pounds at
IA and. 1903 cents, most Of it being
raw and the price did not include the
cost to the army of refining it. The
public lost 50, 162,9 29, not including
extra refining costs =
i d. &c., n 4 81 y III ssfeSFx 's Z
rbs2eggsr yas~Fs: - 2s@S4. $sas Ne &:%FI
Mt 5asTh T91.4@ .ss sHas - 80
FOR sALE-Mitchell 1915, four
cylinder touring car. Five good tires.