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Show 1511 DELS OF OK COSTLY War Department Had Granted Discharge of Trooper Taken Prisoner. WASHINGTON. Feb. 9. Delay in delivering de-livering orders to forces -in Fiance was responsible for Daniel D. GalKpher, an American trooper, being: taken prisoner in the first Gorman raid on American trenches. Represent a live Huddleston of Alabama today told t lie house committee on expenditures In the postofi'ice department. depart-ment. Relatives of Galiielier. who is not yet 1ft years of ace. prevailed upon the war ! J.epariment to pr.T.t his dim'harse. Orders Or-ders to release h:m were sent on Sep- : lember C6. hut did not arrive until October Octo-ber i5. Galligher went to the trenches October -li. The committee tod:iy was considering Representative Britten's resolution for investigation in-vestigation of the mail censorship fit New York and delays in delivering "letters from home" to the. troops. Gilbert K. Hyatt, president of the National Na-tional Federation of Postal Employees, told the co-.nnittee that conditions in the Chelsea terminal in New York, from where mail to American soldiers Is dispatched, dis-patched, were deplorable. During the holidays, he said, parcel post packages were delayed so Ions that the contents often became decomposed. Representative Rogers of Massachusetts, who recently spoke In the house on reports re-ports of delay In mails to France, said recent re-cent communications with the post office department convinced him that the authorities au-thorities were, doing- all they could to relieve re-lieve the situation. Representative Prltten said his chief information had come, from James V. Foster, formerly member of the censor-shir censor-shir committee nt New York as a representative repre-sentative of the committee on public information. in-formation. Britten said that Foster woulj testify that only " per- cent of mail leaving leav-ing the Chelsea terminal wasbincr censored, cen-sored, because of inefficient hondllnsr. and tba t he would give conclusive evidone that important papers were stolen from the office, notwithstanding official denials. de-nials. The papers stolen. Fritten said Foster told him. were documents from Mexico City, presumably a part of German Ger-man pmpaKan-Ui. Foster did not arrive here today and will testify later. |