IN SCANDAL LAND

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18073, 15 May 1924, Page 9

IN SCANDAL LAND

CASES OF CORRUPTION.

REVEALED TO COMMITTEES.

(BT CABLE—rSKSS ASBOCUTIOK COWBI4HT.) UttBTSAIUH UTD S.t. CABLE ASSOCUTIOX.) (Received May 14th, 8.10 pjn.) WASHINGTON, May 13. The various Congressional investigations which are steadily going on have revealed several interesting incidents of corruption. The Shipping Board Committee learned that vessels which cost millions were secretly disposed of for. a twentieth part of their value. The steamer City of Los Angeles, upon which 2,392,000 dollars were spent to convert it into an oil-burner, was sold, for IOOjOOO dollars, being appraised for the Board by a member of the firm which purchased it. The Daugherty Committee learned from a former agent of the Prohibition Enforcement Service that efforts to bring influential violators of the Volstead Law to justice had been frustrated, and cited various cases in which guilty persons had been permitted to gain freedom upon payment of fines. Witness drew a picture indicating that Ohio was less dry than before Prohibition. He alleged that the Department of Justice took no action. A witness in the war fraud cases stated 1 that he passed bribes aggregating many thousands of dollars to agents disposing of surplus War Department; timber, which had been "used- v in the construction of cantonments.