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Show OLD LIFEBOATS RESOLD TO NAVY, WITNESS SAYS Castoffs Sold By U. S. for $10 Bought By Board for $110, Claim INVESTIGATION TELLS OF EFFORTS AGAINST GRAFT One Building Firm Had Only One Man Who Knew Ship Building NEW rORK, Nov. 12 Details of Steps taken by the ("nlted States shipping ship-ping board to suppress 1 Irregularities" being Investigated here by the Walsh J congressional committee wore given 'at the committee's hearing today b John T. Meehan, deputy chief of the board's (li Vision of Investigation. lb said that after Investigations conducted under his personal supervision, super-vision, six indictments against alleged tninsirr ssors of the law had been obtained ob-tained through Investigations which he had not personally directed. TWELVI INDICTMENTS. Mr. Meehan said that the, twelve Jn-dli Jn-dli linents have been returned alter sifting down something Ifke 2400 'charge, against various persons, ua h of which, he declared, had been thor- joughlv run down and either verified or disproved. .vianv of the eases InveaUsaAAsK Mm . Meehan vld. involved charges of Hand against contractors preferred ; by citizens desiring to protect the ' government" or by employes on shipping ship-ping board vessels. lb tostlfled that the first order to reduce his staff came in 191 and that now after a succession of cuts, , his corps of workers Included ten in- vestigators. i IFEBO VI si N l Questioned regarding a complaint said to have been referred to his office of-fice concerning a firm of lifeboat builders, tho witness referred to records rec-ords which he said were on lib- in the offices of his department Thej showed, he said, that the- building firm had "but one man who Knew anything I about boat building." and thai because be-cause of Inferior work boats COnstritCt-' COnstritCt-' ed by it w ere rejected. "In 1920." the witness went on. "wo wer' advised by the military Intelligence Intelli-gence Service thai the same firm was buying life-boats from the salvage service ser-vice of the navy at 10 each and re- mo"8 ,h' U ' lht' 3hippi"s bard for I Meehan said the investigation to llr.d out h..v. man-. mslam-.-s had 'occurred was still under way |