Rensselaer Journal, Volume 10, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 April 1901 — AS THE WORLD REVOLVES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AS THE WORLD REVOLVES

SVoh from XJncle Sam. Charges lately having been made at the office of the commissary general that large quantities of valuable stores shipped from San Francisco for Manila have been disappearing for several months, Secretary Root cabled orders to General MacArthur to make a thorough investigation for the purpose of ascertaining if there was not a conspiracy to defraud the government. The arrest of Captain Barrows, quartermaster of the department of Southern Luzon, and the rest of his accomplices was the direct result of these orders. It is not stated how extensive have been the government’s losses, but it is believed that they will amount to several hundred thousand dollars in the aggregate. The name of the contractor who has been placed under arrest is being withheld for reasons best known to the secretary of war. He is believed to be the dominating figure of the conspiracy, and when the facts are all known the secretary and adjutant general are convinced that it will be disclosed that he is the man who has made it easy for Barrows and his commissary sergeants to dispose of government flour and other rations and collect cash from the persons to whom they were delivered. The information that has reached Washington thus far proves that the commissary system in the East is conducted in a loose manner. The fact that the losses have been going on for months is causing Secretary Root and the president a great deal of annoyance and will doubtless urge them to demand that drastic measures be taken, not only to punish everybody concerned, but to put an end to future raids on army stores. It is feared that when the facts are all known it will be found that the raiding has not been confined to Manila, but extends throughout the entire department of the Philippines and that the losses Mil amount to upward of $1,000,000. What the war department fears is that Barrows is simply a cog in a vast machine that has been op-

erating to defraud the government and that , many other men better known than himself will be dragged into the scandal before it has been closed.

CAPT. J. F. BARROWS. [Accused of Being the Head of a Big Army Commissary Swindle in Manila.]