The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-02-11

Puts End To Forbes
 The episode put period not only to the career of Charles R. Forbes. once head of the veterans bureau, but to a piece of graft as big and picturesque as these United States have ever known. The Teapot Dome affair, involving as it does high politicians and presidential possibili- ties, has somewhat deflected public interest from the mess in the vet erans' bureau. But measured in terms of money and waste, it is much the greater.
 Charles K. Forbes directed for two years a department of the government which spent annually more than $450,- COG, ,OO0. According to the men who in vestigated it's affairs for the senate, twenty-five per cent of this expendi- ture may be charged to graft and-by far the greater item-to the waste which always accompanies graft.
 Reckoned over a period of two years, that toll of graft and waste mounts to $225, ,000, 900. The surplus of federal revenues, to which we shall soon owe our substantial reduction of income tax, is only S300, 100000. This rough calculation and comparison will show how much Colonel Forbes and his asso- ciates cost the American people. That, however, is not the whole story, It brings up another thought-more poig- nant. This money, given without ques- ton or bubble to succor and rehabili- tate our wreckage of the great war, was filcheG Tram the diasbled.
 How Veterans Suffered.
 Because the bureau was disorganized, because certain men in its high po- sitions were concerned mostly with what they could get out of it for them selves. veterans of the great war wasted time at rehabilitation which did not rehabilitate, coughed themselves to death with trench-born tuberculosis while waiting for hospitals, racked their minds and souls to pieces with the lingering effects of shell shock for want of special medical care.
 In spots, efficient men and women. working zealously and brilliantly against odds of official carelessness and neglect. were giving their charges adequate care. But they did it without much cooperation from above. So many nIen at the top were interested in other things ,lAn tho care and rehabilita- tion of the di: a5'ed.
 This Lieutenant Colonel Charles R. Forbes. once signal officer with the thirty-third division in France, ad- venturer extraordinary in life and politics. seems to the detached ob- server the most picturesque figure in recent American life. Now that he has made his exit, it becomes more and more apparent that the plot of the drama centered round 1him. The story of his career is also the sinister story of the veterans bureau.
 Son of Emigrants
 Charles Forbes was the son of emi. grant paprents-some say Scotch, some Welsh; but Forbes is distinctly a Scotch name. He was born. according to one account. on a British vessel at sea. He himself has testified before Senate committee that he is nat uralized citizen. At the age of twelve or whereabouts he entered the Marine Corps as drummer in band. He saw the world with the marines until he was honorably discharged at the age of fourten with his travel pay in his pocket and some fancy tattooing on his chest and arms. In the marines, he is remembered as a lively, prankish boy.
 He comes again into the government records at the age of twentytwo when he enlisted in the signal corps of the United States Army. After few months he deserted from his post at Fort Myer. Va. Four years afterwards, he was apprehended and imprisoned at Fort Strong. Massachusetts. The ex- change of papers in this case reveal cer- tain facts about his whereabouts and occupations in the meantime Though he classified himself in his enlistment papers as a. single man, he was in fact already married in 1900. He con fessed this; and blamed his desertion