The daily worker., 1924-02-15
DA W WES' BANK
NVOLVED IN
FORBES FRAUD
Grand Jury Wants to
See Books

The special federal grand jury in
vestigating the $225,000,000 graft In
the Veterans Bureau yesterday sub
poenaed books Of the Central Trust
company. The books are wanted to
prove what was done with special
fund placed with the bank by the
Thompson Black construction com
pany, one of the firms involved In the
graft charges.
The investigation conducted by the
special grand jury is extremely sec
ret. Every precaution is being taken
to prevent anything becoming public.
!, At all times during sessions of tn
grand jury there are from two tc
four secret service men in the cor
ridor of the federal building which
leads to the grand jury room. No on
is permitted to come near the grane
jury room or so much as enter the
corridor leading to it. If someone
tries to wander in the direction of the
grand jurors, a secret service man or
two will direct him in another direc'
tion in no uncertain terms.
Coolidge Wants Silence.
All this is carrying out the wishes
Of President Coolidge. who had the
senate investigation into the affairs
of the Veterans Bureau stopped be-
cause it was becoming a scandal and
for political reasons he did not care
to face it.
Last November Coolidge sent for
Senator Reed, chairman Of the, COM
mittee investigating the bureau, and
asked him to clean up the mess as
soon as possible At that time, the
Investigators were hardly under way
with their work, but had already un-
covered facts that smelled to high
heaven.
Became Efficiency Fiends.
On November Sth, the senate COM
mittee announced that they would
not hold any further public hearings
and would confne their efforts to at
tempting to show how efficiency could
be introduced into the business Of
fees Of the bureau.
On December 1st, Daugherty an
nounced that his Office had decided to
begin investigation of the charges of
graft that were made in connection
with the Veterans Bureau affairs.
In making the statement the At
torney- General was careful to an
nounce that he did not intend to give
any publicity to the investigation
He said that In the interests Of fair
play all fact hunting would be done
in secret.
Marvel at Daugherty's Caution.
In view Of the attorney generals
record of rushing to the newspapers
with denunciations of radicals before
and after trial his announcement Of
a policy Of secrecy was surprising.
Since then every effort has been
made, to not only keen the facts the
department Of justice got secret but
also to hush up and minimize the
facts that were brought out at the
public hearings Of the senate commit
tee.
A Feather-tickling Probe.
On Jan. 7th the report Of the COM
mittee of investigators was made
public. The Associated Press sent out
abstracts of that report and the at
torney for the committee, General
O'Ryan said that the final report
would be every extensively changed" ;"
He asked the senate to pay no atten-
ton to the newspaper extracts.
The final report of Gen. O'Ryan IL
considerably softer in spots than the
first report of the committee.
E. L. Morse a republican politician
of Missouri sold the Veterans Bureau
his homestead for a hospital site.
In the original draft of the report
it said:
"This project (referring to the
Morse homestead purchase) furnished
striking example of the manner in
which the interests of the Govern
ment and of the disabled were pros
tituted in order that a high Govern
ment official might generously satisfy
the demands of a prominent political
leader who claimed no knowledge of
the needs of the disabled and whose
interests were obviously selfish"
This has been changed to-.
"This project furnishes a striking
example of the manner in which the
interests of the Government and OF
the disabled were subordinated to in
dividual interests"