The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1929-03-21
THE PASSING SHOW
By the Man In The Street

through Tippett takes a hand to show
that certain contractors were favored
by the Richie Mackall administra-
ton. Baetjer and Haskins & Sells to
the rescue with long sheets of figures
! to show that no favors were shown as
alleged. The talk is about overruns
and underruns and extras.
Carroll lets it out in reply to ques-
tons that M. Hampton Magruder,
race track fancier and Democrat
leader in Prince Georges County, got
$500 from the Roads Commission on
account Of the Grain highway hula
baloo but presented no detailed bills
at all. The amount was handed him
in three payments. And there was
nothing on the minutes, it seems,
about the appointment Of two chair
men to handle this hullabaloo and dis
pense the money for silverware, sand
wiches and toy balloons.
Comes then to the stand deposed
Chairman John N. Mackall, thrown
out by Richie dynasty. He proceeds
to read long papered statement. He
gives himself a fine coat of white
wash which seems to please the ad-
ministration partisans. Throug h
with the reading, he is given a polite,
courteous examination by Charles Nc
Henry Howard, in that gentlemanly
style for which Mr.. Howard is we'll
known. He brings out from the de-
posed chairman the fact that he was
born in Calvert County, educated at
the Maryland Agricultural College,
and all the main facts about the form
of organization of the State Roads
Commission. Before anything inter-
esting or even allegedly new comes
out the committee gets tired. The
writer got tired long before that and
so did other spectators.
That was the afternoon of one day.
Wednesday was another day, a bit
more interesting, in which the de-
posed chairman admitted indiscret-
ions, bad judgment and so on in lesser
matters but did not admit bad judg-
ment in big matters.
Little By Little
Some Facts Come Out
Under the questioning of Delegate
Dan Joseph and others some facts in
relation to the Richie Mackall adj
ministration were brought out on
Thursday. 1t was revealed that Geo.
H. Dawson was named as auditor for
the Commission at meeting attend
ed by the Governor. 1t has all along
been understood that the Governor
made the selection. This was in June,
1920. In his prior testimony Mackall
had blamed Dawson for failing to de-
tect the wholesale stealing.
1t was also shown that Dawson, in
addition to being auditor for the
Roads Commission, was also the audi
tor for the Annapolis Claiborne ferry,
State-subsidized enterprise, and
that part of his work was done in the
State roads office. An evidence of
how the Richie Mackall machine
worked. Roads, ferries, subsidies and
thieves all in the same official in
the same room-and nobody seeming
to care until Deputy Auditor Dan
Carroll came along and bawled 'em
out.
Mackall also testified that the Gov
ernor had visited the roads office five
or six times within his recollection,
but he did not attempt to name the
many times he had visited the Cover
nor to confer on the roads construc-
ton and other political affairs of the
administration. Mackall, however,
has already admitted enough to show
that the Governor should have known
better than make him chairman of
the Roads Commission in the first
place. At that time the Governor was
surrounded by numerous kitchen
cabinet, one of the most active men,
bers of which was (and still isl
Brooke Lee, and they took part in
urging Mackall on the Governor who
was then just started on his second
term plans and the building up of a
powerful political machine of which
the Roads Department was to be
made the most useful section-the
money being there in great hunks.
And, it seems, had it not been for
the zealousness of Deputy Auditor
Dan Carroll the Roads Commission
would be going along today just as it
had been going on for years, the
thieves taking their one-half of one
per cent which the Governor now
publicly admits he doesn't think
amounts to much. To date no one
has shown anything to indicate that |
the Governor ever went out of his |
way to see that the roads accounts
were properly audited in eight years,
even though he knew the department
was handling millions of dollars.