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Show 1 W1 A M 1 v t7e sums involved in suits brought against the government in the court of claims at Washington. v HHItE is a government firing line when fr iz ' ' Bring is almost constantly going on Hj! ' No blood is spilled, but interest is in . i ,,. L tense always, for It Is shooting foi I - 41 money big money. Long shots pre II I i 1 dominate. 1 'J, J It is in a queer place for a firing line f-.:?-f;Z in a former art gall wry. In othei txl wora the old abode of the Corcorar " ' ' gallery, Seventeenth street and Penn ylvanla avenue, Washington, D. C, now houses tin TJnited States court of claims; and there nearly everj day of the court's sessions eminent counsel endeavoi to score a bull's-eye and thereby win for themselvet and their clients coin of the realm in sums all the waj from a few thousands to many millions of dollars. I is a mighty absorbing and always alluring game, be causo, as a rule, the stakes are high. Competitor! are numerous because, if a hit is made, the pay ii sure. At the present writing some ninety-nine million! (In fresh crinkly notes of Uncle Sam worth 100 pei cent of each 100 cents) are Involved. That is, case! are now pending In the court of claims calling foi $1)8,730,115.70 A Judgment by the court of claims, unless reversec by the United States Supreme court, Is as good a! cash. It follows that the prize of prizes in legal cir clcs today is some sort of a fairly well substantiatec claim against the United States government. In numerable such claims are discovered and made. Tht cases now pending number more than ten thousand Needless to say if all or any considerable part o this ninety-nine million dollars is paid it will comi out of the United States treasury i. e., out of th pockets of the people of the United States. Ther fore, on this firing line tue people have their repn sontatives, the same consisting of a numerous staff of attorneys retained upon salaries by Uncle Bam. Nominally their Chief is the attorney general, gen-eral, but the attorney general in person is engrossed en-grossed with greater matters the construction and enforcement of the greater laws, particularly the antitrust laws. He has very little time to devote to "routine," i The gentleman in actual charge, therefore, is the "assistant attorney general in charge of the defense of suits against the United States." Un-fler Un-fler the present administration this gentleman Is Mr. Huston Thompson of Denver, Colo., former classmate at Princeton of President Wilson. Mr. Thompson holds one of the many big submerged obs in the government service. This Denver man, the records show, has injected jyestern bustle into his job. When he came k.to the office he found the dockets of the court of claims cluttered up with some twenty-odd thousand thou-sand cases. Now the total Is 10,705 cases. The claims run all the way from a few thousand dollars into the millions. They originate for the most part in the numerous contracts made by all departments of the government for the building of battleships, cruisers, and other vessels; the erection erec-tion of public buildings; dredging and improvement improve-ment of rivers and harbors; the building and maintenance main-tenance of dams, locks, and seawalls; reclamation projects; construction of dry docks; contracts for army supplies; contracts with mail contractors and railroad companies for carrying mails; claims for the alleged use and infringement of patented devices; and suits where it is contended that an Implied contract exists. In amount the so-called "Divisor case" is the largest. The railroads are attacking the validity of an executive order issued in 1907 which bases compensation for carrying the mails upon a division divi-sion of the total weight by seven rather than by six. It is a contention that a seven-day week rather than a six-day week was meant in the statute covering railway mail pay. If the government govern-ment loses this case it must pay to the railroads over $40,000,000. One of the. highest dams in the world has produced pro-duced one of the biggest law suits in the world. As is shown by the accompanying picture, this dam is a bigger proposition, as far as height goes, than the United States capitol building with its enormous dome at Washington, D. C. It is the .lam which stores water for the Shoshone irrigation irriga-tion project in Wyoming. The contestants are endeavoring to collect more than $SOO,000 in addition to the $1,338,000 allowed tinder the terms of the contract as interpreted by the United States reclamation service. The original orig-inal contractors went into bankruptcy after the first year's work on the job and the bonding company com-pany beMnd the contractors took over the contract con-tract An unprecedented spring flood in the Shoshone Sho-shone river, accompanied by a run of saw logs from a mill operated a mile or so above the site of the dam, washed out the temporary works which bad been stalled preparatory to the construction con-struction of the present concrete dam. It is also alleged that the government made requirements re-quirements not specified in the terms of the original orig-inal contract which necessitated the removal of the foundation of the dam 12 feet upstream. It is sought to fasten on the government responsibility for the run f saw logs and It is contended that the requirements of the government engineers were unusual and unnecessarily strict. The contentions of the United States, on the other hand, are that neither contractor appreciated appre-ciated the peculiar difficulties of the work undertaken' under-taken' that the plant and material brought on the ground for the performance of the work was conspicuously con-spicuously inadequate; that the engineers employed em-ployed by the contractors were incompetent and inefficient and not qualified by training and experience experi-ence for the undertaking of such a work; and. in short that all of the difficulties encountered grew out of the negligence, inefficiency and improper methods of the contractors. The claims growing out of naval matters are numerous and large. There is a device used in manufacturing torpedoes which is known as a "superheater." It Is a contrivance whereby fuel Id burned in the compressed air driving the motor If ft ' f! r V,. ' x Nl!j j ' , A6 v ' -' ' t V - ? fill K " -ft tr ' -a -1 - ip y v r - M Vf ' 1 A' F M:-:?:;y;: v iS'viSi'j-xiv fi f . A e rr by which the torpedo is propellf el pressed air is heated to a high energy is utilized. Its use lucre ' range of torpedoes. The question now is whethe' cl must pay the E. W. Bliss com -pedo purchased by the United W last five years containing this amount at issue is $225,000. It ent case, the decision of w! whether patents held by the E the type of "superheater" use torpedo. t,a Litigation over sixteen yei, F; question whether the United f must disgorge more than $34 the million already paid .for t p, dock at the League Island N phia. The contractor claims 1 make a much greater exeavatic In the terms of the contract p The answer of the governme tractor did not follow the m. fr, by the board of naval engineer pa the matter, and hence was hifl liable for the extra cost. The court of claims has S'-tor S'-tor and the department of jj the Supreme court to overrul. Whatever the government generally is valued at astor A submarine case involvi jqi upon a string of patents c j apparatus for submarine a' Boat company is back of thPB IDC the invention described arrd jJ eral letters patent, and eacl ,.. been recognized to be of great in the construction and operation of submarine boats." The original inventor, Lawrence Y. Spear, assigned his rights to the Submarine Boat com-pany. com-pany. It is carefully pointed out that "Spear was the original, first and sole inventor of the improvements," im-provements," and it is then declared that the United Unit-ed States has used the inventions without license and has neglected and refused to pay royalty. About the right thing for Uncle Sam to do, it is alleged, is to pay the Electric Boat company $100,-000 $100,-000 per submarine boat containing the Spear apparatus. ap-paratus. At the date of the filing of the brief, December De-cember 10, 1915, four such boats were in use. The case, however, involves a demand for another $100,000, for each boat built subsequently by the United States in which the inventions are used. Land-grant railroads, under the terms of their charters, are required to carry troops of the United States free. The question has now come up as to whether the National Guard when transported to the annual maneuvers in various parts of the United States "are troops of the United States." As the test case stands the Southern railroad asks for $2,447.90 for the payment of railway fares for the transportation of officers anil men of the Alabama Ala-bama National Guard and the Mississippi National Guard from points in Alabama and Mississippi to the United States military post and camp at Chickamauga Park, Georgia, in 1908 and 1910. When finally disposed of, however, a much larger amount will be involved. It will set a precedent under which, if the Southern railroad Is successful, other of the land-grant railroads will come into court and ask pay for transporting the militia. The established practice of the war and treasury departments is that the organized militia when participating with the regular army at a military camp at joint maneuvers and field instructions are entitled to the pay, subsistence and transportation allowances of the officers and men of the regular army; that said organized troops when so transported are traveling under orders of the war department, and payment for their transportation transpor-tation can only be made on the same basis applicable appli-cable to the regular army. This would mean that transportation for militia over land-grant railroads would be subject to the land-grant deductions made for the transportation of regulars. It is held that the expression, "troops of the United states," as used in land-grant acts is sufficiently broad to include organized militia when traveling under the orders of the war department the time and replied that "the department deems it inexpedient to sell postage stamps in the .way proposed. However, after July 1, 1899, the then third assistant postmaster general, Edwin C. Madden, Mad-den, designed without knowledge of the existence of the Farnham patent the stamp book now used by the department. The bureau of engrav-ing engrav-ing and printing evolved methods for its manu- facture and the post office department began the " public sale of two-cent stamps in book form. Farnham wants the alleged profits of the government gov-ernment on the sale of the stamp books during the ten-year period from 1900 to 1910. The governments govern-ments sells. 12 two-cent stamps for a quarter, J charging one cent for the book. The contention is 1 that the profits on the sale af the books during the j ten years have exceeded a million dollars. j Farnham's attorneys have appealed to the Su- ; preme court, where a final decision is now expected. Another Interesting suit is that brought by the I contractor fho constructed lock and dam No. 37, j Ohio river, which cost, approximately, $1,250,000. The contractor wants an additional $147,000. V This lock and dam is located about ten miles below Cincinnati and at the time of its comple- tlon about five years ago was the largest movable, as distinguished from the stationary, dam in the . world, being .900 feet across the navigable pass iS alone, with the lock n the Ohio side and three bear traps each 80 feet wide on the Kentucky t side of the river. A bear trap consists of two concrete piers or walls with wooden shutters at each end hinged to the bottom of the dam structure. The shutters may be raised or lowered for the purpose of allowing surplus water to escape, thus obviating the continual raising and lowering of the dam proper in the navigable pass. The dam is movable, in that its construction is of Chanoine i weirs, which consist of wooden wickets about 18 i feet high and 3 feet wide, and are upon hingei jj substantially fastened to a sill embedded in th concrete foundation extending to bedrock. Whet up during low water the wickets in the navigable F pass resemble a high board fence, and vessels then pass through the lock, and when the river rises sufficiently they are lowered and boats pass right over them. The suit grows out of the alleged al-leged misrepresentation by the government of tht depth to which the contractor would have to exc m vate to bedrock. |