EXPOSER OF 'CROOKS AND THIEVES'
Hull, Rep. Merlin
Exposer Of Crooks And Thieves' By REP. MERLIN HULL MORE than 25 years ago Congress tangled with the War and Navy Departments over their loose manner of letting contracts for Army and Navy...
...Warren justly calls "plain crooks and thieves...
...Only such publicity as investigations bring forth seems to afford even a minor check on what Mr...
...But, nobody went to jail, the jail-filling job belonging to another department...
...They were so upset that they neither answered nor denied the charges...
...Plain Crooks And Thieves' Last week, the Naval Affairs Committee was considering a bill to permit the Navy Department rather than Comptroller Warren to have the say on naval equipment contracts...
...He fairly "lifted the roof...
...The revelations covered mismanagement, manipulation, gross extravagance, and graft...
...In one particular case he cancelled a contract for automobiles amounting to $10 millions, charging fraud and collusion in the draft of specifications...
...Lindsay Warren, of North Carolina, an honest man and a hard fighter...
...Now, with billions of contracts involved, the Navy and War Departments are seeking to revise the powers of the Comptroller so that they may have a freer hand in settling up with the 13 per centers...
...Warren is the right man in the right place, and it should and probably will kill the bill by a nearly unanimous vote...
...The amounts involved are 10 times as large, and the number of profiteers involved seems to be in like ratio...
...Judging from disclosures by the Truman Committee, from investigations already underway, there seems to be little change in the manner, method, and mismanagement of the departments in expending war funds since the first World War...
...Incidentally, it is not confined to our own big gang of war profiteers, but thosa from abroad seem to be breaking in on the game...
...MERLIN HULL MORE than 25 years ago Congress tangled with the War and Navy Departments over their loose manner of letting contracts for Army and Navy materials and equipment...
...The ship transportation grabbing is not limited to our own big ocean line companies...
...Neither the President nor any administrative agency can exercise any control over him or his department...
...He said the waste in settling war contracts ran into "millions of dollars...
...Warren appeared and protested...
...grabs intended for easy profits...
...He has been auditing war accounts and he has stopped many...
...Nor is the chicanery limited to a few departments...
...As a matter f...
...In several instances, the Comptroller has defied departments and saved millions for the Treasury...
...The present Comptroller is former Rep...
...Some of them are just plain crooks and thieves...
...He gained his acquaintance with big business fortune makers while in the House, and the money-grabbers were not pleased when he was appointed...
...It may seem odd, but the sponsors of the bill to take his powers from him made no statement in reply...
...of fact, those investigations were continued until 1935, and some of the committee reports were not completed until shortly before the present war...
...The experiences in the first World War resulted in many investigations by Congressional committees...
...Warren Has Saved Millions Its chief, appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, holds office for 15 years, and he can be removed only by both houses' of Congress...
...Then specifically he went on, "Certain contracting officers have dished out, shoveled out, and given away the money of the United States...
...It rather upset the department and the scheming contractors when the Comptroller exposed their chicanery...
...In its endeavors to stop the cash shoveling propensities of war managers as well as of other free spenders, the General Accounting Office was set up by Congress as a special independent agency to audit all government accounts...
...While the war properly absorbs most attention, the skullduggery of special interests in profit grabbing gets less attention than it should...
Vol. 8 • April 1944 • No. 15
