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Show 16 CAMP CITIES ARE BEING BUILT. BY U. S. Contractors Are Bound by Term. Which Will Check j Huge Profit. - - i By Basil Manly "' I WASHINGTON. D. C June it. Unci Bam has let contract and work ! haa already started on the greatest i city building program In th world's! history. Sixteen cities, each bigger than Lexington, Ky, and with a combined population as large aa Cleveland, ar to l constructed before September 1. ' Their construction will coat more than was spent on the Panama canal In any one year. It offered the blfreest chance ever i known either for colossal graft or fur a i brand new record In the conduct of government business. There Is no time to use any of. the old-time safe and sane anti-graft device. de-vice. These cities cantonments for the selective srvice army must be ready by September or the whole military mili-tary Program is disorganised. Under the win jsUiii us sssspsllll bids, it would be September before the contract con-tract were written and October before the work began. s Ko Uncle.Sam adopted the plan used by big corporations on rush Jobs, paying pay-ing the coat of materials and labor, plus a reasonable profit, with soni new wrinkle which mak the contracts as nearly graft-proof aa possible. Under the ordinary scheme of paying on th bml,of "cost plus -percentage profits." the profit percentage remains the same no matter howhlgh the coat runs. This makes It to the InUrest of the -unscrupulous contractor to run costs up. The first thing Uncle Sam did was to arrange It o that the percentage got smaller aa the cost got larger. For example the percentage on a contract where the cost la under $100,000 Is 10 per cent, but If the coat Is over i:.r..-000 i:.r..-000 the contractor gets only 8 per cent. Ordinarily this would be considered a good enough antidote against graft, but the men who drew up the contracts for the government went further. Th contract schedule providea for a diminishing profit percentage, but i calls for lump sum payments within ! certain limits. For example, where the cost la between lioo.ooo and f 1:5,000. a lump sum fee of 110,000 goes to the contractor. The lump sum payments provide an automatic check on the level of the coat. Suppose a contractor la on a Job that ought to coat arnuml $100.-000. $100.-000. He can make his lio.voo profit If he gets the Job dune for 11 00.00'); but he doesn't get a cent more unless un-less he pads the coat to run over 1125.-000. 1125.-000. And after he reaches 1125.000 he drops down to an S per cent profit ItaKiff Ho wouldn't eel inv ronnMer- able extm graft unless he ran costs up around $160,000. It Is easy to pad a contract to Increase In-crease the cost by a quarter or a third; but when It comes to Jumping the cost a half or two-thirds. It Is too easy to detect, and brings a man Just a little too close to th doors uf the penitentiary to be comfortable. As a final check It is provided that no matter how high the costs run, Uncle fciam will In no case pay a contractor con-tractor more than $256,000 profit. JuNt aa effective aa these automatic checks against graft, however. Is the scrutiny given the records of every applicant contractor. " If there ia a shady spot In hiA record, he doesn't get the Job. It is possible In 'the rush some grafting graft-ing will be done for there hint any ! known method of making angels out ' of contractors, either dead or alive i but the man who tries It will bo run- ' ntnrr Mr rink. |