Evening star., 1947-06-02
Carson Firm Papers,
Sought by FBI, Turned
Up by Defense al Trial
Henry Carson Says He
Found Books in Recent
Move to New York
By Robert K. Welsh

The stock certificate record
and the minute book of the
Cumberland Lumber Co., which
Government agents have been
seeking for more than year,
turned up in District Court to-
day at the war fraud conspiracy
trial of former Representative
Andrew J. May and Henry and
Murray Carson.
They were produced by defense
counsel in questioning Henry Cars
son on the witness stand.
The Carson brothers and the IL
year-old former chairman of the
House Military Affairs Committee
are charged with conspiracy. to de-
fraud the United States. 1t Is
charged that the Garssons paid
bribes totaling more than $1,000 to
May in return for his services.
Most of the money, the Govern
ment declares, was paid through the
Cumberland Lumber Co., a Ken
lucky concern, which, according to
the earlier testimony, delivered no
lumber after receiving large orders
from Illinois companies in the
S78,0O0,000 Carson munitions COM
bine.
Had Been Unable to Find Books.
Henry Carson testified before
grand jury last November and at a
closed session of the Senate War
Investigating Committee in June,
1916, that he did not know the
whereabouts of the lumber COM
panys stock certificate book and
minute-book Earlier in this trial,
Special Prosecutor William A. Pals
ley told Justice Henry A. Schwein-
haut and the jury that Federal Bu-
reau of Investigation agents had
been unable to locate those company
records.
Henry Carson disclosed today
that, as he was preparing to move
from Evanston, ILL.,, to his permanent
home at Far Rockaway, N. Y, two
months ago, he found the two books
among other papers: He said he
took them Immediately to Pittsburgh
and turned them over to his at
torney, Charles J. Margiotti.
Carson asserted he did not know
how the records came to be in his
Evanston residence. He recalled
having last seen them in 1945 when
they were sent from Washington
to one of the Carson plants in
Batavia, Ill.
Tells of Lumber Firm Purchase.
Earlier, Carson testified that his
munition companies were working
on war contracts totaling $4,000 900
before he met May in November,
1912.
He declared that he had no talk
with May about the Cumberland
company until the following June
when he and May attended Phil
adelphia conference at which the
Kentucky timberland site was pur-
chased.
Carson also told how he per-
sonally became interested in buy
ing the Kentucky timber property
DSCduSG Oh tllt dCuJG WdItfIilc SltOi T.
age of lumber, which his COM
panies needed for shell boxes and
other wood products.
He declared that he and Murray
Carson borrowed money from the
Erie Basin Metal Products, Inc,
and the Batavia Metal Products,
Inc, Illinois companies in the COM
bine, because other officers of those
concerns did not want to go directly
into the lumber business.
Mays Interest in Company Told.
The witness asserted that Mays
only connection with the lumber
company was, first, to get an option
on the Kentucky property for the
Garssons and. later, to act as.
Kentucky agent for them without
pay.
The Philadelphia meeting in
June, 1943. was the first of three