The Library Remembers When...

From the Ipswich Tribune

February 25, 1925 edition

DUPLICATION OF BONDS CONFIRMED

Probers Verify Swindle on Huge Scale Exposed by J. W. McCarter of Ipswich

The issue of the Washington Herald on Saturday, February 25th, contains an interesting article on the findings of the House Committee named a year ago to investigate Liberty Bond operations during the war. This graft was first exposed at the close of the war by Attorney Jas. W. McCarter of Ipswich, who at that time was Register in the United State Treasury. Mr. McCarter secured considerable evidence of underhanded work being done by government employees and this material was turned over to Congressman, R. C. Johnson, of South Dakota, who made an untiring effort and secured the appointment of the committee to investigate the charges. As will be seen by the following article the committee has been active and Messrs. McCarters’ and Johnson’s efforts have not been in vain.

The Herald says as follows:

The special House committee named a year ago to investigate Liberty bond operations has agreed tentatively on a report which it was learned last night, will contain a number of highly sensational findings.

The committee will say it has confirmed charges that there were duplications on a tremendous scale in the issuance of these bonds and that much of this work resulted from fraud, rather than from errors in numbering.

The report will state that there has been discovered evidence of more than 4,000 duplicated bonds, ranging in value from $50 to $10,000. It will declare further that more than fifty bonds have come into the Treasury bearing numbers that were said to have been left blank in order to allocate to three numbers the duplicates in cases where two bonds bore the same number.

This latter phase of the situation is relied on as a clinching evidence of duplication operation and that the Government is having to redeem more of the securities than lawfully were issued.

In addition to the duplications, the report will assert that redeemed bonds have been stolen from the vaults of the Treasury and again put in circulation.