Powerful American Company’s Intrigues

Horowhenua Chronicle, 8 September 1934, Page 8

Powerful American Company’s Intrigues

PUSHING SALE OF SUBMARINES. LEGISLATION ENGINEERED THROUGH CONGRESS (By Telegraph-Press Assn.-Copyright.) Received Friday, 7.50 p.m. WASHINGTON, Sept, 6. A boast by an official of the Electric Boat Company that he had placed two members on the powerful House of Representatives' Rules Committee and had engineered through Congress a 3,000,000-dollar company claim caused uproar to-day in the Senate munitions investigation. Stoning J. Joyner, the firm’s Washington representative, frankly took the credit, in a letter written to Mr Henry R. Oarse, president of the Electric Boat Company, in December, 192S r for the election to the Rules Committee of Representatives F. W. Fort (New Jersey) and Joseph Martin (Massachusetts), both Republicans. Mr Fort is now out of Congress, ‘ but Mr Martin is still a member of the House' and its Rules Committee.

In another letter, dated March 11,: .1929, Joyner said; ‘‘All our legislative efforts have borne fruit —the Cruiser Bill was passed, the submarine appropriations were passed, and as I sincerely promised you the day wo lunched together in New York, we did manage, after overcoming a number of handicaps and jumping some hurdles,' to get a second deficiency Bill through,, and in doing so we succeeded in getting our claims through.”

Details of an intensive world-wide submarine sates campaign, involving-high-ranking officers and Government officials, were traced before the committee. Letters from officials of theUnited Statcs-owned Electric Boat Company disclosed that this concern had agreements' not only wilK Vickers - ,. Ltd., of England, but also with leading shipbuilding concerns throughout the world. In rapid order the names - Russia, France, Japan, Italy, Spain r Holland, Belgium, Germany and Norway were spoken before the inquiring; Senators as the nations into which the Electric Boat agreements extended. There were also documentary charges that German firms have established munitions / ,eoncerns in Holland,. Sweden, Switzerland and other small countries within easy distance of Germany for the purpose of secretly maintaining Germany’s position as a submarine Power.

It was also revealed that Paul Koster, a former Dutch naval captain andnow the director of a German munitions concern, had written to Mr Lawrence Spear, vice-president of the Electric Boat Company, asking him to use his good offices to aid him to obtain an American sub-machine-gun for use by ‘‘a certain organisation in* Germany.” This occurred three months before the Nazi revolt. It was also submitted that a former Assistant-Secretary for the Navy, Mr Ernest Lee Johncke, while in the Hoover Cabinet, promised the Electric Boat Company a submarine contract although its bid was higher than theNavy Department’s.