Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 201, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 August 1920 — BOUGHT TRUCKS DESPITE SURPLUS [ARTICLE]

BOUGHT TRUCKS DESPITE SURPLUS

War Department Hastened to Spend Appropriation ' Before it Would Revert Back to Treasury. CONTRACT ONCE CANCELLED . —- —= • .v Washington, D. C. — (Special. — Examinations of the report of the congressional committee investigating war expenditures reveals a further chapter in the unreasonable lavishness of the Wilson administration in the purchase of military supplies. In a recent report by the committee it was shown that the war department, eager to spend, purchased motor trucks it did not need simply because a left-over approprlaton would otherwise have, by legal provision, reverted back to the government and gotten beyond the clutches of the department. On August 30, 1918, one thousand three-ton trucks were ordered from the Milltor Corporation at $5,610 each, according to the report of the congressional committee on war expenditures. This contract was cancelled November 7, 1918, the government paying the Militor Corporation $286,947.98 as damages for cancellation. Contract for Cancelled Order. On December 17, 1918, a little over a year later, the war department again entered into a contract with the Militor Corporation for the same three-ton trucks. This time the war department wanted seventy-five trucks and agreed to pay a total of $733,195.68, including small parts. The price per truck, -not including cost of spare parts and war tax, was $7,702.91. A change was later made in the size of wheels, adding SB9 to the cost of each truck. Purchase Was Disapproved. Col. Noble of the motors and vehicles branch of the office of the director of purchase, in testifying before the committee March 15, 1920, submitted a letter from Quartermas-ter-General Rogers disapproving the purchase of trucks at the time the letter was written, October 11, 1919. Beat Corporations Law.

Col. Moody of the ordnance department, testified that the money for these trucks was to come out of a war-time appropriation which was to expire June 30, 1920. Representative Oscar E. Bland of the Second Indiana district, who conducted the inquiry, expressed the whole cause for the contract when he said to Col. Moody: “And they found, in a left-over appropriation, enough money that they could grab to apply to the purchase of these trucks, and they took it; they did not dare to wait until the 30th of June, for fear they could not get the money.”