Swindle Sheet

Too commonplace for comment by most Washington correspondents are the traditional and legalized forms of petty graft practiced by Senators and Representatives at taxpayers' expense. To initiate voters into this Congressional mystery William Pickett Helm, oldtime syndicate writer, has written Washington Swindle Sheet published this week by Albert & Charles Boni of Manhattan. Taking as his text the official audit of the Senate's miscellaneous outlay for fiscal 1931, Mr. Helm shows how Senators pad their pockets.

Prime source of profit is "mileage," paid at the rate of 400 per mile to & from sessions. The ordinary traveler pays $4.38 to make the round trip in a parlor car between Washington and Baltimore. For the same journey Maryland's Goldsborough draws $16 from the public treasury, pockets $11.62. New York's Wagner collects $96 for a trip which costs ordinary citizens only $23.78. Transportation home & back costs Idaho's Borah $239.56 for which the Senate pays him $1,058.80. Ohio's Fess profits $198.42 for each session; Washington's Jones $1,074.22. Representatives enjoy the same generous allowance for travel which costs the Government a total of $226,000 for each session.

Investigations outside Washington are generally arranged as vacation trips. A ten-day wild life survey by three Senators (Nevada's Pittman, Connecticut's Walcott, Missouri's Hawes) with their salaried assistants cost $1,983,67. Among the itemized expenses were: motorboat hire, $60; mineral water, $31; Minnesota fishing licenses, $22; one spoon hook, $1.25; three sinkers, 15-c-; can of minnows, 75-c-.

It cost the Treasury $4,241 when six Senators (North Dakota's Nye, Nevada's Oddie, Illinois' Glenn, Arizona's Ashurst, South Dakota's Norbeck, Montana's Walsh) spent eight Christmas holidays investigating the Everglades as a national park possibility. Double railroad fare was paid for all so they could have individual Pullman drawing rooms or compartments. Two houseboats were hired for five days at a cost of $1,687.50 (auditors first thought the boats had been bought). Observations from a blimp cost $75. A .set of 14 photographs for each Senator added $168 to the bill.

Other costly junkets cited by Author Helm: Alaskan Railroad ($4,360, including $143.55 worth of photographer's supplies for Nebraska's Howell); Heflin-Bankhead contest ($90,000); campaign expenses ($128,000). Charged to the public for the Senate barber shop were:

3 blackhead removers $ .45

3 bottles Glover's Mange Cure. 1.80

6 bottles of Listerine 4.80

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