The New York herald., 1922-06-20

peeped into one of the packages. saw
guns and reported to the authorities.
Federal officials seized the guns, said
to be valued at about 100000, and then
began an investigation. Later the De-
partment of Justice conducted an in
quiry. Frank Williams claimed owner
ship of the guns and declared he had
purchased them through the Auto
Ordnance Company and stored then in
a warehouse. Williams insisted the
guns had been stolen from the ware
house and had no knowledge of how
they reached the ship. Rorke was ar
rested and said he sold the guns to a
group of men whom he did not know.
A grand jury made an investige ton
last autumn but indictments We're made
by the January, Grand Jury which con-
cluded its work. last April
A Diplomacy Issue.
Information regarding the indictments
has been withheld since. The United
States Attorneys have refused to dis
cuss the case or the reports that there
had been indictments. This attitude
continued yesterday. The reason given
was that the Federal authorities had
not been able to find some of the men
named in the papers.
The case Is said to have been the sub
ject Of International diplomatic discus
sion and of several conferences in Wash
ington. 1t has been charged that politi-
cal pressure was brought to bear to sup
press the indictments.
The guns were placed on the East
Side at the time Of harbor strike when
il was impossible to move any freight
and the work was done by a volunteer
crew believed to have been sympa-
in tt-t- Of tvxyr
of the type found in the East Side were
used by Sim Feiners in holdup of a
British train and the Irish leader said
they were the most effective weapons his
associates had found.
81 do not wish to discuss the East Side
gun question" Col Thompson said re-
Gently, excepting to say that we did not
know how the guns got aboard the ship.
We would not think OF selling guns to
persons we even suspected might resell
them to enemies Of constituted govern
ment"
Col. Thompson is Harvard and West
Point graduate with a seventeen year
army record He was with the Amer
ican forces in France from 1917 to the
end OF the war, serving with the Fifty
first Coast Artillery. He resigned from
the service In December, 1919.
LONDON, June 10 ASSOCIATED Press).
Col. Harvey, the American Ambas-
ssdor, stated to-day through his secre-
tary~ that he had nothing to say In re-
gard to dispatches to the London papers
announcing that Col. Marcellus III.
Thompson, a son-in-law of the Ambas-
sador, had been indicted at Trenton. N.
j., on the charge of conspiracy to ship
arms to Ireland.
BELFAST. June 10. = The Thompson
gun played a part in the Clones station
fight last February. when four special
constables were Killed. At the inquest
a constable who received six bullet
wounds, said he met a man with a
Thompson gun. e
When the attention of high Ulster
special constabulary official was drawn
TO the report he declared that Thomp-
son guns had not been employed by the
Ulster consta buary. but that they had
been used against the constabulary on
sew 7ral occasions. He added that at
Cranagh the constabulnry had captured
magazine. 1t had been reported. the
official said, that Thompson guns had
been employed in the Belfast riot zone.
but the fact had not been clearly es-
tablished.