Show Roachs Private Fortune The zealous defenders of John Roach are pointing with pride to the alleged fact that he owns 30000000 worth of merchant ships all of them flying the American flag This is a very interesting piece of news and yet it does not prove that Roach is an honest man or that his dealings with Robeson and Chandler were not corrupt It has been figured out that of the 300000000 spent on the navy since the war with the result of making it much smaller and less efficient than it was in the beginning not less than 80000000 was stolen wasted By the word wastedis meantthe expenditure expendi-ture of money which the government representatives and the contractors knew was not likely to produce anything of value to the service John Roach has had wonderful opportunities oppor-tunities to get rich When Robeson was Secretary of the Navy it was a common thing for him to repair a war vessel at some navy yard find that it would not float and then sell it to Roach for a cent and a quarter a pound for the iron in it Roach has broken up fifteen or twenty American war vessels costing the people millions of dollars on those terms and the Herald will not be surprised if he owned 50000000 worth of merchant ships besides some other things Chicago Chi-cago Herald |