EXPENSE ACCOUNTS

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29221, 3 June 1960, Page 11

EXPENSE ACCOUNTS

Congress Probe Imminent

(Rec. 10 p.m.) WASHINGTON. June 2.

An investigation into the expense accounts of Congressional investigators seemed imminent today.

Charges were aired n the press yesterday that dozens of expense accounts from members of. the House of Representatives had been altered or amended in recent years.

Newspapers reprinted a report in ••Life” magazine which alleged that public funds had been spent by some Congressmen on visits to luxurious resorts and night clubs and on entertainment for their wives.

Officials of the House sealed off a room containing expense account receipts after learning a few days ago that “Life” planned to publish its report. Last night, the Speaker of the House, Mr Sam Rayburn (Democrat, Texas) Mid that the sealed vouchers would become available for public inspection again as soon as arrangements could be made.

The magazine said that in some cases expense accounts bills were altered by writing the word “food" after a notation of "bar charges.”

A Congressional group went to a New York holiday resort in 1957 to study “beach erosion” and the wives of 10 Congressmen and the committee counsel “had come along to help,” it said. The magazine commented: "Where the hotel had inscribed Mrs' on the bill, someone deposited a neat square of ink to blot out each notation.”

It said that Mr Aren Harris was one Congressman whose hotel bill had been defaced, Mr Harris is chairman of the House InterState and Foreign Commerce Committee, which held the celebrated hearings on disc Jockey "payola," the television quiz scandal and other headlinemaking matters.