CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY tiilllililllilllllllilllllllllllliiiiiuiiiliiitiiiMiiiiiiiiiiiiiriiiiiliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiillllilllllllliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii •)'jf A LITTLE STORY OF HOME, LOVE, WAR, AND POLITICS. BYCYE£NUsQ>LEr A FARMER'S STORY CEDAR RAPIDS IOWa THE TORCH PRESS 1920 PRICE IJ CENTS iii i ii Miiiiii i iiiii iiii iiiii i iiiiiiii'Miiiiiiiiiiimin i i i ii iii l llllll l liiiiii iii iiiiiiiiiiiii iif i i i m list est WHAT EVERY SOLDIER KNOWS Every soldier knows the training camps were located not for training purposes, but to bring money to favored com- munities. Every soldier knows that of the money not deliberately mis-spent, fully one-half was wasted because it was admin- istered by miserable incompetents appointed for political advantage. Every soldier knows what lin infinitesimal fraction of wartime expenditures ever reached the, battlefield. Every soldier knows that both his comfort at the rear and his safety on the battlefield were sacrificed. Every soldier knows tha^ he had to depend upon weapons, munitions and supplies obtained from our allies. Every soldier knows that throughout the war his interest was sacrificed to that of the slacker and profiteer. Every soldier knows that the only suggestion of national economy has been to economize at his expense. — Chicago Tribune, May 21, 1920. PUBLISHER'S NOTE Although told in the form of fiction, the matters of fact related in this little volume are stated correctly. They are from the official records in Washington, D. C. Are you impressed with the facts set forth in this booklet? Don't you think the American people ought to be ad- vised of these facts? Can you think of ten people who ought to read this book? If. so, send us their names with addresses and one dol- lar, and we will send the book to them immediately. THE TORCH PRESS, Cedar Rapids, Iowa Compliments of Speakers' Bureau Republican National Conunitfee Copyright 1920 By TKe TorcK Press Permission giveii newspapers to make full and free use of contents FROM FOUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON CHAPTER I Going to Washington The fall work was done on the Mark Miller farm — the last load of corn had been brought in. Mr. Miller and his wife, Elizabeth, had been left alone on the big farm in Buena Vista county, Iowa, when their son, Mark, Jr., had enlisted for the great war. Help had been hard to get, but. a retired farmer from Storm Lake, James Waters, had vol- unteered to do his bit to help win the war with food. He had brought with him his wife, Martha, who was a cousin of Mrs. Miller, and the two had been affectionately called the "hired man" and the "hired girl." All summer the two elderly men had worked hard, early and late, and they had managed to grow good crops, upon which they had prided themselves. While seated around the supper table that evening, Mr. Miller made to his wife the startling proposition that they should go to Washington to see their son who was still held there in a hos- pital. "To Washington!" exclaimed Mrs. Miller, thrilled by the thought of seeing her son, their only child. "Yes, to Washington, D. C," he replied. "But can we afford it — what will it cost?" "Don't stop to count the costs, Betty. Of course we can af- ford to go and see our boy. We have money in the bank and corn in the crib and hogs in the feed lot. You have been worry- ing about the boy long enough — now we will go and see whab is the matter with him. ' ' "But who will look after things here?" "Jim has agreed to remaia on the place until we return, which can be in two or three weeks — we talked that all over as we rode in on the last load of corn today." "Yes, we will be glad to do that," spoke up Mrs. Jim, although the proposition was news to Iier, as well as to Mrs. Miller. . 2 FEOM FOUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON "I'm ready to go tomorrow," continued Mr. Miller, "but I suppose you will want a few days to get ready, that is the way of women." "Yes, I ought to have some new clothes," replied Mrs. MiUer, "for I don't want Mark to be ashamed of his mother." "It would take more than your old clothes to make our boy ashamed of his mother," said Mr. Miller. "He's not that kind of a boy, thank heaven." And so it was agreed that they should start for Washington within two days. The prospects so elated Mrs. Miller that she slept little that night. She thought not only of meeting her boy, but of all that had happened since the declaration of war. Mark Miller, Jr., had been the first man in the county to enlist. He was not of age, but his parents had given their assent, though it cost the mother many heart pangs. His father had served in the Cuban War and his grandfather in the Civil War. In fact, there had been a Miller in. every American war beginning with the Revolution. Of course there ought to be a Miller in the greatest of all the American wars. And so his parents were proud of his eagerness to go, however much the mother grieved. It was the boy's proud luck to be one of the first sent to France. Many others waited for a like opportunity. He had been among the fighting Americans who offered the first resist- ance to the Germans along the Marne. He had helped to drive them back toward the Oureq and the Aisne. He had helped to demolish the salient at St. Mihiel. And he had fought in the terrible, battles of the Meuse-Argonne in which thousands of American boys had fallen. For his father and mother on their Iowa farm there had been days of keen anxiety. For weeks no news had come to them, no news except the newspaper reports of the dead and the wounded. And then came the direful word that he, too, had been wounded ; seriously, but not fatally. A cheerful letter followed in due time. It was a hip wound and it would be slow to heal — but everything about it was all right. And in the meantime the Armistice was signed and the war was over. It was the middle of the following summer before he was brought back to America and thenjsy some good fortune he was taken to a hospital near Washington for further treatment. All THE MEETING IN WASHINGTON 3 the time he continued to write the most cheerful letters to his parents — and he was always about to come home to them. But now they were going to him — and to the mother it seemed as if the railroad train moved no faster than a snail ! CHAPTEE II The Meeting in Washington Mr. Miller had been in "Washington before, but tears ran out of Mrs. Miller's eyes as the dome of the Capitol was pointed out to her as they alighted from the train. ' ' But how will we find the way ? ' ' she asked. "Perhaps the president or the secretary of war will come to point it out to us," suggested Mr. Miller. "And I am sure they could not be doing anything better than helping a poor mother who let her only boy go to the war, ' ' said Mrs. Miller, smiling through her tears. But they found the way easily, and the meeting which was a surprise to the son, was so beautiful that it must be left to the imaginations of those who understand the tender relations be- tween mothers and sons. "I'm all here, mother, and all still sticking together," said her son gaily, as she looked ,him over curiously. "Yes, my son, and God be thanked." "And I wouldn't have missed it for anything!" "I'm proud of you, my boy," said the father. "But, oh, you limp!" exclaimed the mother as she saw him move about. "Do you have to do that ? ' ' "Yes, I have to," he replied calmly. "But don't cry about it now. There are plenty of good men who limp. I saw Gener'al Wood the other day — he limps, too. . . They did the best they could to fix me up, but they could not overcome that. . . And I don't mind it any more. . . But I am glad you did not see me a few months ago when they believed I would be an actual cripple the rest of my life. That was not a cheerful prospect. But I pulled myself out of it by the aid of a good surgeon — and a wonderful nurse. ' ' 4 FROM FOUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON "And you fell in love with her," guessed the mother when he hesitated and blushed. "Yes, I have fallen in love with her, and what is more won- derful is that she has fallen in love with me — and some time we'll be married." "Then I'm not to have you back after all my waiting," sighed the mother. "You shall have us both, mother." "Then marry her tomorrow and we'll go back to the old farm," suggested the father. "I must work and save first," replied the son. "I did not come out of the war rich, for a man cannot save much out of $30 a month. Just before the end I did a little better for they made me a lieutenant for something I did. It was something extra, they thought, but it was really nothing more than doing my duty." "And you never told us about being a lieutenant, you rascal," said the father. "It wasn't enough to tell about, father." "For that neglect I will call you Lieutenant forevermore. . . And we'll forgive you if you will marry the girl at once and take her back to the farm with you." "But she may not want to live on a farm," suggested Mrs. Miller. "Why not?" asked the father." I hope she's not a stuck up city girl we can't get along with." ' ' There were no stuck up city girls in the war zones, ' ' replied the Lieutenant. "All the girls there were on the one level of service. But this particular girl happens to be an Iowa farmer's daughter. She left college to become a nurse. She wanted to do her bit in the war because she had no brother who could do it for her. . . When I first saw her, my, I was glad those bullets did not kill me, and when she smiled on me — well, I'd have hated to be dead ! ' ' "You have all the symptoms, my son," replied the father, "and may your wonderful girl make you as happy as Betty has made me — and may you have a son as worthy as yourself. ' ' It was a little later when they met the wonderful girl herself. She merely stopped in passing for she had work to do. But both Mr. and Mrs. Miller capitulated on sight. EAKED BY GERMAN AIRPLANES 5 "I knew you'd like her," boasted the Lieutenant. "But when she has work to do she won't do anything else." "There aren't many of that kind left," said Mr. Miller. "I quite approve of her," added Mrs. Miller. "And think of it, mother, if it hadn't been fbr what gave me this limp, I might never have met her. So you see PoUyanna was quite right. ' ' "Who's PoUyanna?" asked the father. "She's nothing but a sentimental little girl in a book which Mary read to me when I thought I was down and out. ' ' CHAPTER III Raked by German Airplanes While the three were thus conversing in the little reception room of the hospital, a, breezy fellow blew in. ' ' Hello, Clarey ! ' ' exclaimed Lieutenant Miller, his face fairly glowing with joy as he spoke. "Please, meet my father and mother from Iowa," and to his parents he explained, "This is my hospital 'pal,' Sergeant Watson. I call him 'Clarey,' but his real name is Clarence, and he 's a ' corker. ' " ' ' Cut out the compliments and leave ofE the trimmings, ' ' said Watson. "I don't wonder my friend was always talking about his mother," he said as he shook hands with Mrs. Miller. " So he did think of his mother, ' ' the mother said with a flush of pride on her still youthful face. "He was always talking about you," answered Watson. "And were you wounded at the same time?" asked Mr. MiUer. "It was about the same time — but my wound was merely a scratch, hardly deep enough to entitle me to a bed in the hospital. The first time I saw Mark was in the field hospital. But he didn't see me, for he was dazed and partly unconscious." "I felt something hit me and then for a time I quit seeing anything," explained the Lieutenant. "That was some day for us," added Watson. "We fought like mad while the Germans from their ariplanes raked us fore and aft with machine gun fire." 6 FKOM FOUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON "Why did they let them do thatf " asked Mr. Miller. "Let them? Why, who was there to stop them?" "Where were the American airplanes?" "The Americans had no airplanes," replied Watson. "At least I didn't see any on that day, did you, Mark?" "Not one," replied the Lieutenant. "If American airplanes had been there," added Watson, "your son might not have been wounded, and I might not have been scratched and hundreds of American boys who now lie buried in France would be alive still. It was beastly business to fight the enemy over you as well as in front of you, but we did it right along and that is why the American losses in those battles were so great.' "But where were the American airplanes?" "They were in America — still unmade," said Watson. "But we saw them," said Mr. Miller. "Say, Dad, where did you see them?" asked the son. "Tour father means we saw them in the moving pictures," ex- plained Mrs. Miller, "we saw them at Storm Lake, Iowa." "We saw what looked like thousands of them," said Mr. Miller, ' ' and we saw Secretary of War Baker reviewing them, or at least looking them over." "And it made us proud to see them," said Mrs. Miller. "We are glad you saw them in Storm Lake, Iowa, but we didn't see them in France," said Watson. ' ' They must have been on some part of the front. ' ' "On no part of our front," seiid Watson. "As a newspaper reporter, Mr. Miller, I have been attending many of the hearings before the congressional committees which are investigating these matters. The other day I heard the testimony of Captain W. 0. McKay, of Seattle, who was liason officer of the Third Bat- talion of the 164th Infantry. It was his business to keep the battalion connected up with the airplanes, if there were any to connect up with. I jotted down his answers and the questions which the congressmen asked him. Let me read the dialogue to you as it stands printed in the records — Mr. Frear and Mr. Magee being members of the committee : ' ' ' Captain McKay : During the Argonne Battle . . . the Ger- man airplanes would come and shoot us up . . . Rake us on one side and then on the other with their machine guns. EAKED BY GERMAN AIEPLANBS 7 " 'Mr. Prear : How low would they fly ... ? ' ' ' Captain McKay : They would fly down as low as this roof. " 'Mr. Magee: You did not have a fighting plane to protect you? " 'Captain McKay: No; I never saw an American plane go after the' Germans. ' ' ' "Were they afraid of them?" asked Mr. Miller. "Afraid of nothing," said Watson. "No American on the fighting front was afraid of anything German. They did not go after them because there were no American planes there to go after them. Captain McKay at that same time testified that one company of his battalion lost over half of its 134 men in one fight, all by machine gun fire from German airplanes. And that is how your son was wounded. ' ' "Yes, Dad,- that's how it happened." ' ' Then they deceived us in those movies, ' ' sighed Mrs. Miller. "Well, at least it was kind of them to deceive you, mother, for if you had known that we were fighting without such protection it would only have worried you more. ' ' "The airplanes that they told you they had at the front," con- tinued Watson, "were not there. Some one told what was not true. General Pershing, who is a good witness, gave this testi- mony the other day. Let me read you the congressional dialogue, as I have it here : " 'Mr. James: How many fighting planes were there in France at the signing of the Armistice ? ' ' ' General Pershing : None ; we had the De Haviland 4s. " 'Mr. James: I mean combat planes. " 'General Pershing: No combat planes. " 'Mr. Kearns: Do you know the reason? " 'General Pershing: I know very little of the construction program in America or the reason why we had no further planes. The only reason I can give is there were no planes to ship. ' ' ' ' ' That is startling news to us, ' ' said Mr. Miller. "It was a startling fact for us," said the son. "It would have broken every mother's heart if we had known it," said Mrs. Miller. ' ' That is why they put them in those pictures, probably, ' ' sug- gested Watson. "Kindly enough they did not want to break the heart of America by letting the truth be known." "I want to know," mused Mr. Miller. 8 FROM FOUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON CHAPTER IV If You Want to Know "If you want to know, Mr. Miller," said Watson, while Mr. Miller still sat in a brown study over what he had heard, " I am in position to tell you, for I have either' heard or read the testi- mony in these matters. "Yes, I want to know," said Mr. Miller, "what became of those twenty or twenty-five thousand airplanes which they talked so much about while ptir boys were enlisting, and for which con- gress gave the money." "Yes, congress appropriated $640,000,000 without batting an eye or asking a question," said Watson. "And afterwards con- gress appropriated a still larger sum, making $1,692,336,424 in all for the aviation program. And $1,051,511,988 of this was actually spent." "And how many planes did they make for that?" "Well, they made a great many thousands," said Watson. "But most of them were experimental machines and thousands of them were abandoned as unsafe. That is another story. I will tell that later. What we are interested in just now are the planes at the front." "And how many were they?" "No fighting or combat planes at all," said Watson. "I have already told you what General Pershing said. The De Haviland 4s were observation planes, and not very safe ones for that, as we shall see later, when the Germans were doing a little observ- ing on their own behalf. Colonel M. M. Patrick, who was then a major general and chief of the Air Service of the American Ex- peditionary Forces, told the congressional committee the other day that at the signing of the Armistice, there were 740 airplanes all told on the American front. Of these 213 were De Haviland 4s and the other 527 were machines which had been bought, borrowed or almost stolen from France and England. Many of these were second hand and even obsolete machines for naturally those nations could not give up their best machines. ' ' "Only 740," mused Mr. Miller, "213 of American make and 527 bought, borrowed or stolen from our Allies — and how many ought there to have been to protect our front ? ' ' "The French counted about 3,371 for every million men en- gaged, and they said that was not enough. Of course, you IF YOU WANT TO KNOW 9 understand, the more the better. Colonel Patrick when asked the same question that you have asked me, replied that 2,720 airplanes were the least number to be considered for every mil- lion men engaged. We had at that time about a million and a quarter men on the active front and we should therefore have had at least 3,500 machines in action — and as many more as we could get." "And we had 740, three-fourths of them foreign ones?" "We had that many left on Armistice day," replied Watson. "But very few of them were combat planes and those few were foreign machines. The De Havilands were only observation planes and not very good ones at that. ' ' ' ' Not very good ones at that 1 ' ' asked Mr. Miller. "Not very fast, nor very safe," said Watson. "I am not an aviator, but the testimony shows that they used u^ half of the gasoline they could carry to climb up 14,000 feet, below which they were apt to be shot down by land guns. Fiorello H. Guardia, who resigned from congress and became a famous air- man, testified the other day that 'We would have been just as well off without those De Havilands at the front as with them. ' He said the English • — • it was an English machine — were doing away with them when we took them up. La Guardia also testified that with American made airplanes 'practically nothing' was done. ' ' He ought to have known, ' ' thought Mr. Miller. "His testimony is worth considering, at least," said Watson. "But a greater airman than he, Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, America's Premier Ace, a fighter who won twenty-six air vic- tories, utterly condemned the American made De Haviland 4s. He himself used a Spad, which is a French made machine. In the book which he wrote, he speaks of the 'De Haviland Liber- ties' as machines that 'with their criminally constructed fuel tanks, offered so easy a target to the incendiary bullets of the enemy that their unfortunate pilots called this boasted achieve- ment of our Aviation Department their "flaming cofSns." ' He says that at one time at Grand Pre, France, he saw 'three of these crude machines go down in flames, an American pilot and American gunner in each "flaming coffin," dying this frightful . and needless death. ' "Captain Rickenbacker says that when the American cam- 10 FROM FOUR CORNERS ,T0 WASHINGTON paign opened at Chateau-Thierry, they 'found they were over- whelmingly outnumbered, poorly supported and lamentably equipped' in the air to go against the best German air fighters, and he says that 'many a gallant life was lost to American avia- tion during those early months of 1918, the responsibility fo/ which must lie heavily on some guilty conscience. ' ' ' ' ' Then we were lucky to have only 213 of them, ' ' thought Mr Miller. ' ' The hopelessness of the American machines, ' ' added "Watson, "is illustrated by an incident in August, 1918, at Claremont, France. It was told by Captain Sweeney, an American engineer. Eighteen American aviators were ordered into the air, six of them in De Havilands and the others in second hand foreign machines. They knew what it meant. They shook hands all around and«aid, 'Well, this is not au revoir, this is good-bye,' because they did not expect to come back. But they went to duty bravely, knowing that it was also certain death in their inferior machines. And none of them came back. Captain Sweeney said he had never heard of them again. They were either killed or had fallen within the German lines. But they had done their duty — even when they were sent out in unfit ; machines. They did their duty — all American fighting men did that!" CHAPTER V Watson Gives a Luncheon A few days later Sergeant Watson gave a luncheon for the Millers. Mary Miller also was present. As soon as the table had .been cleared, Watson spread out on it a mass of papers, books and documents. "Going to read all of them?" asked the Lieutenant. " I am not going to read any of them, ' ' replied Watson. ' ' But I want every statement I make to be based on the facts — and these are my authorities. All these papers relate to aviation. We may take the wastages and failures in that department of WATSON GIVES A LUNCHEON 11 the war service as somewhat typical. I will therefore follow it through somewhat in detail." "I'm glad of that," said Mr. Miller, "for my mind has been thrown into great confusion over it." "Up to the time we entered the war," said Watson, "we had taken no steps to provide for any aviation program, but the government did send a few men to Europe as observers. Nor did anyone take much interest in aviation after the declaration of war was niade until May 24, when the French premier, Eibot, sent a cable^am outlining an air program for the United States, in cooperation with the Allies. He asked if America would un- dertake to build 16,500 airplanes, within a year, 4,500 during 1917, and 2,000 a month for the first six months of 1918, which would give the allied nations supremacy in the air. That would mean winning the war. America accepted that program and then some. In our enthusiasm we promised 22,625 planes in- stead of the paltry 16,500 asked for." "Some program," suggested Mr. Miller. "Yes," said Watson, "but a feasible one. Gen. B. D. Foulois, of the Aviation Corps, was directed to draw up plans and esti- mates for this program. He prepared an elaborate report, taking into account, he says, 'every conceivable item' of cost, for the 22,625 airplanes and 45,250 engines, two for each plane being re- quired. The cost of the planes he figured at $125,290,000 and of the engines, $365,140,000, and adding the items of men, food, clothing, transportation, auxiliary balloons and everything else he made a total of $639,241,452 as the cost of the program. For weeks his plans and estimates, says Gen. Foulois, were tied up in the red tape of the War Department, which didn 't know what it wanted to do. But as soon as it was laid before congress, $640,000,000 were immediately appropriated, the most stupend- ous sum ever voted for such purposes. ' ' "Congress did its duty," said Mr. Miller. "Congress did its duty," repeated Watson, "but the men who tried to carry out the program wrecked it, and those who spent the money wasted it. They summoned a horde of theorists and the profiteers followed in their wake. France and England and Italy sent samples of their fighting machines over here and ex- perts to act as advisers. Having no plans of our own, the sensible thing would have been to copy those machines that were in 12 FROM FOUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON practical use by our Allies. Where we did follow f oreignJ models our experts made changes in them that led to confusion ami that in the end made the machines impractical ones, as was tRie case with the De Haviland 4, which I have already told you aBaout. Those are the machines in which they put our new Libe:«'tT motor. ' ' ' ' Tell us about that motor, ' ' suggested Mr. Miller. ' ' A perfectly good motor, I guess, ' ' said Watson, ' ' and if thSe war had -gone on it might have become a serviceable one. But* they staked everything on that motor and delayed and wreckedi the whole program. Before the motor was perfected they placed . it in planes for which it was not fitted. They spent weeks and months on an experimental motor when they ought to have been making motors that had been proved in the foreign machines. If they had done that they could have provided the machines that were promised our Allies and that were needed to protect our own fighting men. ' ' "What is your authority for making that statement?" asked Mr. Miller. "It is to some extent an opinion merely," admitted Watson, "but it is an opinion that has been held by many eminent men. Of course no one can tell exactly what would have happened if some other course had been pursued. But Gen. Foulois when on the witness stand before the congressional committee the other day insisted that his .estimates had been sufScient to supply the 22,625 machines. When asked if he believed the program i could have been carried out, he said, ' I have no doubt of it, ' and - then he added that, 'There was something wrong somewhere.' That something wrong I will try to tell you about. ' ' CHAPTER VI "What's the Usef" "Where do you get all these facts and quotations?" asked Mr. Miller. "From ofScial testimony," replied Watson. "What is called a Select Committee on Expenditures in the War Department is WHAT'S THE USB 13 now carrying on extensive investigations. A sub-committee has charge of aviation. James W. Frear of Wisconsin is chairman of this sub-committee and Walter Magee of New York and Clarence F. Lea of California are his associates. The Select Committee was created by a unanimous vote of the House of Representatives, so general was the desire to bring out the facts. Before this committee, a senate committee, known as the Thomas committee, covered much of the ground and still earlier Justice Charles E. Hughes investigated for the president himself the abuses in the air service. The testimony before these committees has all been printed or is being printed. ' ' "And you have heard the testimony?" ' ' Some of it, or much of it before the Select Committee, ' ' re- plied Watson. "I am attending the hearings as a newspaper reporter. What I have heard is enough to chill the blood of an ex-service man. We boys at the front fondly believed that those at home were doing their duty as we were in France. Imagine our surprise when we learn how badly things were done at home by the War Department. It is a shock to learn that over a billion dollars were spent on airplanes and still we did not have a fighting machine made in America on the front. And then to learn how they spent it ! " ' ' I can understand, ' ' said Mr. Miller. "Yes, because you had a son who might not have been wounded if they had done their duty at home as he did at the front," Watson went on. "But what hurts even more than the facts is that so many men are so indifferent to it even now when the facts are revealed. They say flippantly that such things are to be expected in war times, and they say what's the use of digging up the past, and one of them said sneeringly the other day, 'Well, we won the war anyway, so what's the use?' " ' ' Who won it ? " asked the Lieutenant. ' ' The men who wasted millions in making worthless airplanes ? Or was it the men who fought in France without airplane protection?" "These men who wasted millions and billions at home are trying to shield themselves behind what we did," said Watson indignantly. ' ' But for one I don 't propose to let them do it, for they cost the lives of thousands of our comrades. ' ' "They should not be shielded," said Mj. Miller. "The facts ought all to be published. Those who have ill-gotten gains 14 FROM FOUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON should be deprived of them. I'm glad congress is after them." "But, there is an election ahead," said Watson, "and they are saying we are trying' to make political use of the matters, and that that is unworthy." "But if they have done so badly why should not political use be made of it ? " asked Mr. Miller. ' ' The boys who were at the front are not afraid of such use being made of what they did. Why should men who did the war work at home be afraid of it ? They will be as'king the voters to keep them in power for four years more. When a man who has worked one of my farms comes and asks for another lease to the farm I open the books to see how well he has done and I go and look at the land to see how well he has cared for that. That's ordinary horsesense and the nation that does not apply that sort of sense to those who have been in power is a mighty unwise nation. ' ' "You're right on that. Dad," said the Lieutenant. "Of course I'm right," said the father. "Let's open the books and examine the accounts. We gave them billions of money to spend, let's see how well they spent it. If public servants aren't to be held responsible for their acts, there won't be any government left. " I 'm glad you take that view of it, Mr. Miller, ' ' said Watson, "and I hope all men will take the same view. If men are not to be judged by what they have done then we shall cease to have either a responsive or responsible government." "That's right, too," said Mr. Miller. "So out with the facts. The people when they know them will not ask 'What's the use of digging up the past,' but they will say they have no further use for those who have misused their power and abused their trust." CHAPTER VII One Deed and Many Misdeeds "General George 0. Squier, then chief .signal officer, was at first in charge of aviation," resumed Watson after resting. "But there being no headway made, they picked up in Dayton, ONE DEED AND MANY MISDEEDS 15 Ohio, a man by the name of Edward A. Deeds, and made him the head of the Equipment Division of Aviation. This Deeds must be known. He was primarily a promoter. At one time he was indicted and convicted in the Federal courts, under the Sherman anti-trust law« but on appeal the case was reversed and no other trial was had. He was not an army man, nor did he know anything about aviation. At our entrance in the war he and some associates in Dayton had organized a company 'with the expectation of obtaining government contracts,' according to the Hughes report. In May he had boasted, or at least vowed, that 'he was going to seek a place on the Aircraft Board !' In August he made his vow good by becoming head of the whole works. ' ' "For a dollar a year?" asked Mr. Miller. "I think not," replied "Watson. "They made him a colonel and he probably drew army pay for that. To meet the clamor for airplanes, Deeds began to let contracts. He let hundreds of them and the $640,000,000 began to fly. But he did not over- look his own former associates in Dayton. To the Dayton-Wright Airplane company, which he had helped to organize at our entrance into the war, he let a contract for 4,000 'battleplanes' at $12,000 each, or $48,000,000 for the lot. The head of that company, H. E. Talbott, Sr., confessed to a friend that 'I do not know a damn thing about it' [building battleplanes]." "Do you mean he let contracts to himself, that is to his own company?" asked Mr. Miller. "No, that would have been in violation of the law," replied "Watson. "Colonel Deeds made a statement, August 28, to the effect that he had disposed of all his stock in the companies benefitted by these contracts. "When Hughes made his report he said that this statement 'was not true.' He had sold his stock in what was the Dayton Metals Products company, which con- trolled the Dayton-"Wright Airplane Company. This sale was made to his three associates who gave their notes bearing 4% per cent interest and unsecured, and the notes were held in trust by a mutual friend and confidential agent. On October 17, he dissociated himself further by transferring to his wife 17,500 shares in the United Motors company which was interested in the ignition system that was. used on the Liberty motors. ' ' 16 FROM FOUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON ' ' That looks like complying with the law, to say the least about it, "said Mr. Miller. "But Justice Hughes in his report said that he continued in 'highly improper' communications with his former associates in these corporations and that he sent to them even 'confidential telegrams, ' of such a nature that Mr. Hughes said they demanded 'the attention of the military authorities.' " ' ' Did he want him courtmartialed ? ' ' ' ' Yes, but it was not done as I will relate later. ' ' " Courtmartials, Dad," spoke up the Lieutenant, "are for boys who fall asleep on duty, not for officers who are wide awake to the interests of their friends. ' ' "On September 7," continued Watson, "the Dayton- Wright company was given a contract for $30,000,000, but the cost plus was so arranged that they had a fixed profit of at least $3,750,000 and a possible additional profit of $2,600,000. At that time the company had no paid-in capital and the government kindly extended to it a war credit of $2,500,000, of which $1,500,000 was made immediately available." "We furnished the capital," said Mr. Miller. "But they were not satisfied with their prospective profits to be n^ade on capital furnished by the government, at least in part, but Colonel Deeds 's former associates, H. E. Talbott, Sr., H. B. Talbott, Jr., and C. F. Kettering,- voted themselves enorm- ous salaries in the allied and interlocking companies, which to- taled $95,000 a year for the elder Talbott, $48,000 for the youn- ger, and $110,000 for Mr. Kettering. And these salaries were figured as part of the costs upon -^hich they figured their per cent of profit." ' ' Can you beat it ! " exclaimed Mr. Miller. "Not on $80 per. And mind you, it was this $95,000 a year Talbott who had confessed that he did not know a 'damn thing about it,' making airplanes." "But how old was the Kid Talbott?" asked the Lieutenant. "According to the Hughes report he was 30 — just ripe to be picked in the draft, if the spirit of the volunteer did not enter him." "He was one of the wise ones who stayed at home and made money while we got glory," suggested the Lieutenant. ' ' Did the Dayton crowd get all the contracts 1 ' ' MILLIONS FOE TRIBUTE 17 "Oh, no, Mr. Miller. I have shown you how they got theirs because they illustrate the way in which much contracting was done. There were hundreds of other contracts let, without sys- tem, duplicated and criss-crossed and contradictory. They made and cancelled contracts, changed plans and specifications, kept thousands idle waiting for new plans, and specifications — they did everything except get results." "And no one complained?" "Everyone complained, Mr. Miller. The Devil was to pay. The most serious charges were made. Our Allies and General Pershing called for machines, but there were none to ship, to quote General Pershing's phrase. Popular clamor forced Presi- dent Wilson to step in and he asked Justice Hughes, who had been his rival for president in 1916, to make an investigation of the whole matter, cooperating with the attorney general of the United States. In January, 1918, the men were shifted around. Deeds appeared to be side-tracked and William C. Potter ele- vated to the head of aviation equipment. Potter belonged tO' the 'Guggenheim interests' in copper. He didn't know a 'damn' thing about it either, and so in May he was superseded by John D. Ryan, another copper baron, while Potter remained as his assistant. As a matter of fact, the whole proceeding was very much of a camouflage for the discarded Colonel Deeds remained in virtual control. But all the time no airplanes were shipped to France and the year in which we had promised France to make 16,500 planes and had "promised ourselves 22,625 was draw- ing to a dose." "And why was the failure?" asked Mr. Miller. ' ' That is another chapter, ' ' said Watson, laconically. CHAPTER VIII Millions for Tribute — Nothing for Defense "Why did we fail to make effective machines?" resumed Wat- son, after another resting spell. "The reports show they made literally thousands of machines, but most of them were failures. It is evident thejr did not know what they were doing. They 18 PROM FOUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON would not copy the foreign models, although these had proved successful. They tried to improve them and spoiled them in- stead. That happened with two good British models, the Bristol and the De Haviland. The testimony shows they made 769 changes in the former and actually 3,600 in the De Haviland model. Oh, it was some mix-up ! ' ' ' ' Thirty-six hundred changes ! ' ' exclaimed Mr. Miller. "Yes, sir, and they weren't through then. No one directed. Ryan himself went first to Portland, Oregon, on some business and then he went to Europe with Secretary of War Baker, being made an assistant secretary of war to give him standing offici- ally. Even Henry Ford kicked and said that a director ought to direct something instead of traveling everywhere." "I recall it now," spoke up Mrs. Miller, "I think it was Mr. Baker and Mr. Ryan we saw reviewing whole fields of airplanes in France on the movie screens." "Probably," said Watson. "But the machines they reviewed were training planes and planes we bought, begged, or borrowed from our Allies. Or they may have been some of those De Havi- lands that Eddie Rickenbacker would not risk his life in. ' ' "Did they discard any?" asked Mr. Miller. "Yes, let me not forget that item," said Watson. "After they had made 1,600 machines called Standard J-1, and had thousands more under way or under contract, some one found out that they were unsafe and unusable. So they put the 1,600 machines which had cost millions of dollars and on which months of time had been wasted in what they called 'storage.' In the Hughes report the consequent wastage is placed at $17,500,000, minus some salvage value in them. The same fate befell the Bristols. They were stored. Of the De Havilands, I think, about 4,000 were actually made. But although these also were pronounced unsafe, they kept on making them. Ryan insisted it was a good machine and under his direction actually 1,097 were made in the month of October, 1918, ending eleven days before the Armistice, at a cost of nearly $15,000,000. And they kept rushing them to France where the boys knew them as 'flaming coffins'." "And what did they do with them there?" "They burned most of them," said Watson. "One of the in- vestigating committees reported that the military authorities in France said 'good judgment was displayed when over 1,000 of MILLIONS FOE TRIBUTE 19 these planes were scrapped and burned.' That was after the Armistice. At the same time hundreds of the second-hand for- eign machines which we had purchased from the Allies were considered good enough to be brought back to America. ' ' "I talked with one of the boys who scrapped those De Havi- land engines, ' ' said the Lieutenant. ' ' He told me they used ham- ' mers and sledges to break up what looked like good and expensive engines and it made him mad to see so much costly property destroyed. ' ' "And so we spent our $640,000,000," said Mr. Miller. "And $411,000,000 more," added Watson, "for before we were through with the program we had spent $1,051,000,000. ' ' ' ' Why didn 't they let practical men spend the money, ' ' asked Mr. Miller, "they surely could have done better, for the Ameri- cans invented airplanes in the first place ? ' ' ' ' Of course they could. The other day when Mr. Magee, who is doing the investigating, asked Vice-president Keyes of the Curtiss company, if their engineers could have designed and constructed efficient machines for service on the front, Mr. Keyes replied deliberately: 'There is no doubt in the world of that. We could have designed pursuit planes, bombing planes, observation planes — any type desired. ' And when he was asked further he said : ' We were not permitted to do it .... It was a very ghastly mistake. ' In reply to a question of Congressman Frear, another investigator, Mr. Keyes said that they had plenty of men to do the work. They had 18,700 employes on the gov- ernment's payroll under their cost-plus contract, and these were idle much of the time for no one knew what to set them to do. They had a capacity of 100 planes a day. General Pershing in his final report to the Secretary of War said, 'In aviation we were entirely dependent on our Allies ... It was with great difficulty that we obtained equipment even for training'." "And no one was punished?" sighed Mrs. Miller. "None except the boys who like your own fought for their country without airplane protection over them." "But what about Colonel Deeds, was he ever courtmartialed ? " asked Mr. Miller. "The Hughes recommendation that he should receive the attention of the military authorities, was concurred in by Attor- ney General Gregory," said Watson. "It was then up to Secre- 20 FROM FOUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON tary Baker. He ordered a supplemental investigation by one of his subordinates. The new witnesses included Deeds 's own at- torney and some of his former business associates, and after that the recommendation of the man who had been a justice of the supreme court of the United States and of the attorney general of the United States was not acted on. And so Deeds was tendered a banquet in Washington, and one who appeared to praise him was Gen. Squier. ' ' "And did they charge the banquet up to their Uncle Sam on the cost-plus basis?" asked the astounded Mr. Miller. ' ' It was probably figured in some way, ' ' replied Watson. "And no one was even reprimanded?" asked Mrs. Miller. "If there is any reprimanding, it will have to be at the next polls," suggested the Lieutenant. "For the first time I'm going to be a presidential voter." "And so will your mother be a first voter," said Mrs. Miller, "although I was of age before you were born. . . . But I will know what to do with my first vote. ... We will go to the polls arm-in-arm. . . . And I will not forget your limp!" "And I will hang on your other arm," said Mary, "and I won't forget, either." ' ' Even women are talking sense now, ' ' chuckled Mr. Miller. CHAPTER IX How They "Spruced Up" "Before we adjourn this meeting," said Watson looking at his watch, "I want to allude at least to the story of spruce. "From first to last lumber for airplanes was a serious problem, although it takes only 169 feet for a Curtiss training plane, and correspondingly more of course for larger machines. But mil- lions of feet had to be cut to find the selected pieces required for such construction. At the time we entered the war spruce lum- ber for planes was worth about $200 a thousand feet at the fac- tories. They bought through brokers who made enormous profits by buying up the products of mills and reselling them. For a while the government had the services of a practical lumber man HOW THEY ' ' SPEUCED UP " 21 and a vigorous business man, Charles B. Sligh, of Grand Kapids, Michigan, whose policy was to buy direct from the mills, cutting out broker's and other profits. But that policy soon got him into trouble." "And weren't there I. W. W. trpubles?" asked Mr. Miller. ' ' Yes, in the state of Washington, where the governor sym- ' pathized with the I. W. W. There were no troubles in Oregon where the governor did not cater to them. The Washington dis- turbances were in a small area around Grays and Willipa Har- bors. Sligh asked for four companies of troops to maintain order there, but the evidence is that Secretary Baker refused to afford that protection. Instead, he telegraphed to the lumber men to yield to the demands of the disturbers. The lumber men refused to do that for it. would have meant making the I. W. W. the dictators in the camps." "Baker was a pacifist, was he not?" asked Mr. Miller. "They say he was," said Watson. "But with the brokers and the I. W. W. against him, Sligh was soon in trouble. He has testified that a man named Leadbetter, a major in the finance department, on three occasions pressed him to enter a deal to acquire a tract of spruce land out of which great profits were to be reaped by selling lumber or logs to the government. Sligh replied each time that was not profiteering. He was soon in- formed that they would 'get his scalp.' They got it. The brokers and the labor leaders combined and the government suc- cumbed. Leadbetter got Sligh 's office and a man named Disque, who was given the title of colonel, was made the head of what was called the Spruce Division of the Army." "A Spruce Division," mused Mr. Miller. "This Disque," continued Watson, "is described as a man Vvho had 'no more business' head than a child.' It seems he had been a captain in the regular army. He had a short career as warden of a Michigan penitentiary. When the war broke out he wrote to the governor of that state to help get what he called a 'safe' place in the army. The governor backed off from this request, but Disque got his 'safe place' as commander of the Spruce Division. He went to the Pacific northwest and opened headquarters in Portland. He had great plans and he soon asked for 'unlimited authority to carry on . . . and funds as request- ed.'- He wasn't modest, either. He surrounded himself with 22 FROM FOUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON three publicity men, one at a salary of $12,000 and the other two at $9,100 each, who wrote the most fulsome eulogies of the won- derful Colonel Disque and who kept the country and the world informed of his labors." "Did he get the authority and the funds?" "* ' ' He took them, ' ' said Watson. ' ' He let big contracts without authority or approval. Captain L. C. Preston of the finance division of the Bureau of Aircraft production complained of this specifically. Among the contracts Disque let were three that aggregated $39,000,000, for spruce logs and lumber and for the building of a railroad. Logging railroads that had cost from nine to fifteen thousand dollars a mile jumped up to $110,000 a mile under these contracts. A New York corporation got per- haps the fattest of the contracts, for building thirty-eight miles of railroad and for getting out $23,000,000 worth of spruce. Under this contract over eight millions was paid out, but no logs were actually delivered over the railroad which they built for the government on the cost plus plan." "And what did we do with the planes and materials we had left when the war was over?" "The government has of course retained some of it fori its own uses," replied Watson. "We have already noted that some of it was scrapped in France and many of the contracting com- panies bought back the materials they had left. The Curtiss company in a deal that has been much criticised bought back planes, engines and materials that had cost over twenty million dollars for $2,720,000, or for twelve cents on the dollar. It is charged that airplanes which the company bought back for a few hundred dollars apiece, it has been reselling to American aviators for several thousand dollars each. The government's contention was that it did not want to take the responsibility of selling machines that might be in any way defective. ' ' "I would call the whole thing pretty much of a scandal and failure," said Mr. Miller. ' ' The air part was so regarded by the boys who were over there doing the fighting, ' ' said the Lieutenant. ' ' The question. Where are the American airplanes ? became a by- word among them and the French and the British twitted them about it." "Yes, to them it was of course a bitter disappointment " said Watson. "Instead of America helping to gain the supremacy HOW THEY ' ' SPRUCED UP " 23 in the air, they had to deplete their own supplies to help protect the American forces. They regretted it that America did not make machines on their successful models instead of wasting time to work out models of its own. In the air America was to them a liability instead of an asset in the war. ' ' ' ' Were there other such contracts ? ' ' "Many of them of one kind and another. I think the evidence shows they built thirteen pieces of useless railroads. The evi- dence also shows that one man, named Storey, an admittedly re- liable man, offered to build all the railroads required for $15,000 a mile, but his offer was not even considered. ' ' ' ' He was a cheap skate, ' ' suggested Mr. Miller. "They didn't do any cheap work there," added Watson. "A man named Pendleton, an extensive lumber operator who had supplied the British government with spruce from British Co- lumbia, said he could have furnished spruce enough in one year for 50,000 airplanes if 'they had given him a free hand.' Another reputable man, Russell Hawkins, disgusted with the ways in which they were squandering American Liberty bond money, offered to log all the spruce they needed for one-tenth of one per cent commission and give all his profits to the Red Cross. He based his offer on the' statement that he did not want to make a cent of profit while millions of young men were fighting for thirty dollars a month. The evidence shows also that a Mr. Butler and a Mr. Chinn, to save the good name of the lumbering states, offered to assume all the contracts and do the work with- out profit — and they would back their offer with an association of reputable lumber men of the northwest. But the men in control wanted nothing of that kind done." "And the governinent paid more, of course?" "The prices of' lumber became scandalous," said Watson. "Spruce cost $754.50 per thousand, and fir, $271, and cedar over $800 a thousand feet. Before the Deeds-Disque regime set in the British had procured their lumber for about $110 per , thousand. ' ' "And did our American 'efficiency experts' produce at their high prices?" "As producers they failed entirely," replied Watson. "Of the total required the Disque machine produced only 7.4 per cent and the other 92.6 per cent was produced by the independent and 24 PROM FOUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON practical loggers whose operations were hampered and harassed instead .of aided." 5 ' ' Of course, they had investigations, ' ' suggested Mr. Miller. "The complaints poured into "Washington and Secretary- Baker was finally moved to send out two officers to make investi- gations and report to him. One of these, a Captain Gund, wired that he had 'unearthed evidence indicating enormous graft.' But that kind of stuff was not wanted. The record' is that Gund was called off, he 'left suddenly for San Francisco and did not return. ' Other investigators who made like reports were sent to other duties. "But what was Col. Bisque's army?" asked Mr. Miller. "I should have told you about that," admitted "Watson. "Colonel Disque wanted to command an army and he kept call- ing for men until on Armistice day he had 28,121 men under his command, of whom about 1,200 were officers. At his own head- quarters in Portland at one time 132 gallant officers were enum- erated and they lived in luxurious surroundings while other men where fighting in the Meuse-Argonne battles. There were men of the northwest detained in this army who clamored to be sent to .France, but for others the Spruce Division became a haven of refuge. Many slackers in eastern states, especially Ohio, Mr. Baker's own state, were assigned to that division." "And what became of this Colonel Disque?" ' ' He became brigadier-general, ' ' said "Watson. ' ' That was one of his aims and his friends saw that he was gratified. And Secretary Baker for his gallant services bestowed on him the Disting-uished Service Medal to boot, which only one enlisted man in the war achieved, and only 554 officers. ' ' "If a man like Disque could get such a medal there ought to have been about 4,000,000 others granted," suggested Mrs. Mil- ler, " and you, Mark, ought to be covered with them." "You are too partial to your son," said the Lieutenant. "I was merely crawling in trenches while Disque was sitting in Portland." ' ' And what is he now, this Disque ? ' ' asked Mr. Miller. "That's the real romance," said "Watson. "They made him president of the Amsinck company of New York, an importing and exporting corporation, at $30,000 a year, which he himself said was 'going some'." EUROPEAN EQUIPMENT 25 ' ' They sure do take care of their friends, ' ' said Mr. Miller. "Yes, those who serve their friends get more than those who serve their country," sighed Mrs. Miller. "But don't look pitying at me, mother," said the Lieutenant. "I have my own D. S. Medal — it's my limp. They can't take it away from me, and I got it on the square." CHAPTER X American Fighters — European Equipment " I 'm not going to let you go just yet, ' ' said "Watson. ' ' There is something more on my mind, and I want to tell it. Not be- cause I have a grouch, goodness knows, I haven't one, but be- cause the folks here in America ought to know the truth even if it hurts. And this is going to hurt. It will hurt our pride as Americans. But Americans must know it if we expect to avoid such in the future. By this time all were looking pretty solemn, knowing Watson had something very serious to impart, but while they were pre- pared for a shock, they were not prepared for the fearful shock that came as he proceeded. "You see," he said, "A government such as ours is kept clean and efficient when there is sound public opinion. That is possible only when the public has knowledge of the facts. During the war there could be no public opinion on the subject, because there was no knowledge of the facts. Censorship kept them hidden. Now they are just coming to light. It appears that while we raised four million of the finest soldier boys in all the world, we failed to produce war equipment for them, and they had to fight with foreign weapons. ' ' "That isn't possible," broke in Mr. Miller, "we spent billions and must have furnished them everything. Why, man, we are the greatest producing nation in the world. ' ' "We spent the billions, all right," continued Watson, "but we produced practically nothing in the United States for them to fight with, except their rifles. You have seen we gave them no airplanes; well, the failure everywhere was the same. 26 FROM POUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON "Now take artillery. I find we spent about three billion dol- lars for artillery and ammunition, but practically none ever got to the firing line. We planned to build 20,000 pieces of artillery, but we failed here more woefully than when we tried to build 20,000 fighting planes. There were thousands of the famous field guns, or 75 's, to be built. None ever got there. There were thousands of the so-called 'middle heavies,' so sorely needed by the Allies, and which we promised to supply. Both howitzers and guns — 6-inch, 8-inch, 9-inch — and some other 'middle heavies' we planned and spent money for like wild men, but we never got one over to fire at the Germans. Same with the big guns. Outside the naval guns not an American-made piece of artillery made for our army was ever fired at a German — there is just one exception. Forty-eight 4.7-inch and twenty-four 8- inch howitzers reached the line just before the Armistice, but it now appears certain these seventy-two guns, all that ever got to the firing line, were part of the material made, or ordered, for our army before the war. ' ' " 'Gee whizz' is what they'll say at the Four Corners, when they hear that," remarked Mr. Miller. "Same with ammunition, too," Watson continued after a pause. "We certainly burnt up hundreds of millions there and produced nothing that reached the line. Not an American-made shell of any size was ever fired at a German — the only possible exception is there may have been a handful, about enough to run a couple of batteries on a busy day, that reached the line at the very end. But I have asked scores of artillery officers, big and little, and not one of them ever heard of an American shell being fired. "Funny thing happened the other day," and Watson, who had become very grim with the foregoing recital, suddenly dropped into a laugh. "I asked a fighting general, one who com- manded at headquarters in the big Meuse-Argonne fight, if any American shells were used, and he replied he never heard of any. One of his officers spoke up, 'But General, you should give them credit for making a serious effort. On the night before the Armistice — we knew it was coming the next morning at eleven — some artillery officers suddenly thought that no Amer- ican shells had ever been fired at the Germans. It would never do to let the war end that way. They grabbed the telephone, EUEOPEAN EQUIPMENT 27 found some 75 shells, American-made, were way back half across France. One of them just had to be fired at the enemy, so they got hold of a light truck — it was a Ford — • loaded in one shell in the middle of the night, put their best driver at the wheel, and shouted, ' ' To the front line, man, for your life ! " He drove like mad all the night through — the old Ford hung together and kept on going. In the morning the guns could be heard, so there yet was time. On hurried the Ford. ' ' ' "Did it get there," we all eagerly inquired. "Yes, it got there, observed the officer, slowly and disconsolately, "but when it arrived at the battery it was 11 :15 and the war had been over a quarter of an hour. We should have known better than to entrust that sacred shell to a pacifist-made truck." "Blame it on Mr. Ford," said Mr. Miller. "I don't want to bore you with a harangue," observed Wat- son, "but there are some more things I must get out of my system. "One of the most needed munitions was gas. After years of experience, the French and British had settled on certain kinds of gas that were effective, and certain mechanism of shells to shoot it in. Of course, we didn't do the plain and sensible thing, that is, go ahead making that gas and those shells. We had to experiment and try to make something new. We finally got a gas plant going fine, one capable of making gas enough to smother the earth, but there were no shells. There were no shells because we had no 'boosters.' A booster is used to explode the shell to release the gas. We had no boosters, because we had, running true to form, refused to make them after reliable British and French patterns, as they were imploring us to do. Pershing cabled for gas. Our gas general in France cabled for gas; our Allies cabled to us to hurry over gas, but we had none. The war ended and we were still trying to make a booster. In short, we got no gas shells over, and only sent a small quantity of bulk gas over which was put in British and French shells. It was only a drop in the bucket. And so we squandered $116,000,000 in gas. "When our boys went into the hell-hole of the Meuse-Argonne, they were drenched in the awful German gas, and we had none to shoot back, as our hard-pressed Allies could not spare us any. "Then take hand grenades. A grenade was as necessary to 28 FROM FOUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON our boys over there as a rifle. The British and French had standard grenades and sent over samples for us to copy. But we declined. Our War Department determined to make some- thing better. So they used many months in experimenting, final- ly producing a grenade that required five separate acts to throw it, so it would go off. They contracted for 20,000,000. Some two million were made and sent to France, where they were promptly found to be deadly dangerous, not to Germans, but to ourselves. Pershing canned the whole outfit and ordered no more of those ' suicide bombs ' sent over. That ended our grenade business. "As with grenades, so with liquid fire. We were wonders at experimenting, but produced no liquid fire for battle." "And don't forget to tell about the tanks, Watson," suggested the Lieutenant. ' ' Oh, the tank business was enough to make an American sick, even if he endured the rest. We made a bargain with England, by which 1,200 tanks were to be built jointly, England furnish- ing part and we part. They were to be ready in the summer of 1918. Well, those Britishers we have always thought so slow came through with their end all right, but we failed completely. The war ended with no tanks, made in whole, or in part, by America, ever shooting up the foe. ' ' . "We might go on with the sickening recital," said Watson; "go on to tell about our failure to make trench guns, trench ammunition and the like — yes, even clothing for our soldiers, but what is the use — here is enough and my mind is relieved. ' ' It was a very serious group Watson now found himself talk- ing to. There was a long silence. Then Mr. Miller slowly ob- served: "If we spent all that money at home and produced nothing for the fight, and had to buy the equipment in Europe, then didn't we pay double for everything?" "There, now you have hit the nail squarely on the head," cried out Watson, his face burning. "And you hit her a good swat, too. That's one of the big reasons why our costs were so terrific. That's the one big thing they would prefer to cover up. We paid double in cost, and I fear," as he looked at Mrs. Miller, "we paid double in blood." MAEY REENTERS THE STORY 29 CHAPTER XI Mary Reenters the Story On the following day Sergeant Watson and Mary Mills com- bined their efforts to make a day of rare pleasures for the vis- itors from Iowa. In a car borrowed from a friend, the sergeant took them on a sight-seeing tour of Washington and following that Mary entertained them all at a luncheon in her apartments. It was a beautiful autumn day when the sunshine of the na- tional capital was brightest and the air crispest. Mr. Miller rode with the sergeant in the front seat, while Mrs. Miller, Mary and the Lieutenant were in the back. For Mary it was the first day off duty since the Millers had come to the city. She was at her best and happiest and the Lieutenant was overjoyed to see how his father and mother again succumbed to her influence. Of course Washington was a revelation to the visitors, its wide streets, its massive buildings and the beauty of all its sur- roundings. The Lieutenant and Watson lectured by turns on the sights, and now and then Mary explained something that they had overlooked. "What does the inscription say?" asked Mr. Miller when they stopped for a moment at the corner of Fifteenth Street and H. "It's the War Risk Insurance building that was erected dur- ing the hostilities in Europe," said Watson. The inscription says that it was built under the direction of William G. McAdoo, Secretary of the Treasury. There is a real story about how it was built," and he drove his car around the building, so every- body had a good look at it. "That was once the site of a hotel, the old Arlington. Some New York financiers, headed by J. Pierpont Morgan, tore down the old building and planned a great new hotel. They got as far as excavating a big hole, when Morgan died. The whole thing blew up and the project was abandoned. That hole in the ground remained there several years. An insurance company held a mortgage on the site, to cover $840,000 it had advanced to carry on the work. It foreclosed the mortgage and as no one else would take the property, bid it in themselves. Then they looked for a chance to get rid of the load. Some gentlemen in Richmond, Va., the home of John Skelton Williams, Comptroller 30 FROM FOUE CORNBES TO WASHINGTON of the Currency, and McAdoo's right-hand man, formed a com- pany. These gentlemen bought the property at the mortgage foreclosure price, and worked up a scheme to get rid of it and make a killing. They did it all right. McAdoo and Williams said the Treasury Department needed a new huilding. They proposed a most astounding thing. Nothing less than that these Richmond gentlemen should erect a building over their hole, and then the United States would buy it for $4,200,000. They came to Congress with the project. The Republicans had learned the inside facts, and waited for the Democratic majority to bring up the matter. The Demo- crats got a special rule for it, but didn't dare bring it up. It never came up. The Eepublicans chuckled, thinking of course the matter disposed of. But it wasn't. A thing without prece- dent in American history happened. President Wilson very obligingly took out of the hundred million dollars Congress had voted him to protect the nation when it entered the war, took out of this national defense fund the $4,200,000 needed, and the building was built." "Why, that's almost as much as the wonderful Congressional Library cost, ' ' exclaimed Miss Mills. Mr. Miller sat up very stiff and looked the building over cri- tically. Turning to Watson, he demanded "Do you think it cost that much to build it?" Watson grinned. "Take one look at it and answer that question yourself," he said, as he opened the throttle and sped on. "Maybe that's why they put on it that McAdoo built it," sug- gested Mrs. Miller, half to herself. "Well, I think such vanity ought to be chiseled out," sug- gested Mr. Miller. "I would chisel it out," added Mrs. Miller, "and put in its place, 'Erected by the People of the United States.' " But it was the uncompleted Lincoln Memorial building in the distance that most impressed Mr. Miller. "Your grandfather," he said to his son, "talked with Mr. Lincoln on the day he spoke at Decatur, when Dennis Hanks exhibited the famous rails little did that grandfather or Mr. Lincoln himself dream then that his memory would call for the erection of such a monument in the nation's capital." "Lincoln remains the miracle of America," said Mary. MAEY EEbNTERS THE STORY 31 "If I did not already like you for yourself, Miss Mills, I would like you for saying that, ' ' said Mr. Miller. "But omit the 'Miss,' Dad," expostulated the Lieutenant, "she is Mary, and it is the most beautiful name in the whole world. ' ' "My friend, the Lieutenant, doesn't mean the name, but he means the girl, you understand, ' ' said "Watson. "Please, spare my blushes, Mr. Sergeant Watson," begged Mary. "And, please, omit the 'Mr.' and the 'Sergeant' and call me just "Watson, as they all do." ""When they don't know 'Clarey'," added the Lieutenant. "When they had finished their grand tour they stopped at Mary's apartments. "We live here very simply, a friend who is a nurse, and I," she explained as they entered. "We only have two rooms and a kitchenette. But it's a luxury to rest here." ' ' Such rooms would be a luxury anywhere, ' ' said Mrs. Miller. ' ' How comfortable everything looks. ' ' "And such taste everywhere," said Watson. "I think my friend supplies most of what you call the taste," said Mary, ' ' but I at least help to keep it clean. ' ' "I congratulate you, my boy," said Mr. Miller, as Mary of- fered him the laziest seat in the room. "Thank you. Dad," the son replied, "your judgment is al- most as good as my own. ' ' And then the luncheon, so bounteous, so beautifully served, and all by Mary herself, the sauce for the cold meats and the dressing for the salad, and such coffee ! "Everything is extraordinary, Mary," exclaimed Watson. "And you are an extraordinary flatterer," said she. "No, it is the cook who flatters the food — I wonder how you can make everything taste so good," said Mrs. Miller. "I wish I could doit." "You-'ve done well enough, Betty, for twenty-five years," re- marked Mr. Miller, "but your son will never have to talk about the things his mother used to make." "I think it's finer for a girl to know how to make a sauce or a salad than to write a poem or paint a picture," suggested Watson. "Nonsense, Watson, without the title," said Mary. "I'd like 32 FROM FOUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON to write poems and paint pictures — and I always feel like doing such things — but since I cannot excel in them, I do other and perhaps more useful things, and I am glad to say I find joy in doing them. ' ' "Even nursing us poor devils who- got shot up," said the Lieutenant. "You were not 'poor devils' to us nurses," replied Mary, "but we looked on you as heroes who honored us by permitting us to serve them as best we could." "I seem to like everything you do and everything you say, Mary," said Mr. Miller in admiration, ^and I wish you would marry Mark tomorrow and go back home with us. ' ' "No, Mr. Miller, thank you for the wish," she replied, "but my work here is unfinished and I shall never marry a man any- where except in my own home — I want to be at least that kind and considerate of my parents when I take leave of them. I owe them that pleasure for all that they have done for me during more than twenty years. ' ' "And for saying that I like you better than I did before," said Mr. Miller. CHAPTER XII A Tale of Branding Irons The Millers saw nothing of Sergeant Watson for many days, and his absence distressed them. ' ' Mr. Miller has been afraid we^had lost you, ' ' said Mrs. Miller when at last he reappeared at their door. "You can't lose me, Mr. Miller," Watson said as he Shook, hands in his overwhelming way. "Important assignments de- tained me, but I am in the clear again and ready to serve on the firing squad with the backs of the thieves and wasters to the wall." "My, you're a breezy fellow, and I am glad to see you again," . replied Mr. Miller to his greeting. "1 have something to tell you that you can carry back to the Four Corners in Iowa to make them all laugh — it is something I A TALE OF BRANDING IRONS 33 dug out of the records for I knew it would appeal to you as a farmer. "But where are the Four Corners?" asked Mrs. Miller. "There, you're missing the joke," replied Watson. "The Four Corners are any old place where two roads cross — doesn't that make four corners 1 And anything that is told at the four corners will be carried north and south and east and west, will it not?" "But what is it all about?" asked Mr. Miller. "About branding irons," said Watson. "Did you ever see a branding iron, Mr. Miller?" ' ' I have seen them used, but I never liked them. ' ' "Well, just before the war was over, some one in the War Department got the idea into his head — it was probably put there by some man who had some junk to sell to the government — that all horses and mules in the government service ought to be branded, not on the hips but on the hoofs. ' ' "On the hoofs!" exclaimed Mr. Miller, laughing, "why, the marks would grow out as fast as they burned them in. ' ' "That's where one of the laughs comes in," said Watson. "But how many branding irons do you suppose the wise men ordered?" "How many?" repeated Mr. Miller, "one iron will brand a thousand animals, I suppose — ^how many horses were there?" "With what we had and bought during the war, 580,182, of which 96,261 inadvertently died, leaving 483,182 in existence — and to brand them on the hoofs some brilliant and practical man ordered 195,000 branding irons ! " "An iron for every two and a half horses? No one could be such a fool as that, ' ' said Mr. Miller. "It is unbelievable," admitted Watson, "so unbelieveable that the evidence was. disputed, but the testimony was given by an expert who found and produced the orders. ' ' "Well, all things seem possible in war." "Fortunately, the Armistice was signed and the foolish con- tract was never fulfilled. But the contractor got his money, which was the principal thing. These particular branding irons were contracted to be made out of copper, though usually iron is good enough. For this purpose the contractor alleged he pur- chased 79,952 pounds of copper, which was 20,000 pounds more 34 FEOM FOUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON than he needed to make the irons, there being five ounces in each one. Under the cost-plus system the government paid for all this material at the rate of 3914 cents a pound, which included some labor expended on the materials. The government also paid for the other materials that were to be used in m'aking these irons, paying $3.75 a hundred for round steel and seven cents a foot for piping, the irons being copper faced with long handles. For materials, labor, overhead and ten per cent profits, the govern- ment paid altogether $40,118.29 to the contractor." "And what did the government get for it?" "It got 2,800 irons delivered after the war. And it also got the materials, the copper, the steel and the pipe, but as it had no use for the stuff, the government sold it back to the contractors. But the government resold the steel for one cent a pound, in- stead of 3%, the piping for three cents a foot instead of seven, and the copper for eight cents a pound instead of 39% — ^you see, Mr. Miller, materials deteriorate rapidly when the government owns them. And what was copper when the government bought it, turned out to be an alloy when the government sold it — and the man who sold it as copper bought it back as an alloy. ' ' "And wasn't he investigated?" asked Mr. Miller. ' ' Not at all ; he got his profit on 20,000 more pounds than his contract called for. The government paid $40,118.29. It got 2,800 branding irons. That's the whole tale of the branding irons. ' ' "That was paying about $14 for each branding iron deliv- ered, ' ' figured out Mr. Miller. "About that," said Watson. "But then, Liberty bonds were being oversubscribed. They had to spend the money, or rather, they had the money to spend, and it was new business to them." CHAPTER XIII How War Horses Were Harnessed and Combed "I have another little matter which may throw light on the greater matter of high-priced shoes and leather goods of all HORSES HARNESSED AND COMBED 35 kinds," said "Watson, following his astounding statements about branding irons. "Out with it, if it can beat the branding iron story," said Mr. Miller. ' ' It beats it at least three to one, ' ' said "Watson. ' ' The extrav- agance in buying harness and saddles is beyond comprehension, but the facts that I am about to give you are from the printed records of the official testimony. Lieutenant-General George B. Goetz, who served in the procurement division of the army during the war and had charge of the leather end of it, testified that he 'had requisitions that would have required in their manufacture 300,000 more hides than the entire take-off in the United States for one year,' that is to say, it would have required 300,000 more hides than we produce in this country in one year. ' ' "And that wouldn't leave a hide to be used for shoes or har- ness for the rest of us, ' ' said Mr. Miller. "Not one would have been left for any civilian purpose. Colo- nel Goetz testified that he was asked to furnish $21,000,000 worth of ambulance harness, although most of the ambulances were motorized. The colonel said that they figured ambulance harness on the man power of the army instead of the horse power. They figured that about every man might be wounded and they wanted to buy enough harness to provide for that contingency, whether they had horses or not for the harness. Fortunately the colonel had too much leather sense to fill that order — ^he bought hardly ten per cent of it. ' ' ' ' That was conmmon sense in him, ' ' said Mr. Miller. "In the way of saddles," continued "Watson, "they modestly requisitioned 945,000 of them, 900,000 McClellan saddles and 45,000 stock saddles." ""Why, the fools," exclaimed Mr. Miller, "how many horses did they think they had?" ' ' They had 104,000 cavalry horses, and they used some saddles for artillery horses," explained "Watson. "Nine saddles for a horse!" exclaimed .Mr. Miller again. "I call that intended cruelty to animals ! ' ' "Asked as to the total of sets of harness they wanted him to buy, or ordered him to buy, Goetz said it was one million. And later C. D. "Worley, the leather accountant for the committee, found and testified that 'had all the harness been completed and 36 FROM FOUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON delivered, there would have been 2,551,087 single sets as author- ized July 1, 1918. And that is not all, on the same page of the printed and sworn testimony you will find the statement of this accountant that for the four hundred and odd thousand horses and mules they purchased 2,374,195 halters, or about five or six for each animal; 523,553 leather saddle bags; 2,161,871 nose bags, and 1,771,098 horse covers." "Whoopla !" exclaimed Mr. Miller this time. "But I think it is nothing to whoopla over," said Mrs. Miller. "Rather it is something to grieve over. It shows how our hard saved money was wasted for useless things and how with a mil- lion horse covers to spare we had hardly enough materials left to cover ourselves." "And that isn't all the story about purchases for the war horses," said Watson. "Take curry combs and brushes. Mr. Worley shows that they bought 1,771,098 horse brushes, and curry combs were ordered to correspond, for when peace re- turned they found 291,000 curry combs in one storage place in New York." ' ' They were crazy, ' ' declared Mr. Miller. ' ' I have two curry combs and two brushes in our stable and the same ones have been there for a dozen years and they have been enough for from nine to a dozen horses — and occasionally we have combed and brushed the cows. What did they want with four of such things for each horse 1 ' ' "Ask them," said Watson. "They are small matters, and I am citing them to show you how they did their buying, so that you may not wonder why there were shortages of materials and high prices and why there are now billions of debts to pay. They had no sense or system in their buying. Anyone could give orders for goods and the sellers and contractors revelled in profits. Take horse shoes; they placed orders for 8,781,516 of them. They are totals that are inconceivable not only in quan- tity. They called upon the people to consetve materials while they wasted it officially. While the people were paying at the rate of five or ten dollars a pound for their shoes, the govern- ment had 1,800,000 pounds of black harness leather left on its hands, all of it of course rendered unfit for shoe making. ' ' A DOMESTIC TALE 37 CHAPTER XIV A Domestic Tale of Bread Pans While Mr. Miller was still thinking of swearing and Mrs. Mil- ler of crying over the tale of saddles and harness and the high price of leather, the tension was relieved by the entrance of the Lieutenant and Mary to complete the circle. "We've both escaped from the hospital," said the Lieutenant. "From carbolic acid to moonlight, eh?" said Watson, who always had both an idea and word in readiness. ' ' I simply took my patient out for an airing, ' ' said Mary very demurely. "Anyway, I'm glad you have come-," went on Watson, "for I have one more tale to tell and it is one that you will be inter- ested in, Mary, for it has to do with bread pans which come after love-making and honey-mooning." "Then please, tell it quickly," suggested Mary. "It's a fairy tale of profits. Once upon a time, to begin prop- erly, some one in the war department decided that we fighting boys needed tin boxes for our bread, boxes two feet long and two feet deep and one foot wide. And so they ordered 22,000 of them at $7.50 each — a very high price for them, but that is not material now for every one who did anything for his country, except the boys who did the fighting, expected to make his fortune out of the war. There were also some fireless cookers and cook's chests included for the same contractors. But the war did not last long enough to require the completion of the contracts. Of course they had a claim on the government for stopped contracts and unrealized profits. ' ' "And what was their claim?" "It was for materials they had bought to make the bread boxes and fireless cookers and cook's chests out of, for labors done on 'them and what is called 'handling and over-head' and interest on their investment. Altogether these figured up $216,- 502.69 — the odd cents are always included for they give an ap- pearance of exactness and veracity, as if they had figured closely. The government thought the claims were excessive and so scaled them down to $171,687.06 — still retaining the odd cents — and when they settled on that basis the adjusters boasted that they had saved their government $45,000!" 38 FROM FOUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON "But had they?" asked Mr. Miller. "Yes, had they?" repeated "Watson. "Well," said Mr. Miller, "the government paid $171,687.06— and what did the government get for that ? ' ' "It got the completed bread boxes, seven of them worth $52.50; twenty-five cook's chests worth $206.25, and sixty-six fireless cookers worth $759, or altogether $1,017.75 in completed goods and it had left on its hands all the materials out of which the balance were to have been made, together with what work had been done on them. But as the government had no use for the materials, it sold them back to the contractors as 'scraps' for $37,649, and the adjusters thought that was a good sale, although five times as much had just been paid for them, and the fireless cookers which had been partly completed were good commercial articles. Now if you will take what the government paid for the materials and subtract from it what the government got for them you will have $133,020.17, which is what those seven bread boxes, half a dozen chests and sixty-six fireless cookers cost the government. ' ' "It wasn't right," said Mr. Miller. "No, it wasn't right, but a hundred and thirty-three thousand is a small matter as matters ran in the war times. I cite it simply to show the manner in which business was done and money was wasted. In all these settlements it may be noticed the government bought dear and sold cheap. What was precious material when sold to the government became instantly junk when the government sold it back. There are hundreds and thousands of such-transactions in the records with which I can not detain or weary you. But I want you to see how it was done and then you will not wonder how the country found itself facing a debt of $26,000,000,000, or how we managed to spend in a year almost as much as France and England spent in four years. Incompetence, ignorance, extravagance, waste- fulness, profiteering and downright dishonesty and robbery piled upon us a good share of that indebtedness." "And in permitting such things to happen," suggested Mr. Miller, "we did what was worse than making debts; we de- bauched the business conscience of the nation and made ability and integrity in office a by-word. ' ' "Never mind, Mr. Miller," said Mary, "next year we women will help you men set things to right again at the polls." OTHER INSTANCES AND THE EXCEPTIONS 39 CHAPTER XV Other Instances and the Exceptions "What the branding iron contractors and the bread box men did on a small scale," resumed Watson, "others did on scales more heroic. At one time the government entered into a con- tract with a steel car company for 964 carriages for 9.5-inch howitzers. It was an enormous contract. To fulfill their con- tract the contractors put up mammoth buildings in addition to their plant, filled the buildings with machinery and with materi- als. The War Department invested in this venture something like $18,000,000. None of the carriages were finished before the close of the war, but the company was allowed to finish two hun- dred of them after the war was over, which they turned over to the government for $23,000 each or $4,600,000 for the lot." "But if the government paid for the buildings, the machinery and the materials, under the cost-plus system," reasoned Mr. Miller, "then it must have owned all of them." ' ' It did own them, ' '_ said Watson. ' ' But it did not want them. They were some more of the war junk. So the government sold them back to the contracting company. The company paid the government back $600,000 for buildings and machinery which had cost $2,987,200, and $300,000 for materials for which the government had just paid $5,558,000. One firm bid $700,000 for these materials, but it is charged in the evidence that a govern- ment official concealed this higher bid from his associates on the board that was adjusting these sales. The materials were of a nature that the arsenals of the United States were clamoring for, but they were handed over to the contractors and it seems with the connivance of officials. A car load of machinery disappeared. There were charges of all kinds. A government accountant, L. J. Blakly, told these things to the investigating committee. Blakly was transferred. Secretary Baker heard of it and tele- phoned to the chairman of the congressional investigating com- mittee that he would take it up. But so far nothing has been done." "I'll bet nothing will be. done," said Mr. Miller. "It will be dropped, without a doubt of it," admitted Wat- son "But the government for its $18,000,000 got 200 howitzer carriages charged at $4,600,000 and the $900,000 for the 'junk'." 40 FROM FOUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON ' ' But were there no good and sensible men left ? ' ' "Yes, plenty of them, Mr. Miller, and that is all the more reason why the others ought to be exposed. There is plenty of honor left in Americans and it was in evidence during the war. The chairman of the select investigating committee told me the other day, and said he was going to say it in his speech on the subject, that many contractors have shown a commendable spirit of fairness" in making settlements under contracts and that such men have done everything they can to relieve the government of additional financial burdens. But it is not keep- ing honor with these men if men less honorable are allowed to retain their moneys or their public respect." CHAPTER XVI Wherein the Story Halts "Doggone it," said Mr. Miller, after some rumination, "it's too bad things have turned out so. ' ' "Would it, in your opinion, be better to hush them up or to expose them?" asked Watson. ' ' Of course it is better to expose them, ' ' said Mr. Miller. ' 'It is not only better, but it is national duty that cannot be neg- lected except with frightful moral and business consequences. The way I look at such things is that men who graft on their government in war are no better than traitors and they ought to be tried. The man who injures his government is no better than the man who aids the enemy of that government. I refuse to draw distinctions between them." "Much of the blame and the responsibility belongs to the of- ficials of the administration," said Watson. "On April 12, six days after we entered the war. Secretary Baker made an order dispensing with advertising for bids for contracts. Competition and the lowest prices were dispensed with. He substituted for them the cost-plus system and that opened a field for scheming contractors unparalleled. Men like General Goethals warned the government in vain. Under this system, he told them, those who had government contracts could work regardless of the costs. WHEREIN THE STORY HALTS 41 In fact the more things cost the more were their profits and while conscientious men continued to keep costs down, they soon found themselves in a competition for materials and labor that compelled them to go the same pace as the profiteers. Un- scCTipulous men soon understood it and in many cases were given to understand that services did not matter. In so doing they lost respect for the government itself as well as for them- selves as workmen. "Then pretty much everybody let contracts. There was no sense or system about letting them. Contracts were duplicated and specifications were changed over night. "Work done today • was thrown away tomorrow and it was all charged up to the government under the contracts. Some of the contracts were made orally and some even over the telephone. A congressman told me the other day that their investigations had shown that contract obligations were assumed mounting into the hundreds of millions where there was little or no legal evidence of a con- tract. Contracts in writing were signed by proxy. "Wlftn time for settlements came, after the war, the comp- troller of the treasury informed the Secretary of War that such contracts could not be paid. Then at the instigation of the sec- retary, so it is presumed, congress on March 3, before the so called war congress went out of power, passed the Dent act which legalized such irregular payments. Then the flood gates were opened for all sorts of claims and the government has paid out millions and hundreds of millions of dollars for which it received nothing." "It was just lack of business ability, beginning at the top," said Mr. Miller. "One fault is that no one ever used the word 'economy'," said Watson. ' ' Those who spent the public moneys were never told that money had a sacredness and that it must not be wasted. The Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. McAdoo, was popularly credited with having said, 'to h— 1 with expenses; get results.' In one way that was good enough, but it acted as an invitation to every one to spend and spend. It would have been better had he said, 'We must get results, but be careful of the expenses— get a dollar of results for every dollar spent. ' Not only was compe- tition suspended, but bonuses were paid to stimulate production of all kinds. They pretended that that was necessary to make men do their best, ' ' 42 FROM FOUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON ' ' Yes, ' ' said the Lieutenant, ' ' the government through its sys- tems bribed every one to do his duty in the war except the private soldier whose services were commandeered. They gave him his bed and board and a little pocket money and then stood him up to be shot at — they offered the producers 35 cents a pound for copper that they had sold for 16 cents, but they did not offer the soldier who had been earning $100 a month, $200 to go and do his duty to win the war. ' ' "Yes," said Watson, "and one copper company came throug;h the war $50,000,000 richer and another made 800 per cent profits in one year." "How fine it would have, been," suggested Mrs. Miler, "if those who stayed at home could have served their country with- out profit as the boys who went to the front did. ' ' ' ' Oh, mother, that 's idealism, ' ' said the Lieutenant. ' ' But was it not idealism for which you and Sergeant Watson left your homes and went to the front — it certainly was not for $30 a month," said Mary, feelingly. "We were young and enthusiastic," said Watson, "and those who made money were old and crafty, that's the difference. And I wonder if we 'd do it gain. ' ' "I would," said the Lieutenant. "I would rather limp like a man who did his- duty than sneak about like a coward. ' ' "You're right, Mark, and I'm proud of you!" said Mary. "The men who felt as you did saved the country, and they are the men who are going to keep it saved." "But it shocked a fellow," said Watson, "to come home in that enthusiasm only to find that many at home had cared only for the money while we were fighting. ' ' "But honor is more than wealth and glory outlasts gold," said Mary. "Yes, you are right, Mary," said Mrs. Miller, "and God will liless the land that has many women like you." "And what we lacked during the war was publicity," said Mr. Miller, "if the things that were done had been openly dis- cussed in the papers many of them would not have been done." "That is right, Mr. Miller," said Watson. "Publicity is like the daylight. It might have saved us. " "And I am in favor of turning the daylight on what has been done, ' ' added Mr. Miller. "Let us have pitiless publicity in deed WHEEB MILLIONS DECAYED 43 not in words merely. And I am always in favor of letting some other man audit the books — that is how I am going to vote — if we can nor recover what has been wasted or filched, still I am not m favor of continuing in office those who permitted such things to be done." CH \PTER XVII Where Millions Decayed. A few days later Sergeant Watson took the Millers and Miss Mills on a long automobile journey. He did not tell them where they were going, but he insisted on making a start in the first daylight. As before, he had Mr. Miller in the front seat with him and the Lieutenant, Mrs. Miller and Mary were in the rear one. The day was a beautiful one and the roads were in fine condi- tion for fast driving. The trees were barren, but an autumn loveliness still lingered along the roadsides. They were all in high spirits. "I don't think much of them," said Mr. Miller about the farms of Maryland. "You are thinking of Iowa, that's why," said "Watson. "What puzzles me," said Mr. Miller at another time, "is why they did not stop all war work when the war was over. The other day you mentioned $4,600,000 worth of howitzer carriages being made after the armistice was signed. Did they need them then?" "That I do not know," said Watson. "Probably not. But it was hard to demobilize war activities. Contractors insisted on filling their contracts. And at that time it was feared that there would be a great surplus of labor and some thought it was better to keep going on a while." "Making useless things," said Miller. "I can't see it that way. The men at least might have turned to useful labors, like making fence wire instead of gun carriages, and shoes instead of McClellan saddles for cavalry men out of jobs." "That may be true," admitted Watson. "But at any rate 44 FROM FOUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON they did not stop work on even the camps, near Washington, they started work on eighty bungalows after the armistice and they completed twenty of them at a cost of $6,000 each and that out of materials furnished by the government. They were, in fact, carrying on furiously in at least fifty places until the spring of 1919 when congress called a halt by attaching a rider to an ap- propriation bill forbidding moneys for new buildings. The pres- ident refused to call congress together until his return from Europe. If he had called the new congress on the fourth of March hundreds of millions more would have been saved out of the wreckage." "Congress has been doing very well," remarked Mr. Miller., ' ' but they can lop off more and faster to suit me. ' ' "The chairman of the appropriations committee, Mr. Good, who, by the way, is from your own state, told me the other day they were aiming to lop off two or three billions from the sums asked for." "I hope they'll double that," said Mr. Miller. ' ' They can only go so far, ' ' said Watson. ' ' Certain things • have to be carried on, and there has been little or no disposi- tion in the departments to reduce expenditures. In Washington there are still over 100,000 clerks on the pay rolls, as compared with 32,000 before the war. But speaking of carrying on after the war, an instance was cited the other day in which men were kept at work completing buildings which another gang were tearing down. Even expensive wiling and plumbing was put in to be wrecked by the other crew the next week or next day. ' ' "Is it possible?" ' ' Absolutely true, ' ' said Watson. "I would call that 'bonehead' work. It would have been bet- ter to pay the contractors their profits and save the materials for the rest of us. Instead of going to Europe the president should have looked after our own business at a time when it needed looking after." The car sped on its way over the well kept roads until they sighted a great city, which Watson said was Baltimore, and a little later they stopped before a place that looked like a deserted camp. ' ' This is Camp Holabird, ' ' Watson told his guests "And what is Camp Holabird?" asked Mr. Miller. WHERE MILLIONS DECAYED 45 "It is now a graveyard," said Watson. "A cemetery for motorcycles, automobiles and motor trucks. ' ' "In heaven's name, what is all this!" exclaimed Mr. Miller and all the others expressed equal surprise. ' ' You are looking on some of the ruins of the war, ' ' said Wat- son. ' ' This is where they have stored the surplus of motorcycles, automobiles and motor trucks of all kinds, but whatever it is it was at one time the best and the government paid for it the highest plus prices." "Is this the wreckage they brought back from Prance!" asked Mrs. Miller. "All this was new stuff," Watson replied. "It has been wrecked by exposure to the weather. ' ' "But with millions of feet of lumber wasted in other places, why was no roof built over these machines?" "Here they were so careful of Uncle Sam's money, Mr. Miller, that they would not waste a ten dollar canvas to save a two or three thousand dollar motor car. ' ' "See the rust on the rims and the rubber in strips peeling off, ' ' said the Lieutenant. "How many cars of all kinds are here?" asked Mr. Miller. "No one seems to know, but there are thousands of them, literally thousands. Front street is a mile and a half long and it is lined. You can see how far back they stretch. Cars here are not counted, but they are spoken of in acres. Congressman Reavis the other day spoke of 12,000 motor cycles here, and no one contradicted him. The number of automobiles has been esti- mated from 7,500 to 8,000, and the Lord knows how many splen- did motor trucks are rotting in this field. Hundreds of cars were dumped here after the armistice was signed. ' ' "And out our way," said Mr. Miller, "they have not been able to make deliveries of cars purchased because of the shortage. Why did they not sell these ? " "Why didn't they sell them for a nominal price to the boys returned from service," suggested the Lieutenant. "Many a man would have been been glad to have acquired even a motor cycle, fellows who returned poor and who could have used them in their business or their work. I wouldn't mind having one on the farm, Dad, now I have this limp." "Anything would have been better than this," declared Mr. 46 FKOM FOUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON Miller, indignantly. ' ' This is a criminal waste of property and the men responsible ought to be treated as criminals." ' ' And this isn 't all of them, ' ' said Watson. ' ' This is only one bunch. There are many such graveyards the country over. I was shown a photograph of Camp Jessup, in Georgia, taken ten months after the armistice was signed, and that field looked worse than this. ' ' "The statistics show," said Watson, after referring to some notes in his pocket, "that they had 130,000 motor vehicles in this country, in addition to those taken to France. Seventy thousand of these machines were delivered after the war was over. There were 7,000 motor trucks in one field going to ruin. In one field 1,000 limousines, Packards and Cadillacs were photo- graphed, showing the upholstery rotting and the tires peeling off — those were four and five thousand dollar cars. ' ' ' ' And no effort was made to put them into use ? ' ' "Yes, efforts were made. Brigadier-General Drake, of the Motor Transport Corps, testified the other day that he had sent 470 communications to the office of the director of sales, trying to have these cars sold, but all were returned to him. When this had been permitted to go on for a year, congress passed a resolu- tion requiring the secretary of war to distribute to the highway commissions of the several states such equipment as could be used for road building, and that resolution is now being carried out. The rest of the surplus vehicles were ordered sold. But many were already in such a stage of decay that sales have to be sacrifices, if they can be made at all. ' ' "It was the same way in France," said the Lieutenant. "I have had boys who saw it tell me that motor vehicles were wrecked and abandoned upon the least pretexts. The frightful waste an- gered them." "Yes," said Watson, "and the evidence shows that for want of system or lack of commonsense, the war department after the armistice shipped to France 39,993 motor vehicles for the use of an army that was no longer there, or was being brought home. They were presumably included in the general sale of left over goods to France for a few cents on the dollar." " It is unbelievable, all of it, ' ' said Mr. Miller. "Unbelievable, is true," said Watson, "and that is why I have brought you so far to see this with your own eyes. If I had KAILROADS, WOMEN IN POLITICS, ETC. 47 merely told it to you, you would not, because you could not, have believed it. ' ' "But seeing is believing, and it is also disgusting. And still they think that great credit is due them ! ' ' sneered Mr .Miller. CHAPTER XVIII Railroads, Women in Politics, Etc. After a luncheon in Baltimore, Sergeant "Watson turned his car toward Washington again. On parallel roads the ear for a while kept pace with a railroad train. And that started a dis- cussion of government operation of the railroads. ' ' The taking over of the railroads, ' ' said Watson, ' ' was called a war-time necessity. It was the purpose of the government to use the roads for the transportation of war materials and men, primarily. But it has turned out that it was an unwise step. The government literally destroyed the vast railroad organiza- tions and it turned them over, in many respects to inexperi- enced men working under orders more or less political. A new organization could not be built up in a day, nor in a year, and in consequence greater demoralization ensued. Railroad opera- tion by the government proved as wasteful as other work done by the government under politicians. ' ' "But what could have been done?" asked Mr. Miller. "What many men advised, men who knew the problems," re- plied Watson. ' ' The railroad forces ought to have been left in- tact, but all of them could have been brought under the super- vision of a director-general, so as to get the necessary results, and that director-general should have been a practical railroad man and not a politician like Mr. McAdoo. "McAdoo's appointment was a usurpation as it was. The president wanted to favor his son-in-law and make him the man in the public eye. They should have gone to the secretary of the interior at the head of which was at that time, Franklin K. Lane, one of the best men ever connected with the Wilson ad- ministration, and one who had seen years of service on the Interstate Commerce Commission. Lane might have done some- 48 FKOM FOUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON thing practical with the railroads, but McAdoo used them to spread his name from one end of the country to the other. His vanity aroused the derision of all railroad men as well as of the public. The name of McAdoo was on every car and on every piece of railroad paper — that was his vanity, he had his name, as we have seen, scrawled on even a public building." "And on the railroads as elsewhere it was Mr. McAdoo 's slogan, 'to h — 1 with expenses,' " suggested Mr. Miller. "And they went literally to hell," said "Watson. "Freight and passenger rates were both increased, from 33 to 50. per cent, but in spite of such enormously increased incomes they could not be made to pay expenses. The railroad deficits before the government is through with them will amount to a billion and a quarter. And in increased rates we will pay easily two billion more. Before the government took them over the railroad oper- ators had asked for a fifteen per cent increase, and they had said that with that much more income they could make the roads do the work of the war and pay their own way. But that was de- nied them. The government increased those rates three times as much and then did not make the roads self-sustaining. It was the most extravagant and wasteful administration ever heard of on railroads. With thousands of employes added they could not do the work as well as it had been done before. There was freight congestion in every yard and the people lost millions of dollars because they could not have their products carried to markets that clamored for them." "But they say they have made the roads better." "That is not true, either," said Watson. "A hundred thou- sand cars are worn out every year and to replace them and add new ones for business growth the roads required before the war about 150,000 new freight cars a year. That would mean more than 300,000 cars for the period the roads have been under the government, but they actually added only one hundred thou- sand cars. When the railroads were returned to their owners they were a quarter of a million cars short and it is telling in transportation. The farmers at the Four Corners of the Middle West will not be able to get cars to ship in and they will suffer losses of more uncounted millions. You men of the middle west will know what it means during 1920 and 1921. With motive power, that is engines, the shortage is in like proportion. The EAILROADS, WOMEN IN POLITICS, ETC. 49 worn out engines have not been replaced and no provisions have been made for the increased business of the country." "These facts are new to me," said Mr. Miller, "but I know that the operation of the roads has been very unsatisfactory to the people as a whole. ' ' After that they talked about the part women were to play in politics. Mary began it by saying that a few days before a very prominent woman had told her that women ought not to make old party alignments; that they should hold themselves as an independent element. "What party did she belong to?" asked Watson. "She said she did not want to belong to any, "said Mary, "but her family is prominently democratic." "Then I don't blame her," replied Watson. "As a new voter she might be reluctant in assuming the responsibility for what that party has been doing. It strikes me she doesn't want to be a Democrat, but she has not quite courage enough to become a Republican against the traditions of her family, and so she is going to compromise on the neutrality of an independent. ' ' ' ' That 's about it, ' ' suggested the Lieutenant. "I belong to a Republican family," spoke up Mrs. Miller, ' ' and I am not ashamed to belong there. ' ' "A 'woman as well as a man when she votes should vote with one party or another," said Watson. "A party is simply an organization of those who think nearly alike on the vital ques- tions. Political parties are part of the American institutions. It is through them that we have effective actions in politics. Without party organizations we would all be floundering in a public morass. Party direction and responsibility- are necessi- ties. Without them there would be turmoil and chaos. We would have irresponsible combinations in congress and men would be elected who professed all sorts of grotesque ideas with which to attract the attention of voters. Party government is often bad enough, but partyless government would be worse, it would be impossible. It would eventuate into a one-man govern- ment and the one man would be a Mexican autocrat instead of an American leader." "My own belief is," said Mary, "that women are going to be just as sensible as men in such matters." "And sometimes they will be just as senseless," remarked Mr. Miller. 50 FEOM FOUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON CHAPTER XIX Building a Magic City at Nitro "Whiat you showed us the other day at Camp Holabird for me caps the climax," said Mr. Miller, when "Watson a few days later dropped in for another chat. "After seeing that one needs to be told nothing more about the men who wasted the people's money during the war." "I have no desire to weary you with such things," said Wat- son. "As a newspaper man I am in them every day up to my neck. There is no end of them. Wherever the probe is made the results are the same. Of the twenty billions spent by the War Department it is no exaggeration to say that seven or eight of those billions were wasted in ways I have pointed out, or that you yourself saw at Camp Holabird, and some of the experts believe today that half of those billions could have been saved under a business administration. ' ' "I'm prepared to believe it," said Mr. Miller. "Let me tell you briefly about what has been called the magic city of Nitro which they located in West Virginia on the Kana- wha river. They started out to build a powder plant so they would have a government-owned plant, although the Duponts were then producing all the powder our armies could use. But the way they went at it and the way they carried it on are the most astonishing things about it." "Was it a plant or a city?" asked Mr. Miller. . "It was both," replied Watson. "They built 729 factory buildings of one kind or another. They filled them up with the most expensive machinery. They connected up the buildings with forty-three miles of railroads and side-tracks. They planned 20,000 houses, but they built altogether 3,400 buildings, includ- ing the factories. Among the buildings are theaters and dance halls as well as schools and churches." "I'll warrant you," said Mr. Miller, "for nothing was too good for the men who stayed at home to do their war work. ' ' "At one time they had 20,000 men at work in their magic city. "They must have made a lot of powder." "They didn't make any until the war was about over," said Watson. "They were men building the city. Men flocked to it. Like Colonel Bisque's Spruce Army, it was a haven for many BUILDING A MAGIC CITY AT NITKO 51 who did not want to be drafted for service. Men who had thirty- cents to buy a saw and a hammer and a rule in a ten cent store went there and qualified as carpenters, to the disgust of com- petent workmen. Barbers became plumbers and bartenders ac- countants over night. Good workmen and supervisors estimated that from one-third to one-half of the 20,000 men were incom- petent and useless and they were not needed there. Foremen complained that they were given so many men that the men stood in each other's way and could not work." "It must have been cost-plus," guessed Mr. Miller. "The more everything cost the better everyone fared was the principle," said Watson. "Any man could get on the pay rolls, but no one could get off. Trainloads of men were unloaded and thousands of them were idle for days at a time, if not weeks. It is all recorded in the testimony of reputable witnesses under oath. The testimony shows that at one time a gang of men went to Gallipolis, Ohio, fifty miles away for sightseeing without los- ing their places on the pay rolls. They got drunk in the Ohio city and many wer6 jailed and were kept away for a fortnight, but without losing their places on the pay rolls — they drew from six to nine dollars a day for being incarcerated. Under such a system why should one try to do honest work, when not to work paid just as well 1 One of the foremen. Dr. E. D. Spalding, testified that he complained he had too many men. He was told to keep still and to keep the men on the job. In his opinion it was done merely to keep the men on the pay rolls to increase the costs on which the profits were figured." "No wonder men were debauched and that they came to be- lieve that work was not necessary to draw pay," said Mr. Miller. "In due time the waste and extravagance and corruption got into the newspapers, ' ' continued "Watson, ' ' and the usual inves- tigators were sent by the government. One of the men sent there to check up things, John Tinsley, testified that he was 'told to get out of there. ' They did not want any checkers. He did get out. He did not want to risk his life. 'While our boys were fighting,' says one commentator, 'and the people were giving their money to support them in it, twice as much money as need- ed was being wasted at Nitro. ' ' ' "And now they want nothing said about it," remarked Mr. Miller. "They want it hushed up. They want no investiga- 52 FEOM FOUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON tions made, no prosecutions started. Well, I don't blame the men who made such records for wanting things hushed up, but I would blame ourselves if we permitted it to be done. ' ' ' ' Yes, they pleaded they did the best they could and that haste makes waste, and so on, but the things complained of at Nitro were deliberately done and for profit. The wastages in material were worse than the wastages in needless, useless, incompetent and idle labor. The testimony 'shows nothing was conserved. If the least thing went wrong with a motor truck it was cast aside and a new one put into use. One witness testified that he saw four such trucks dumped in one ravine. Lumber, roofing, all kinds of building material were scattered around and hauled off and burned in dumping places. The Mr. Tinsley whom I have already quoted, said he did not know why it was done, but the orders were 'we were to get rid of it.' A congressman from the state in which Nitro was located, L. S. Echols, when he heard of such things, went there to see. He testified that 'there was not a single thing being manufactured at Nitro by the government . . . the employes were doing nothing.' He says he saw 2,100 men unloading carloads of empty shells when 100 men could have done the work better." "And to think," sighed Mrs. Miller again, "how we folks on the farms were working and saving and giving ! ' ' "Yes, Mrs. Miller," and that reminds me of the biggest of all the wastages at Nitro City — the wastage of cotton at a time when you women were being told to wear your cotton clothes patched to help win the war. " _ "What did they do with cotton there that they had it to waste?" asked Mr. Miller. "That is another story," said Watson. CHAPTER XX How Cotton Rotted in the Magic City "You have asked me, Mr. Miller, what they did with cotton at Nitro City," resumed Watson. "The plant at Nitro was designed for the manufactiire of high explosives of a smokeless HOW COTTON ROTTED IN THE MAGIC CITY 53 character, and for such explosives cotton is one of the principal materials. As soon as the plant was under way they began to assemble cotton there. They kept on assembling it until they had 52,000 bales or 26,000,000 pounds of it on the ground. I have here a photograph of that cotton, taken after the war was over. ' ' ' ' The cotton is literally on the ground, ' ' said Mr. Miller, ' ' and it 's lying out of doors. ' ' "The photograph does not lie," said Watson. "That is the way the cotton can still be seen there. The lower bales are partly imbedded in mud for the lumber that they might have used under it had been burned. And there were no coverings over it. The cotton has been there for more than a year, most of it being brought there in October of 1918, according to the testimony. The i^iotograph, of course, shows only part of the field for the cotton is scattered over fifteen acres of land. The testimony also shows that they took no, pains in unloading it. Train loads of it were pulled up and the bales literally raked or rolled off. ' ' "Fifty-two thousand bales of it, 26,000,000 pounds of it,'"'" mused Mr. Miller with a quizzically indignant expression on his face. "And it was dear cotton, too!" "Dear?" said Mary, who had entered with the Lieutenant. "They are asking $1.35 a yard for French gingham, which is made of cotton and a yard weighs only a few ounces, and less with the stiffening taken out. ' ' "And a whole dress of calico," said Mrs. Miller, "what does it weigh, is it a pound or more ? And here are 26,000,000 dresses, more or less, rotting in one field," she added, as she relooked at the photograph. "It's little comfort in this picture to those who patched cotton clothes during the war and put the money saved into Liberty bonds to be wasted ! ' ' "I have at hand no prices for this cotton purchased by the government," said Watson, "but cotton has sold as high as half a dollar a pound. And such wastages of it helped to put the prices up so that every consumer of cotton goods was taxed doubly for this waste." "Belief can go no farther, neither can disgust and indigna- tion," said Mr. Miller. "The purpose in purchasing the cotton was good enough," explained Watson. "At that time they were thinking of making 54 PEOM POUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON explosives to carry on the war had it lasted longer. It was well to be forearmed. But the worst of it is that after the war was over, they made no efforts to save this vast amount of cotton. The great crime is in letting it rot there, when there was a world shortage of this material. ' ' ' ' Have they explained why they did that ? ' ' "They explain nothing," said Watson. "When inquiries are made you are always referred to a man higher up, or a man somewhere else. But it is charged that the wastage was deliber- ately and maliciously planned, so as to hold up the prices of cot- ton and not to disturb what they called the trade or the industry. You see, Mrs. Miller, if the government had dumped all this cot- ton on the market you might have bought cotton goods for less, and that is what profiteers did not want you to do. " "Cotton was favored, was it not?" asked Mr. Miller. "It was favored," said Watson, "to the extent that at no time were any restrictions placed on its price. They let it soar, al- though it was an essential war material, as much as, or more than wheat which the government carefully restricted to $2.26 a bushel f.o.b. Chicago. If a like restriction had been placed on cotton the price would have been limited to about twenty or twenty-five cents a pound, which is two and a half times the normal price for cotton, before the war, as $2.26 was two and a half times the normal price of wheat." ' ' Cotton is southern, ' ' suggested Mr. Miller. "Yes, and the South boasted that it was in the saddle." "And this cotton is still there?" asked the Lieutenant. "Yes," said Watson, "but the government, as you may have seen in the papers, has sold the whole magic city, including the cotton as so much junk. They were about to sell it for $4,000,- 000, but when a protest was made by Congress the buyers of- fered $8,000,000 for it and for that they got it all — the cotton alone at one time was worth more than that, but it is said to be now in a state of rottenness beyond recovery. The whole estab- lishment probably cost $70,000,000." "And it was sold for $8,000,000 — the whole magic city with its 3,400 buildings and 52,000 bales of cotton ! ' ' said Mr. Miller sadly, while Mrs. Miller sighed. THE WEIRD OEGY AT MUSCLE SHOALS 55 CHAPTER XXI The Weird Orgy at Muscle Shoals "But why were not such, things exposed and stopped, such things as they did at Nitro?" asked Mrs. Miller. "They were exposed, but they could not be stopped," said Watson. "Of course, you understand that the newspapers were hampered and censored. If they attacked anything that the gov- ernment was doing, no matter if it was wrong-doing, they were in danger of being branded disloyal and they might be treated as enemies of the government even. And so far as the public was then concerned, it was so used to extravagance and waste that it paid but little heed. ' ' "Patriotism was used as a cloak and fear as a restraint," said Mr. Miller. "But at Muscle Shoals in the state of Alabama," resumed Watson, "I can cite a parallel for Nitro City. Th^re they at- tempted to do another magic trick. In explanation of that ef- fort let me state that there was a real need of nitrates, the sup- plies from Chili being endangered by sub-marines. So it was thought a wise policy to build a factory for abstracting it from the air by patented processes. Germany had made some progress in such methods even before the war. In selecting a site for such a factory the president himself intervened and selected Muscle Shoals, near Sheffield, Alabama, although the experts rated that location only third rate. How far certain interests influenced that decision is not known, but it is known that for fifteen years attempts had been made to unload that site on the government and congress had refused." "I have my suspicions," said Mr. Miller. "So have others," said Watson. "An Air Nitrate company was formed, an offshoot of the American Cyanamid corporation, a man named Washburn being president of both. The usual kind of contracts were let, cost plus, of course, and the work was soon under way in the usual manner. They estimated the costs at $3Q,000,000, but their estimate was only a starter. They spent more than twice that sum and no one knows whether it was really three times that. Congress appropriated $20,000,000 at first and the president supplied $40,000,000 out of his emer- gency funds which he controlled privately and spent at will." 56 FKOM FOUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON "A sort of everyone chip in," suggested Mr. Miller. "The plant cost from $81,000,000 to $85,000,000," resumed Watson, "and that seems to have let old Tammany in. The vice-president, and most active man, was James Featherstone. who had been chief of the Tammany New York street cleaning department. ' ' "An excellent qualification," said the Lieutenant. "Another Tammany man, Hammit, was made secretary. There were half a dozen other Tammany bosses as officers. One of the witnesses before the congressional committee spoke of -them dis- respectfully as 'a gang of Tammany rough necks,' and another as 'a horde of politicians' who went to Muscle Shoals not to work but to live on the fat of the land. He said they were ' sim- ply ward heelers and cheap but faithful Democrats . . . from the city of New York.' Muscle Shoals was their pasture and the government their almoner. It was a veritable riot of a time." . "And think of what we were doing in those days, Betty," said Mr. Miller. "I am not thinking of the little we are doing, Mark," answer- ed Mrs. Miller, "but I am thinking of the much more that our son and Sergeant Watson and men like them were doing." "No $30 a month for the men at Muscle Shoals," said Wat; .son. "A former Tammany bartender was made auditor of the commissary at Muscle Shoals and they paid him $6,000 a year, $500 per instead of the soldiers 's $30 per. Some months the mess halls lost $60,000, but what of that, were not the people over- .subscribing the Liberty bonds? And what was the money for except to spend ? Every officer, boss and sub-boss, had to ride • around and the chauffeurs they employed cost the government $80,000 a year and the automobiles and accessories and repairs cost the government $2,000,000 more — the man who pushed a cart in New York rolled in a Rolls-Royce, or its equivalent in Muscle Shoals." "That's the way to put it to them, Watson !" said Mr. Miller. "Well, the thing makes me mad," said Watson. "And with all their ill doing they exploited their pretended well-doing. They had a publicity department that flooded the country with rosy reports of the great work they were doing at the Shoals — they were going to blow up Berlin with the nitrates which they THE WEIRD ORGY AT MUSCLE SHOALS 57 did not extract from the air. Their publicity department in- cluded a paper with a $5,0(X) cartoonist and they broug'ht in an artist who painted their chief's picture in oils at $550 for which the government in some way paid. They spent $200,000 on saddle horses in addition to the automobiles. But when matters were at their worst, the attorney general of the United States began to hear of them and he sent the usual investigators down. It is boasted that at one time he had twenty men on the job, all approved sleuths." "That was clever!" laughed the Lieutenant. "But may be the horses had already been stolen," suggested Mr. Miller. ' ' The men they went to investigate were wise to it, ' ' Watson went on. "They were well entrenched, too. They are said to have had men in the Washington bureaus who served them. They might as well have been permitted to investigate themselves. The acting chief of the bureau of investigations in Washington, a Mr. Allen, thought that courtmartials and prosecutions ought to be in order but he feared that 'the attorney general may not go through with it for political reasons,' and for such an indis- cretion in expression he seems to have been dropped. The in- vestigators reported that they were 'astounded' and some of them reported that second hand machinery for the plant was paid for ' several times the price the original sale was made for. ' But the investigators did not accomplish much. Muscle Shoals was officered by Tammany men and it was rumored that 'gun- men ' were on the grounds to see that no one knew too much, or at least that everyone who knew anything kept his mouth shut." "And what did the darn thing cost?" asked Mr. Miller. ' ' They had selected Muscle Shoals because of the possibilities in the development of water power, but the strange thing is they didn't build a water power plant at all. They spent twelve or fifteen millions for an experimental plant, all of which was fool- ishly wasted. This the War Department alone is responsible for The nitrate plant finally built has a 60,000 horse power steam plant, and they purchased 30,000 horse power more from a commercial company thirty miles away. The whole splurge cost $90,000,000, or something more or less than $100,000,000." "And what did they produce?" "Practically nothing. Some products were turned out after 58 FROM FOUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON the war was over. One plant is credited with eighty -two tons' of products, but it is explained that it was not from the air, but from 'ammonia liquor purchased from coke ovens.' But now they say that if congress will give them more money, say an- other $116,000,000, they will be able to utilize the $100,000,000 institution to make cheap fertilizers of some kind or other." "I'd blow it up," said Mr. Miller. "It's a problem what to do with it all. One fellow, he must have been a wag, reported that by spending $837,363.09 more on one plant, the $61,000,000 one, it may be given a salvage value of $300,000. " "Do you think he was speaking sarcastically?" asked the Lieu- tenant. ' ' I wonder if he was ! ' ' said Watson. CHAPTER XXII How the Cantonments were Built "There is one more big thing that I want you to have spread from the Pour Corners," said Watson, "and that is the story of how the cantonments were built ; every' one presents the same story of wastage, extravagance, idleness and profiteering." "I know something about one of the cantonments," said Mr. Miller, "for I visited Des Moines, Iowa, while Camp Dodge was under construction, and there in one day I saw enough to dis- gust me for the rest of my life. I never hope again to see so many men doing so little, nor to see building materials which were then so precious so wastef ully used. ' ' "Much might be said about the locations of these camps," said Watson. "Some of them were placed in outrageous places and they were generally massed in the south for climatic reasons, they said, but the reasons were really political. One southern senator boasted that he had secured a second camp for his state under threat of the people refusing to subscribe for Liberty bonds. His constituents renominated him on that claim when he should have been tried for treasonable threats instead." "Speaking of locations," said Mr. Miller, "they sent Iowa and HOW THE CANTONMENTS WERE BUILT 59 Minnesota and Dakota boys to Deming, New Mexico, two thou- sand miles from nowhere and where the climatic conditions were so fine that the boys were periodically involved in sand storms. And I know some boys who enlisted as volunteers in April, 1917, who were kept down there until mid-summer of 1918." "At once the question arose as to how those camps should be built. They made much of the hurry-up nature of the work. They decided to build them cost plus. A committee of contrac- tors practically had the right to decide that question and they knew what, they wanted. The contracts went by favor. General Goethals, who was invited to sit in one of the meetings, but with- out authority, advised against the system. He said it would prove financially ruinous and defeat the hurry-up program. But the man who was big enough to build the Panama canal without a dollar of wasted money, was not listened to. It was in vain that he told them that the United States army had an organized corps of engineers, men trained at public expense at West Point for just such work. They were men who could put a bridge over a river in a few hours; men who took pride in their work and who asked no profits, only the pay of army men. But the men wlfom the government had trained for such work were cast aside for cost plus contractors." ' ' I saw nothing at Camp Dodge that an ordinary country car- penter could not do," remarked Mr. Miller. ' ' The construction was of the simplest kind — one story wooden buildings with posts set in the ground instead of laid on sills, and here and there a two-story building. As you say, it did not call for intricate contracting. For the contractors and the sub- contractors, the thing was a snap, for they had to furnish nothing except what was called their 'personal supervision' and they furnished but little of that. The government advanced all the moneys for materials and for the pay rolls and it furnished even the tools. It was all at government expense and all that the con- tractor had to do was to figure his percentages of profits, and the contractor, so General Goethals testified, 'was only interest- ed in his ten per cent profit and the cost was permitted to take care of itself his profit was greater when the cost was greater, and it was a very extravagant system.' Those are Goethals 's "His words have been fully verified," said Mr. Miller. 60 FROM POUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON "Indeed, they have," said "Watson. "A sub-committee of the select house committee is still carrying on the investigations. I was with them at Columbus, Ohio, where Camp Sherman was under fire, and they are now at Rockford where Camp Grant is being prolsed. What I heard and what I have read is beyond summarizing. ' ' ' ' Named after Grant and Sherman, too, ' ' exclaimed Mr. Miller, "what crimes they have enacted in those honest names." "The testimony I heard was for the most part given by work- ing men, honest men who were employed in the construction of the cantonments. They had no object except to tell the truth and they took patriotic pride in telling it. I recall one man who appeared as a witness, his name was John Reichle, a man who had two sons in the army in Prance and who was concerned about their welfare. He said the way the work at Camp Sher- man was done amounted to open disloyalty. I jotted down some of the other things he said, and let me read them to you : ' ' ' Half the men would have done just about as much as all of them together. . . " 'I have seen men so thick around buildings that it looked as if they could not get to the building for men. " 'It cost $525 in labor to erect a 12-foot tool shed. A man told me he could build it in a day himself. " 'Saw lines of men half a mile long on Sunday, drawing double pay, to get their money during working hours. ' ' ' The slogan was ' ' get it while the getting is good. ' ' " 'They told us to slow down or we would be out of a job . . . to carry a piece of lumber around to make it seem like working.' " "I saw such things myself at Camp Dodge," said Mr. Miller. "Another witness at Camp Sherman," Watson went on, "George McCorkle, testified that the first day he and a man named Willis Gallagher, put on as much board as all the rest of the gang of twenty or thirty men, and the next morning the fore- man told him to cut it out, it showed up his gang too much. He said it took thirty-two men two days to put up an automobile shed twenty feet long. He knew a man from Dayton, Ohio, who carried cheeks as a carpenter, a plumber and an electrician and who drew the pay of three men without working at anything, mostly carrying a kit of tools around the grounds. He testified HOW THE CANTONMENTS WERE BUILT 61 also that he had seen a gang of plumbers spend half a day to erect a sun-shade over a joint that any two men could have fixed in half an hour." "Of course the men were not to blame." "Of course they were not," repeated Watson. "They would have worked had it been required of them. Most of them were honest workmen. The testimony revealed the fact that some . were so honest that they quit their work because they would not cheat their government, even when foremen and contractors or- dered them to do so. . . Men were set to do all manner of useless work. One John Harris testified he hauled dirt a dis- tance of two miles to fill temporary wells, and after that, the dirt that was piled around those wells was hauled away to another place. It made work and increased the costs on which the plus of profits was figured. One George Spencer testified that he was told that 'two sash had to last all day,' that is constituted a day's work when he could have set fifteen or twenty. One E. C. Bowman said that once he asked an honest foreman how he was handling his men and he replied he wasn 't handling them, ' I am just keeping them on the pay roll,' he said. And that is what the contractors wanted, and what the government allowed and paid for." "And what we saved and bought Liberty bonds for," sighed Mrs. Miller. "Elias Brown testified that one time they had 100 men on a bunkhouse and it collapsed under the sheer weight of them ; two hundred men worked at a time on a small barracks and the men stood in each other's way. Carpenters often could not get into an unfinished room because it would be filled with other work- men who were there gambling. Gambling was a universal past- time at the Cantonments. It was the sole occupation of hun- dreds. Ben M. Clark testified that 'after a building was up to shelter and shield them,' any time you wanted a poker game or a crap game all you had to do was to look in three or four rooms, and you would find one in the three or four anyway.' One gambler said he had brought fifty men from Chicago, on the understanding that they were not to work, but could shoot craps, and get the earnings of other workmen as well as draw their own pay for doing nothing. I could reel off reams of such stuff." "And the materials ? ' ' asked Mr. Miller. 62 FROM FOUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON ' ' That is a like story, as you know, ' ' said Watson. ' ' One John Harris told the committee that he himself hauled truck loads of plank onto a fire. He said all kinds of materials were 'delib- erately destroyed and wasted. ' The E. C. Bowman, whom I have already cited, said he worked as a time-keeper. One day he talked with a secret service man about the waste, and he esti- mated that there were 1,000,000 feet -of good lumber in a dump pile near the river, four or five hundred feet long and twenty feet high, which was burned. William Spencer, an honeSt look- ing carpenter who worked at Camp Sherman, testified that he didn't think 'any man could estimate the quantity of material that was lost.' He saw the bonfires going all the time. Leo M. Kellhoffer said he saw a pile of waste that 'would cover a good sized square' and he said he thought it 'wilful waste.' "Colonel A. B. Warfield, of the regular army, in the construc- tion division, testified that 'there was a great waste of material, waste of time, waste of labor, and a great waste of government money.' Various witnesses testified one-fourth of the materials were wasted and that one-fourth of the men were useless, while one man said that three or four thousand men at Camp Sherman could have done the work of the 14,000 employed there and in shorter time, under good supervision. ' ' "And why was it done so?" asked Mrs. Miller. ' ' There is only one answer to that question, Mrs. Miller, " said Watson, "because it was wanted done that way. As General Goethals had warned them the contractors were interested in profits only, and the greater the costs the greater their profits. I heard one witness testify that 'When I complained that it was not going as it ought to, the men would answer, "What do you care? You are getting yours out of it, and the contractor don't- care. He gets a percentage out of every dollar spent here ; the more it costs the more it suits him." ' That was the keynote. Those who wanted to do right were told to do wrong. Men were on the payrolls when they were not there. Materials were not checked over and they were not invoiced or accounted for, but they were all paid for and some of them twice over. "The men who sold the materials were told to mark up their prices instead of offering the lowest prices to sell their goods in competition with others. The estimates of the investigating com- mittee show that $480,000,000 of the $1,200,000,000 spent on the HOW THE CANTONMENTS WERE BUILT 63 cantonments could have been saved — they were wasted, paid without returns or stolen. This is as much as the Panama Canal cost. The associated contractors who furnished nothing biit their 'personal supervision' got nearly $25,000,000 for 'personal supervision.' One sub-contractor admitted that he got $91,000 for his part of 'personal supervision,' and then he sublet it to an apprentice and divided with him, keeping however $78,000 for himself, although he was never on the job at all. One man of draft age got as his percentage, $250,000, which was the limit one man could pull down in five months of such ' personal super- vision. ' He got rich in five months. ' ' "In five months," sneered the Lieutenant. "It would have taken my whole company of 250 men three years to have earned that much at $30 per — and for that we had to stand up in line to be shot at, or to be blown up with bombs dropped from the air." "Yes, and do you wonder," added Watson, "that some of the service men are sore when they see such a $250,000 man ridinc; in his Rolls-Royce while they and their comrades limp along?" "There was something wrong," sighed Mrs. Miller. "The money we saved and put into bonds was wasted under the super- vision of men toiwhom the government paid such vast profits or large salaries, while to the men who did the real work of t'lc war so little was paid. ' ' ' ' ' Fighting isn 't a matter of pay, mother, ' ' said the Lieuten- ant. "We do not complain of the pay for in any right sense we could not be paid, but we do object to stay-at-homes robbing the treasury while we were gone." "And the men who got these. $250,000 chunks," said Watson, "will be asked to contribute to campaign funds accordingly to help keep in power the party under which they prospered so greatly. ' ' "Not with my vote," said Mr. Miller, with his fist coming down on the table. "And not with mine," added Mrs. Miller. ' "Nor with mine," said Mary. ' ' That reconciles me to votes for women, ' ' said Watson. ' ' If you had ever been in love with one, ' ' said the Lieutenant, "you wouldn't be in need of any such reconciliation." 64 FROM FOUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON CHAPTER XXIII The Vastness' of the Wastages " I am about to return to Iowa, ' ' said Mr. Miller, ' ' and if the farmers at the Four Cprners, al out whom you have been twitting me should ask me how much money was wasted during- the war, what shall I tell them?" "That is a hard question to answer," replied Watson. "All the accountants of the government will probably never find the answer to it. It is often hard to determine what is waste even. Prom first to last it reads like the tale of an orgy and debauch. The vast sum of $54,948,063,892.03 ^ was appropriated to carry on the war and the government in the meantime. Do not try to realize the vastness of it, for you cannot do it. It means that if almost a third of everything in this country, including the land, as it existed before the war, had been converted into money, it would make up about what was appropriated to be spent. ' ' "But they didn't spend it all?" "Oh, no, fortunately not. The reports of the treasury de- partment show that there was actually paid out from April 6, 1917, when war was declared, to the present time, nearly $37,000,000,000, which includes the normal expenses of the gov- ernment. Deducting their normal expenses it leaves the war cost at about $30,000,000,000, of which about $10,000,000,000 was loaned to foreign governments, which may be paid back, leaving the cost of the war around $20,000,000,000, and, of course, these are round figures. ' ' ' ' And what part of that, do you think was wasted or stolen ? ' ' ' ' That, as I have said, can never be determined. The investi- gations have not been completed and they never will be com- pleted. The records are scattered and they are indefinite. In- voices and vouchers are missing. They probably were never made. When the president asked about Hog Island, for in- stance, the accountant reported that some $10,000,000 spent there was "unaccounted for," and the president said there was "some extravagance and carelessness" — but in his opinion that was not enough to call for any official action. When ten millions can be dismissed you can have an idea of the official state of mind. When harder pressed they say, 'Oh, shut up, we won the war, didn't we, and wasn't it worth it?' " THE VASTNESS OF THE WASTAGES 65 "What war did they win at Hog Island?" asked Mr. Miller, sneeringly. "I thought the boys won the war on the Mame, at St. Mihiel and on the Meuse-Argonne lines. ' ' "Yes, and there they won it by fighting without American airplanes, without American guns or shells or munitions for which we had spent hundreds of millions and billions even. But to answer your question more definitely, it is estimated by men on the investigating committees that of the $20,000',000',000 ex- pended by the War Department alone, half, or $8,000,000,000, was practically wasted or lost on projects that were foolish and unproductive of practical results and that accomplished nothing toward winning the war, or in extravagant and unnecessary prices paid for things that did have merit in them. One of the members of the investigating committees told me the other day that when the American people realize fully what was done there would be a political, if not an actual revolution. He told me that he had seen the evidences of ' an orgy of waste, of extrava- gance, of dishonesty, of fraud ia the disbursements of these billions taken by taxes and borrowed from the people that sur- passes not only everything recorded in history, but exceeds the wildest imagination'." "But if you can not place the amount, can the blame be placed anywhere?" asked Mr. Miller. "The blame began in the system or systems of doing things. Congress at first proposed properly a joint committee to super- vise war expenditures. Congress appropriated the money and congress wanted properly to know how it was being spent. But the president complained that that would be interfering with his prerogatives, that it would hamper him and his subordinates and cast distrust on them, as if they could not be trusted. And so congress abandoned its proper functions and prerogatives and voted to the president the most extraordinary powers ever dele- gated to one man — without consulting congress the president could erect a ten million dollar building in Washington or order a billion dollars to be spent on experiments. The president may have meant well enough, but he assumed more than any one man could do and he was drunk with the sense of power. He had to leave it to others and his judgment of subordiaates was atro- ciously bad. He often showed the most implicit confidence in the most inefficient and incompetent and even dishonest men. 66 FROM FOUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON Those who made him believe that they believed in him could carry on as they pleased. "Congress should not have abdicated and the freedom of the press should not have been stifled. If there had been more pub- licity there would have been less plundering. Publicity, as I have already told you, is daylight and thieves hate daylight. ' ' "And did not the president realize it at last?" "Yes, I think he did," replied Watson. "I myself think that that explains why, in the election of 1918, he asked the people to elect a wholly partisan congress. If that sort of a congress had been elected, which fortunately it was not, all that has now been revealed would have remained hidden. In two years more the records and the witnesses would have been dispersed and covered up." "Do you make that as an accusation?" "No, as an explanation of an unheard of appeal on the part of a president, and while he may have been influenced thereto by other political considerations, this suggests itself to me, as I behold this monstrous condition. Perhaps the president persuad- ed himself that what had been done could not be undone and' that it would be better for the people not to know about it." CHAPTER XXIV Did It Before and After the War Too "But perhaps they simply lost their heads during the excite- ment of the war, ' ' suggested Mrs Miller, trying to think as kindly as possible. ' ' Yes, and that it was all new business to them, ' ' added Mr. Miller, ' ' and they got swamped in the magnitude of their under- takings until no one knew what was being done or how it was being done, or even what it cost. ' ' "That's a kindly view," replied Watson quickly. "But un- fortunately, it is not true. They luiew what they wanted to do, and that is the way they wanted to do it. At least the men who acted as advisory committees knew what they wanted. They had plenty of warnings of what their systems and methods would DID IT BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR TOO 67 lead to. Gen. Goethals warned them about the cost plus system, a,nd about the cantonment wastages that would result, but they listened to the men who expected to get the contracts instead. And take the wooden ships, did not General Goethals quarrel with them over those ships? Did he not tell them that building them would be a wastage of time and materials and the people 's moneys? Has any one of those ships been in use? Did any one carry anything at any time, and are they not about to be charged off as loss — after costing $250,000,000 — of course, that may not be much — it is only a quarter of another billion." "That's SO', too," admitted Mr. Miller. "And take their transactions before the war," continued Wat- son, "they were on a par with those of the war. Let me cite you the story of what are known as the Bannerman guns. They belong to the navy of which Josephus Daniels has been secretary and Franklin D. Roosevelt an assistant secretary. This is a lot of guns, thirty in number. They were good guns, but they became a little obsolete in some of their parts, due to new inven- tions. The secretary of the navy under President Taft, like a good business man, had them modernized in those particular parts and when that was done they were stamped models of 1912. They were powerful weapons, would shoot seven or eight miles. But the Daniels-Franklin D. Roosevelt regime had no sooner come into power than they sold those guns for 'junk'." "When was that?" asked Mr. Miller. "It was in 1913, they sold them," replied Watson. "The official records in this transaction show that eightee. l of the guns were sold to Francis Bannerman of New York, a dealer in such things, for from fifty-three to seventy-one cents per hundred pounds — a low price for even scrap metal — it meant that the government got $78.67 for 6-inch, 30-caliber guns, which had been remade up to date and were as good as new. Later twelve similar guns were disposed of to another man for about $200 each or $2,386.88 for the lot and these also fell into Mr. Banner- man's hands. That was their idea of doing business before the war was thought of." "And what happened to the guns?" asked Mr. Miller. "That's the story of it, and I'm coming to it," replied Wat- son. "Testifying before the congressional committee under oath, Mr. Bannerman, who is an excellent citizen and patriotic 68 FROM FOUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON too, said that when the United States entered the war he pre- pared a list of materials which he was willing to furnish the government at prices and on terms to suit — he wanted to serve his country rather than make money. This offer included the thirty guns. The government through some official replied to him that it was not interested in them — it was going to make better guns and lots of them. Having been rebuffed, Mr. Ban- nerman later put a price of $5,000 on the unmounted guns and $7,500 on the mounted ones, or about $6,000 average price. That is all Mr. Bannermau told the congressional committee that he had ever asked for them. But on the first of June, 1918, when the men who had boasted that they were going to make bigger and better guns had fallen down in the business and the army in France was crying for guns, a representative of the war depart- ment appeared before a subcommittee on fortificatiotis and asked to have appropriated $450,000 for these thirty Bannerman guns — and the subcommittee was told to keep the matter secret for they did not want the enemy to find out about the number or size of the guns involved." "And the appropriation Avas made?" "Yes, it was made," said Watson, "and without any ques- tions asked for questions asked wotild have been called lack of patriotism on the part of congressmen. And so the war depart- ment in June, 1918, bought back for $450,000 the thirty guns that the navy department had sold in 1913 for a total of $3,- 902.94. Not only was the whole transaction stupid, but it has never been explained why $15,000 apiece was paid for guns that the seller says he never asked more than $5,000 or $7,500 for, depending on whether they "were mounted or unmounted." "Commissions, perhaps," suggested the Lieutenant. "Perhaps," said Watson. "They had men to collect com- missions on many things and that is how the surplus crop of war millionaires was produced. They have been doing things in the same reckless way since. I was present at a hearing the other day where the fact was brought out that some time after the signing of the armistice the housing corporation of the gov- ernment made a lease for what are known as the Norfolk County ferries at a rental of $135,000 a year when the valuation of the properties totaled only $164,000 and the government then pro- ceeded to spend $1,350,000 in rehabilitating them. That is only DID IT BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR TOO 69 a sample of how things were done after the war was over. No one seemed to have learned his lesson. ' ' "But they are talking about reducing public expenditures," said Mr. Miller, "and the other day I read a statement in which a high official, or ex-official, may be it was Mr. McAdoo, or Franklin D. Roosevelt, held the republican congress responsible for the high taxes now." "Yes, I read that myself," said "Watson, sneeringly, "I read it only to realize how men can misrepresent the facts. The facts are that the executives of the government and not the congress- men spend the moneys and by the executives I mean the presi- dent, his ten cabinet officials and their various subordinates — they are the ones to blame for whatever blame there is in the expenditiires. They have spent the $40,000,000,000 — mind the figures, forty billions m the last three years and for much of it they have not yet made an accounting, nor do they intend to make one or can they make one without convicting themselves of wastages that would stagger the people. ' ' "But why does congress appropriate for them?" "Congress under the Republicans who are now in the majority has had them on the carpet and has labored with them to cut down their estimates. And when they refused to do so, con- gress has refused to appropriate the full amounts they have de- manded. Congress cut their estimates down by $1,350,000,000. — these are round figures — and for that congress was in turn abused for crippling the service by every executive department. Congress has appropriated only what it could not escape appro- priating for the bills they had incurred and were still incurring had to be paid. For the coming year, beginning June 30, 1920, their estimated needs added to the fixed costs of the government, including interest, totaled $6,000,000,000 and congress is going to appropriate only $4,700,000,000 or thereabouts — and it will make them economize to that extent. ' ' "It can he done, it must be done" declared Mr. Miller "for we around the Four Corners are getting tired of putting up the money for them to waste." "Congress proposes to make them do it," added Watson. "But wait and hear them howl for they have become so used to spending that they think it is their right." ' ' ^ p d hqw aboijt lowering taxes?" a^ked Mr, Miller, 70 FEOM FOUE CORNERS TO WASHINGTON "They can be lowered when we reduce expenditures," re- plied Watson, ' ' and not until then. And we must bear in mind that from one-sixth to one-eighth of the taxes we are paying now and will be paying for some time represent interest on the money that was recklessly spent and wasted during the war and after it, and which was borrowed in the form of Liberty bonds, the proceeds of which helped to make the 28,000, more or less, new millionaires we have in the land. It will not do now to blame a Republican congress for levying taxes to pay their bad debts. ' ' CHAPTER XXV. Some Underlying Fa^ts "It's too bad," said Mrs. Miller in talking it over with her husband, a few days after the conversation about the canton- ments, ' ' yes, it is too bad, ' ' she sighed, ' ' that the business end of the war was so badly managed. One would think that men would at least be honest in a time of national stress and peril. And how could any one sit down and count his profits while our boys were giving up their lives to safeguard not only our liber- ties but the very property out of which they made their profits. ' ' "You must allow for greed to manifest itself under any and all circumstances no matter how grave," Mr. Miller told her." "There are men mean enough to coin a mother's tears. I lay the blame on the men who permitted them to ply their nefarious trades. No one responsible to the people seems to have used business sense in spending the people's money." While they were talking about such things, Sergeant Watson dropped in and they were of course glad to see him again. In fact, he had become part of their lives in Washington. ' ' I was passing your hotel, ' ' said Watson in his usual offhand way, "and I thought I would just say good morning to you folljs from the Four Comers." "We were almost talking aboiit you," said Mr. Miller. "I was saying that the things you have told us about were due to the lack of business ablity in the men in high offices. ' ' "In which you are entirely right, Mr, Miller," said Watson, SOME UNDERLYING FACTS 71 "I heard Secretary Baker testify before the congressional com- mittee. It was almost pitiful to hear him confess that he did not know what was going on. The most merciful view one can take of him is that he was imposed upon by all sorts of schemers. He surrendered many of the prerogatives and powers of his ofSce to men who were interested financially. He appointed men he did not know about and when they did wrong he felt called upon to defend them. He protected men like Deeds and he bestowed distinguished service medals on men like Disque. Every investi- gation he started petered out. Private soldiers might be court- martialled for petty infractions, but profiteering and even thiev- ing civilians were not so much as reprimanded even when ex- posed. And over him President Wilson, supremely oblivious to practical things, and groping about after the theoretical, was pleased to think that Mr. Baker was the greatest of all admini- strators. They were collectively the victims of self delusion and mutual admiration. ' ' ' ' And they kept the people fooled, ' ' said Mr. Miller. "For that they had the most complete organization ever known," said Watson. "With censorships and intimidations they suppressed the truth. A newspaper that in those days called attention to doings like those of Deeds or Disque was in danger of being branded a public enemy. The official infor- mation was largely misinformation. They sent out pictures of airplanes that were never made and their head of publicity, a man named Creel, confessed in the very beginning of the war that he had made up a story of an encounter between transports carrying American troops and GreiTnan submarines that had never taken place, and his explanation of that incident when it was exposed was that he had believed it would please the Ameri- can people to read it on their Fourth of July! Every depart- ment had its own publicity department and the pamphlets and papers and items for the press teemed with sickening flatteries of themselves. In everything they emitted there was concealed propaganda." . ...... ■ ,, ' ' The greatest evil was in the suppression of public discussion, admitted Mr. Miller. ,,,.-,,,,. , I "There was none permitted," said Watson. A paper or pub- licist who criticised anything they did was called 'pro-German,' or something else. "Finally when the president went abroad, 72 FROM FOUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON he literally picked up the cables even and took them with him. When the war was over he seized them in the name of war and permitted nothing to pass over them except what siiited his ends. In Paris one of the newspapers printed some adverse comments from an American newspaper and the president de- manded of the French government that a repetition of it be not permitted. He did it under the threat of America's withdraw- ing from the peace conference or having the conference removed from Paris. After that two American censors passed on all American comments printed in French papers. The French people did not know what many Americans were thinking about. Those who were informed marveled how an American president could so play the autocrat. And when he came home bringing the cables with him he demanded that what he had done should neither be questioned nor even discussed in the United States senate. ' ' "It's astounding when you think of it now," said Mr. Miller. "There was never before in American history such an asser- tion of one-man and autocratic powers. When men of his own party did not agree with him he demanded their defeat at the polls and he finally asked the American people to elect to con- gress none except men of his own party. There was never such egotism, vanity and autocracy set up before. ' ' "And I have heard it said they spent money freely on that Paris trip," said Mr. Miller. "It reeked of official extravagance," said Watson. "Instead of going as plain Americans to a business meeting, they journey- ed in the pomp of royal splendor. The official entourage con- sisted of something like 1,350 persons, advisers, experts, theor- ists, dreamers, writers who were willing to prostitute their tal- ents and what not. For that entourage the ordinary naval cooks of the good ship George Washington were not good enough. On the eve of sailing the then administration paper, the New York Times, December. 2, 1918, announced that 'Louis Ceres, the chef of the Hotel Biltmore, with his staff and crew of waiters ' would go along and that 'The catering would be done under J. J. Menotti, a restaurant manager at the Biltmore' and that he would have with him 'fifty cooks, confectioners, bakers and so on.' Even the ship's band was not good enough, but it was announced that ' an orchestra will go along to play during lunch- THE FAREWELL IN WASHINGTON 73 eons and dinners. ' In Paris they rented whole hotels and lived in a state of splendor." "I have heard the boys who were waiting in Paris to be taken back home tell of it," said the Lieutenant — who had also dropped in. "It was their first shock after the war, their first ■disillusionment. They had done the hard work of the war. They had left many of their comrades buried on the battle- fields. They walked the streets of Paris with hardly a ,sou in their pockets — and there they saw the officials of their govern- ment living in oriental splendors, men and women who rode in state in escorted automobiles. ■ I recall one boy who was for a time my hospital mate telling me that he felt his ardor cooling off and his heart hardening as he, from the streets, below gazed up at the brilliant scenes that were enacted, the dmitig and the wining and the dancing that were carried on by those who had come over to write the peace for the war which they had won with suffering and the blood of their comrades." "What a departure from the days of Benjamin Franklin," thought Mrs. Miller. "Yes," said Mr. Miller, "they boasted that America had ar- rived, but I think they might better have said that America had departed — the better America had departed from its own prop- er course. And emulating, if not following the official pattern, the new made rich and the rest at home started on an era of extravagance that has made all thoughtful men tremble for their country, an era of conscienceless grabbing and spending the evil effects of which threaten to outlast the moral effects of a great war of sacrifices on the part of the people. ' ' CHAPTER XXVI The Farewell in Washington A few evenings later there was a farewell dinner for the Mil- lers in Washington, given at Mary's apartments. Mr. Miller called it a supper, but Sergeant Watson insisted it was a ban- quet. It was a collaborated meal, for each contributed something to it. Watson sent up a steak so big that Mary complained there was hardly room for it in her kitchenette. 74 FEOM FOUR COENEES TO WASHINGTON "I am glad I came to Washington," said Mr. Miller during the dinner. "But now I am glad to begin to think of home again. If Betty and I stayed here much longer we would be spoiled — like most of Washington." "I hope you won't think the old farm commonplace after all this ado, ' ' said Mrs. Miller. "Nothing is ever commonplace to persons of common-sense," replied Mr. Miller. "I like my work better than any idling the world affords — and if it had not been for Watson's war revela- tions I think I would not have lasted as long as I have in Wash- ington. ' ' "Washington is not an altogether wholesome influence on some men," remarked Watson. "Both the social and the polit- ical life of the national capital is distracting and often enervat- ing. To many men in Washington the country seems far away and some forget about its needs." "That's the way I have been thinking of it," said Mr. Miller. "And that is why I am now more than ever in favor of voting out the set that's in. I am in favor of periodic changes. Just now I feel more than a party reason for wanting a change in the government. The country needs a house cleaning and it ought to begin right here in the national capital. The men who are in here now have not done well. The evidence shows that they have been wasters of money. They have spent without results and without regard for the consequences on the tax payers. They have done many things badly. And they have everything so badly muddled up that we need a new set of men to do some house cleaning. To leave the old fellows in would mean covering up and patching up. We need to begin over, nationally. The viewpoint of these men has become distorted. I feel there is an unhealthy national sentiment here. For one I want a change from top to bottom." ' ' Get up and make it a speech, ' ' urged Watson. "Yes, a speech. Dad," added the Lieutenant. "I am not a speech-maker, and you kids are jollying me," said Mr. Miller, as he arose unconsciously to his feet. "But when I get back to the Four Corners I am not going to tell each one separately what I have seen and heard here, but I shall as- semble all the neighbors and literally make them a speech. I wish that every voter in the country could sojourn here for a THE FAREWELL IN WASHINGTON 75 while as I have done. If they could do that the next national election would be so overwhelming that it would amount to a political revolution. I am enlisted for the campaign, of that I assure you. I will spread the truth at the Four Corners, but there are others who can reach the millions who need to know the truths that I have learned here and it is up to you men who write, Watson, to spread that truth. When I came here you were discouraged. You asked 'What is the use' — there is so much to tell and the people often seem so indifferent, they are so deeply absorbed in the greed of the times and in the dissipations of spending money that is becoming every day cheaper. But as I told you then, I tell you again, everything is the use. If such orgies of waste and riots of extravagance and pilferings and big and little thefts are not exposed we shall be confronted with a debauched national morality. - What is the use of men being hon- est if those who are dishonest prosper and are not exposed or punished ? I return to my original illustration. If a tenant has not looked well after my farm I refuse to renew his lease. I am in favor of an accounting here in Washington. I want not only the old books audited by new men, but I want new men to start a new set of books here. I am in favor of making a new start here — of starting all over again and I want to see the new start made along the old lines of political responsibility to the people. (Applause.) Now I am through." "Speech by Watson," called out the Lieutenant. "Yes, speech, speech," said the others. "I need no urging," said Watson as he arose to his feet. "No banquet as sumptuous as this has been is ever complete without a few speeches. To what Mr. Miller has said I want to add that what we need here in Washington first and most of all is a restoration of really representative government. Congress has been sidetracked under this regime. What friction is here now is due to the fact that some congressmen are still virile enough to refuse to be reduced to the status of bell-hops and rubber- stamps. What we have had too much of here is government by executive orders, bureaus, commissions and the representatives of classes. Authority has been usurped and it has been exer- cised under threats. When we declared war on Germany and made the first appropriations to carry it on, congress proposed to create a committee to help supervise the expenditures of that 76 FEOM FOUE CORNEES TO WASHINGTON GOING RIGHT ON EXPENDING But perhaps it is Mr. Burleson's fault. The news that the war is over may have been delayed in the mails. THE PAEEWELL IN WASHINGTON 77 money, but they were told that that would be an interference with the functions of the executive. Congress then capitulated. It ceased to function. Its powers were transferred to bodies of men who were not elected by the people. The responsibility was transferred to irresponsible bodies often dominated by men who were interested in the profits of war contracts. What it resulted in has been brought out by the investigations that have been made by the congressional committees during the past few months — and the half will never be told of the extravagance and the waste and the downright thievery by which an indebtedness far in excess of any legitimate war expenditures has been fas- tened on the country, imposing taxes that will be burdensome for a generation to come. "Of the twenty billions that were spent by what is known as the War Department, one-third, and some estimate almost one- half, was wasted and stolen, transferred from the pockets of the people to the pockets of men who are richer through the waging of a war that has made the country poorer. Take the airplanes as an illustration. All the airplanes that were turned out — and most of them were utter failures — and all the engines, and the legitimate cost of them cannot be figured out at more than fifty millions of dollars — as England and France paid for similar machines — and the other thousand millions, or one billion dol- lars were wasted in one way or another. It was the same in nearly every department of construction and outfitting. (Ap- plause.) "But that is past and the money is gone. Much of it can and ought to be recovered, but it probably will not be done. That, Mr. Miller, is what I meant when I used the question. What is the use? The thing to do now is to begin over and the way to begin over is to put in new men — men with clean hands and clear heads. The old books ought to be audited — but it is more important to open a new set of books. Let them be opened along the lines of the old national economy and morality. Let us restore th,e doctrines and ideas of accountability and responsibil- ity in government. I wish that we could have a few men like you, Mr. Miller, to carry these ideas back to every Four Corners of the land." "Send them the facts as- you have told them to me," said Mr. Miller, "and the people will do the rest. The people are still 78 FROM POUR CORNERS TO WASHINGTON honest and they still want to see those things done which are right and just. ' ' "Yes, trust the people still," said Mrs. Miller. "And since the women may have to take their share of the work and the responsibility in the next election," said Mary, rising to her feet, "perhaps it may not be out of place for me to speak here." "Yes, by all means," said Watson, "make us a speech." "It is not a speech I want to make, but I want to talk to you," Mary went on. "I want to talk to you about those who did not fail their country, however many failures may have been made here in Washington. I refer to the boys who wore the uniforms of their country in France, or who wore them at home ready to go where duty might call them. I saw them before they went to the trenches, and I saw them when they returned worn and wounded. It was my business to help nurse them and to me it has been the holiest work of my life. They did their work with- out profit, without pay even for certainly no man will call thirty dollars a month either profit or pay. And they believed that those who were doing the things that had to be done at home were doing them in a like spirit and in a like way without profit or pay. Imagine how they felt when they returned from those trenches to learn the truth about how the business was done at home! Think of the boy who limps because he did his duty passing the man in the luxurious limousine who worked for the government at home ! ' ' They wanted to applaud, as Mary paused, overcome by her own emotions, but they sat still. "And last of all and most of all," she went on, "let me speak of those who are not going home tomorrow, and who will never go home again — those who have passed on in spirit and whose bodies lie buried in France. To me, oh, in some mysterious way, they are all here tonight. They are here tonight, the men who died at Chateau Thierry, who died in the front of our tri- umphant armies from the Marne to the Meuse and through the Argonne forests and in the St. Mihiel salient, and wherever the Americans fought — I see them smiling as they go to battle and I see them smiling as they are borne back to die, so brave, so young, the down still upon their f aceS ! Oh, I see them still and we who were with them can never forget them! Their services BACK TO IOWA 79 are without stain and their glory can never be tarnished. . . Friends, pardon me. . . But I wanted to say this for those who did their duty with no thought except of service to their country. ' ' Mary's words left them all in silence for many moments. "Yes, Mary," said Mr. Miller at last. "Our boys made the war worth while. . . And then to think that while a million men were making such sacrifices and three million more stood ready to take their places that those for whom such sacrifices were being made could tolerate in places of power and privilege so many who served so poorly and who prospered so greedily. ' ' "But not even a great cause can be expected to purify and en- noble all men, ' ' suggested Mrs. Miller. CHAPTEE XXVII Back to Iowa On the following morning the five persons whose visits and conversations in Washington we have followed in these pages, met again at the Union station. Mr. and Mrs. Miller, accom- pa,nied by their son. Lieutenant Miller, were leaving for Iowa. Sergeant Watson and Miss Mary Mills were there to say good- bye to them. All matters had been arranged. The Lieutenant was going to spend the winter months in the school at Ames, Iowa, to fit himself for scientific farming. He had seen the cities and their white lights and they held no lure for him. "I want to live where things grow," he had said to his friend Watson. ' ' I feel I belong to the west, and to the farm. My war injury will hamper me some, but I shall devote the more time to management. I have no desire to follow any other calling, and when you come to visit us, as you must do, I will show you that country life is more worth while than your boasted city life. ' ' Miss Mills was to remain in Washington until the first of the new year, to complete her hospital service, after which she would return to the college which she had left nearly two years before, to complete her course of studies, with credits for hospital train- ing which would enable her to get the coveted degree. And after 80 FEOM FOUR CORNEES TO WASHINGTON that, in the time when roses bloom in Iowa, there would be a wedding which would be the culmination of a romance of the war. "As for me," Watson had told them, "there is nothing just ahead except the slavery to which those are doomed who develop writing as a profession. There is no rest for us as long as there is anything happening in the world, or as long as there is an idea to expound." And as for Mr. and Mrs. Miller, they were perhaps the hap- piest of all. They were taking back home with them their only son and only child. "Keep up the good work of exposing all those who have dealt unjustly with the people," Mr. Miller said to Sergeant Watson. "Let not your pen rest." "I'll do my duty," that ready man replied. "The only thing I am worried about is. Will the people do theirs?" "If you will give them the facts," replied Mr. Miller," then don't worry about what they will dp. All they need is to know the facts. ' ' "I know it," said Watson. "The people are all right." "A wise man said the other day that this country has a great deal of hay down, more than it has ever had down before at one time. Much of it has been spoiled ; some of it may still be saved. Let us save what we can of the old crops — and let us see to it that we get better men and better machinery to look after the next crop." ' ' That is one way of putting it, ' ' said Watson. "We need some new hired men in Washington, Watson, and I think we are going to get them, ' ' said Mr. Miller. While he was still talking the train began to move. Hasty good-byes were re-said. Hands and handkerchiefs were waved — and then those who had left and those who were left felt alike that something had temporarily gone out of their lives. SEEMS TO BE NO STOPPING HIM Cornell University Library PS 1358.C58F9 From Four Corners to Washington :a littl 3 1924 022 021 921