OIL LEASES INQUIRY

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 149, 18 March 1924, Page 7

OIL LEASES INQUIRY

FORMER SECRET AGENT’S STORY OBTAINING EVIDENCE AGAINST CONGRESSMEN HOW THE LAWS WERE DEFIED A former secret'agent of tho United States Department of Justice, giving evidence before the Oil inquiry Commission, described how tha affairs of several Congressmen were investigated. Another witness told how tho Dempsey-Car-pentier fight pictures were exhibited in defiance of the law. By Telegraph—Press Association. COPT.IIGHT. Washington, March 16. Before.tho Oil Inquiry Commission, Gaston B. Means, a former secret agent of the Department of Justice, added further sensational evidence to that previously given. He declared Khat ho asked for no quarter and intended to give none. From diaries covering the past few years, ho produced evidence that ho had been acquitted on a charge of murder, and had worked as a secret agent for Britain, and then for Germany, and later still for America. He was discharged in November, 1922, for which ho demanded from Daugherty specific reasons. Daugherty explained that ho had been too active in investigating oil matters in Mexico, and that another Cabinet Minister demanded his head. He took his instructions from Smith, whom he often saw in Daugherty's office. Witness added that Smith wanted to catch Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury, and did so. It was found that Mellon had entered into an agreement to furnish certain permits, but he slipped through their fingers at that time.

Witness detailed investigations in connection with Senators Caraway and La Follette, when they were attacking Daugherty and tho late President Harding in Congress. He instanced how coloured servants were bribed to write down what was said at the tea table, and also to go through La Follette’s mail. In reference to the receipt of 100,000 dollars from the Mitsui Company in connection with tho aircraft frauds, for which Daugherty was being charged with failure to prosecute the Standard Aircraft Company, witness said that during the recent Congressional investigation of the matter the Department of Justice had agents following witnesses and investigating tho affairs of various Congressmen. Tho Aircraft Company was trving to evade claims for 2,000,000 dollars by tho Government. The company had not been prosecuted, and. documents were submitted indicating that the Mitsui Company were acting as paymasters for the' Japanese Government, and controlled tho Standard Aircraft Company. which was selling models of American aeroplanes to the Japanese Government. . Gaston Means further explained the permits Secretary Mellon had issued which had to do with the liquor removals under the Volstead Act. Witness said that he had received probably 40,000 dollars from different people'. for his services. Smith always crave’ him his instructions alone, and never in Daugherty’s presence. He added bitterly that they knew the

game. _ , Frank Quinby, a New York “movie operator, told how the Dempsey-Car-pentier fight pictures were exhibited through 30 States, though such action wan in defiance of the law. He and Tex Rickard entered into an agreement with a reporter on Edward McLean's newspaper and another mn friend. Smith’s plan was to exhibit the film in each State, first before returned soldiers’ organisations, then, if the officials were complacent, other showings were made. In one case they were fined a thousand dollars. They were furnished with a list of lawyers in each State through whom the formalities could be arrrangea, and it worked in every case except one. •—Sydney “Sun” Cable.

FURTHER SENSATIONAL 1 CHARGES plot to form new REPUBLIC Mexico, March 16. Sensational charges are published in a newspaper here that Senator r all, former Secretary of tho Interior, conspired in 1921 with the former. Governor Cantu, of Lower California to form a new republic in Northern Mexico, with the object of ultimately bringing about intervention by the United States. The newspaper claims that the alleged plot involved the annexation of a portion of Lower California. as well as the m regions about Tampico—Sydney “Sun” Cable.