The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1928-01-06
ERRORS FOUND
IN LETTER ARE
LAID TO AVILA
Code Messages Are Called
'GibberiSh' by Expert
Before Senators.
COMMA is MISPLACED
Same Mistake Appears in
in State Papers Eek
posed by Publisher.
COMMA IS MISPLACED
BY PAUL w. MALLON
United Press staff Correspondent

united RreSS SGdH Correspondent
WASHINGTON, Jan. 6.-Evidence
which may link Miguel Avila with
the alleged forgery of Hearst MeXi-
can documents was presented to the
Senate-Mexican committee today.
Av1la, Hearst agent, committed In
a statement typewriter for the
Senate investigating committee the
same unusual grammatical errors in
Spanish that appear in the forged
Mexican documents, Commander
Carlos v. CusachS United States
Navy, retired, and a Spanish scholar,
told the committee.
Cusachs said Avila wrote the
Spanish word "ud" (meaning YOU'D,
with a comma behind it whereas it
should have a period behind it just
like the word Mr.. in English.
Seven Called Spurious
The Spanish scholar said that to
his knowledge no similar grammatic-
al error had come to his attention
before except in the Mexican "docu-
ment" published in Hearst news
papers.
Seven Of the documents" pur-
ported to be Mexican government
code messages are spurious, Com
mander A. D. Struble, United States
naval code expert, testified.
He said he spent ten days study
ing the seven messages, some of
which were supposed to have been
exchanged between President Gales
Of Mexico, and Arturo Elias, Mexi-
can consul general in New York.
"It is my belief they are not &C
tual code messages, but appear to
be fakes" said Struble.
The expert said the "code" ap-
peared to be typewriter gibberish"
struck off at random by someone.
Struble said the seven 'transla-
tons" Of the messages as published
by newspapers of William Randolph
Hearst did not fit the code mes
Sages" in any way.
I'm my opinion no inter-r relation
exists between the apparently coded
messages and the So-called transla-
tions, and in my opinion the So
called coded messages are not &C
tually either coded or ciphered dis
patches" the witness added.
AS an experiment Struble said he
had several men in his Office at
tempt to fake coded messages on
a typewriter and it was discovered
that all Of them used letters in one
section of the typewriter keyboard.
The seven flakes" used only eight
different letters, Struble said.
Lane Takes Stand
Struble said he was acquainted
with all kinds of code and had
charge Of the code and signal de-
partment of the navy.
Arthur Bliss Lane, head Of the
Mexican division Of the State De-
partment and former secretary to
the American Embassy in Mexico
City, testified that Miguel Avila,
Hearst agent, had once tried to sell
him a Mexican document"
John Page, Hearst's Mexico City
correspondent, once called W tn
Avila at the embassy and produced
a copy of document attacking the
then American Ambassador to Mex
leo, James r. Sheffield. Avila of
fered to get the original copy from
the Mexican government files for 100
or 200 pesos, Lane said.
II told Avila the embassy was not
in the market for such documents"
Lane testified.
Grammatical Errors Similar
Again in August, 1926, Page (who
procured the documents for Hearst
newspapers) called at the embassy
with a forged paper, Lane said.
This document was written on en-
bassy note paper and purported to
relate that whatever should be ia
ken up by Sheffield with Secretary
Kellogg on the ambassadors Ameri-
can visit could be learned for a
price.
Lane said the papers allegedly
obtained by Avila and Page in Mex
leo City and IN New York and from
President Gales Office and various
other Mexican government offices,
all were guilty Of the same gram
NAUTICAL errors. He said the Span
ish word "u d" was enormously fol-
loved by a comma instead of a
period, an error as bad as using a
comma after the English "Mr."