Show ft t I I 1 I I I I t I I I M H. ej i THE fHE TRANSPORT SCANDAL i M After After all it seems that there wa was wad something In the th transport scandal and sOIl something ething well ll fitted to remind one of Spanish war wal days daJ's when the Gov Go Government was wa pa paying ing ten prices for old condemned hulks like the aud spending millions on OIl them in repairs The publication today of a synopsis of Secretary Roots Root's answer t to the Ule House resolution of lu l March ch ch 15 calling for the reports of oi Colonel Mans faus and Lieutenant Colonel Chamberlain on the transport service between San Francisco I A and the Philippines and for all other information connected with the subject shows pretty 1 ively that beneath the smoke of t the c transport ti port scandal gossip of the past months there has bas lur lurked ed p. p t goo good l deal of the fire of fact The revelations contained in the th papers papers papers' submitted submitted sub sub- by the War Yar Department do not make male nice reading reading- They are redolent of favoritism corruption f t tion on mid and to put it plainly of bribery One of the tile k transports ran in the service the Meade as it appears was twenty seven seven years rears old when the Government bought it her for four hundred thousand dollars The he sum he hundred d and eighty thousand dollars has since e 11 expended on her The fhe chances are that commercially was not worth more than one hundred thousand dollars s if that at the date of 1 her purchase The transport Hancock also was vas most geler generously us y repaired repair a and 1 supplied with luxurious fittings furniture and equipment so 80 that passengers might su sustain tain an and perils I of II a long ocean voyage amid surroundings that should make the Astoria Waldorf-Astoria aldorf a look like an Alaska Alas Alas- ka ii prospectors prospector's shack This cost Uncle Sam am am half a million jillion dollars and according to lo the memorandum o of a B. B M. M Young ac accompanying p n i the inspect e j i jiW r- r i 1 f I s 7 ing ng officers officer's reports the money was wag expended under he the direction and through the bands hands of persons officially officially of- of of 1 unknown to the transport service The General likewise r remarks upon n the interesting fact that thata a man blissfully ignorant on On the subject of of paints was appointed to supervise painting and that hat a single ingle favored firm had been paid almost three hundred and fifty do dollars lars for paints in ju two years Jears and two months We pick out the the foregoing items as illustrative of the elevated ancient time tnie Somebody has been having at the expense of the suffering thelong suffering long American American Amerlean Amer Amer- ican lean tax payer out there in Frisco Inferior material material ma mn- at twice the market prices for the best 1 laVish lav lavish a v ish waste of money on superfluous ornamentation and equipment and extravagance all an over oyer the lot lot lot- these are the things that protrude from the Department Department De De- answer like the bowsprit from an old hundred gun frigate Perhaps such things are impossible impossible im irn possible of f prevention but then again perhaps perhaps they are not |