Mr. ASWELL. I move, Mr. Chairman, that he be invited to file any supplemental statement he desires to submit.

Mr. JONES. I second that motion, Mr. Chairman.

(The motion being duly seconded, prevailed.)

The CHAIRMAN. We will hear you now, Mr. Lamborn.

STATEMENT OF MR. A. H. LAMBORN, OF THE FIRM OF LAMBORN & CO., 132 FRONT STREET, NEW YORK, ACCOMPANIED BY MR. DON M. HUNT, OF THE FIRM OF LAMBORN & CO.

Mr. HUNT. Mr. Chairman, we have prepared a statement of the facts in the case and we would like to have that made a part of the record before Mr. Lamborn goes ahead. It is a brief, concise statement of what the facts are, and then Mr. Lamborn and Mr. Riley will appear and be questioned on the subject.

Mr. ASWELL. Is that the Mr. Riley who was in the Department of Justice?
Mr. HUNT. Yes, sir.

Mr. ASWELL. Is he here?

Mr. HUNT. Yes, sir; he is sitting over there [indicating].

Mr. CLARKE. Are there any more of these sugar claims?

The CLERK. None filed here.

Mr. CLARKE. But are there any others?

The CHAIRMAN. We have some bills on the grain proposition.

Mr. CLARKE. I had reference to sugar claims.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN of Michigan. What is the request; to have this brief printed in the record?

Mr. HUNT. Yes; it is a brief, concise statement of all the details in the case and is really in better shape than we could give it to you verbally. Of course, Mr. Lamborn is here to be questioned and to go into details in addition to the brief.

Mr. ASWELL. If you are going to print all this in the record, why do you want to be heard-if all the facts are here?

Mr. HUNT. All the facts are really there.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the pleasure of the committee?

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN of Michigan. A lot of this relates to the American Sugar Co.

case.

Mr. LAMBORN. There is just a reference to the American Trading Co. case.

Mr. ASWELL. Why do you talk about the two cases that have already been acted upon by the committee?

Mr. LAMBORN. Only comparing them with our case, that is all.

Mr. CLARKE. May I ask why you did not come down at the same time the other sugar interests came down before our committee?

Mr. LAMBORN. We considered the matter a year and a half ago and we talked it over, and the firm of Lamborn & Co., composed of 11 members, discussed the matter, and then they decided it would be best to wait and see just how the other bills fared and how they got along.

Mr. CLARKE. In other words, to see whether you stood a show of getting away with it; is that the idea?

Mr. LAMBORN. Not exactly that; no, sir; but to let them lay the groundwork. There was no reason why we should all come in at once.

Mr. KINCHELOE. Is it not a fact that this was really a second thought with all of you-to come down and unload it on the Government if they could not get by with this proposition and got stung.

Mr. LAMBORN. That was not our thought, sir.

Mr. KINCHELOE. No; you are late in coming here, but after they took the initiative, then you are trailing.

Mr. LAMBORN. If they had not done so, we would have taken the initiative ourselves.

Mr. KINCHELOE. Why did you not do it then?

Mr. LAMBORN. We told them we were going to, and they said that they already had a bill up.

Mr. KINCHELOE. The truth about it is there is no love between the B. H. Howell claim and the DeRonde claim.

Mr. LAMBORN. We know nothing about that. There is no question of love about the matter at all. It is a quetsion of justice.

Mr. KINCHELOE. You seem to be very familiar with those claims from your allusions to them in this brief.

Mr. LAMBORN. We have naturally studied their case.

Mr. ASWELL. If the other bills had not been favorably reported, you would not have

come.

Mr. LAMBORN. I think not.

Mr. ASWELL. That is what I thought.

Mr. KINCHELOE. You knew there was not a unanimous report from this committee as to those claims?

Mr. ASWELL. There was on the De Ronde case.

Mr. KINCHELOE. There was not a minority report filed.

Mr. ASWELL. No.

Mr. KINCHELOE. There was no minority report so far as the De Ronde case is concerned and I am frank to say that while I am against all of them, I think De Ronde has just as meritorious a claim as the others have.

Mr. ASWELL. I think a little better.

Mr. HUNT. I think our claim is as good or better than any one of them.

Mr. VOIGT. Have you ever had the Attorney General pass on this claim?

Mr. LAMBORN. We have never talked with the Attorney General about it.

Mr. ASWELL. I object to printing this brief in the record because it is a long discussion of the other claims which has no bearing on this case.

Mr. JONES. Mr. Chairman, it seems to me these people have a right to present their claim.

Mr. ASWELL. Certainly.

Mr. JONES. They may be a little late, but it seems to me they have the right to make references to similar claims that might have already been filed, and I think they have really done the committee a favor in presenting the claim in this way; if they have it in concise form and if they had made some effort to get it in concrete form for the benefit of the committee, and it seems to me, as a matter of fairness, that they ought to be permitted to put their condensed statement in the record. I would a good deal rather do that than sit here and listen to them read it all, and that is what was done in one or two other matters, and it seems to me that that is really a courtesy that ought to be given to them.

Mr. ASWELL. My position is that if they have a good claim, I am anxious to find out the facts, but I am not willing to have the Government go to the expense of printing all this stuff discussing the other claims that have been acted on by the Senate and by this committee.

Mr. JONES. If this were not filed, I would like to have a comparative statement along beside the other claims, and it seems to me that this is a rather proper way to do it. I did not vote for the other claims, and I do not assume I will vote for this one, although I may; at least, I would like to have the matter in the record, and I think the committee and the Congress, if the matter is reported, ought to have a complete statement.

Mr. ASWELL. The committee has been furnished with complete copies of it; what else do you want?

Mr. JONES. If the matter should be reported to the Congress, the Congress would not have access to a copy of it unless it was printed in the record. The Congress secures copies of the statements that are made by securing the printed hearings, and if these statements are not printed in the hearings the other Members of Congress who will be called upon to vote on the matter would not have access to the full statement. Mr. KINCHELOE. What do you have reference to there that is objectionable?

Mr. ASWELL. I think we ought to print whatever these gentlemen wish printed on their case, but for them to go ahead and discuss the other two cases which have been acted upon, I think is none of their business.

Mr. KINCHELOE. I think you are right about that, and what I was anxious to do was by having this statement of their case to put it in the record and get rid of this hearing. Mr. ASWELL. If that would shorten the hearing, I would be with you.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN of Michigan. A large part of this statement relates to the other cases and has no relation whatever to this case.

Mr. KINCHELOE. I just picked it up and I have not looked through it.

Mr. LAMBORN. May I make this statement

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN of Michigan (interposing). Any correspondence between these people and the Attorney General's department or the State Department that we have not already in the record, I would be glad to have, but this would be repeating a lot of matter that we already have, and I do not think it is necessary to print this in the record.

Mr. CLARKE. Have we got this gentleman's name here?

Mr. HUNT. My name is Hunt, and I work for Lamborn & Co.
Mr. CLARKE. In what capacity?

Mr. HUNT. I am in the legal department of Lamborn & Co., and I prepared this statement of facts.

Mr. LAMBORN. But he is an employee. He is not our general counsel.

Mr. JONES. It seems to me that these transactions all occurred along about the same time and they are all more or less mixed up with the same proposition, and I do not think a brief should be literally thrown out simply because it might make some reference to other claims and compare other claims that are of the same nature and happened at the same time.

Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Chairman, may I offer the suggestion that we are not here to attack anybody else's claim. Either we deserve this money in return for the service we rendered at the request of the Government or we do not. On the other hand, on page 16 of this brief, we did make a comparison of our claim with the other claims in justice to ourselves, and we produced this brief so it would save both our time and the time of the committee, because most of this matter has been gone over at great cost to the Government and a great deal of your time personally has been taken on these other cases. I do not think you will find anything here except a statement of actual facts, with the exception of a comparison of our claim with the other claims that have been filed here, and we are not trying to attack those claims in any way. On the contrary, if they are just, we want them paid, just the same as we desire ours paid.

Mr. ASWELL. Just on that point, what I had in mind was that you say if you have a just claim you want it paid, and if you have not, you do not, and I agree with you; but you have no business discussing the other claims.

Mr. HUNT. The reason we discussed those claims is this

Mr. JONES (interposing). When the other claims were discussed, the American Trading Co.'s representatives and even the Department of Justice made comparison with other claims that were filed in discussing their claim, and there has not been a claim presented to this committee that did not involve, to a certain extent, a discussion of comparative or contemporaneous claims.

Mr. VOIGT. Mr. Chairman, I would like to suggest that we will probably get about as long a record here by rag-chewing about this matter as we would if we let the statement go in as it is.

Mr. JONES. I think so, too.

Mr. LAMBORN. I am sure, Mr. Chairman, in comparison with the record already printed, that this brief is very short indeed.

Mr. ASWELL. But it is a repetition.

The CHAIRMAN. There are about 21 pages of it.

Mr. HUNT. I want to state in addition to that

The CHAIRMAN. What is the pleasure of the committee?

Mr. ASWELL. I move that the gentleman be heard and the brief they have be left in the hands of the members of the committee.

Mr. JONES. I move as a substitute, Mr. Chairman, that the request for printing of the brief be granted.

(The motion as amended by Mr. Jones, having been duly seconded, prevailed.) Mr. HUNT. We have here the original documents referred to in that statement that are subject to your inspection, and we will leave them with the committee if you desire it. They have all been printed in the statement of facts, but here are the originals and we can file them with the clerk. They are the telegrams and the correspondence relative to this claim.

The CHAIRMAN. What is your request?

Mr. JONES. They are printed in the brief.

Mr. HUNT. They are printed in the brief and I want to leave these with the committee for whatever the pleasure of the committee is with regard to them. They are the originals.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Lamborn, you may proceed.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN of Michigan. I would suggest printing in the record letters from Mr. William A. Glasgow, jr., who is counsel for the Sugar Equalization Board. This letter is in answer to a letter written to him by the chairman of this committee, the last one suggesting his attendance at this meeting. In reply he speaks of these claims. Mr. ASWELL. Will he be here, Mr. McLaughlin?

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN of Michigan. He says he is not able to attend to-day.

The letters referred to as being written by the Chairman were written at the request of Mr. Glasgow, who requested to be notified.

Mr. ASWELL. May I inquire whether the chairman of the committee knows what the Sugar Equalization Board is doing, what serviceable record it is making, and how much expense is it enjoying now or how much it has spent for the past two or three years

.

The CHAIRMAN. We have not had any report on that.

Mr. ASWELL. I think the committee ought to have that report. If we let them go on for 30 years they will spend the $30,000,000 they have in the Treasury.

The CHAIRMAN. My understanding is that the excuse for continuing it is that there are some cases pending.

Mr. ASWELL. Are they drawing salaries and having expense accounts still?
The CHAIRMAN. I have no knowledge of that.

Mr. ASWELL. Would it be in order for this committee to request information along that line from the Sugar Equalization Board? I do not want to suggest it if it would not be proper. I think this committee should have the facts as to the amount of money they are spending monthly.

Mr. JONES. I think so too, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. ASWELL. And what they are doing and whether they have authority in law to disband and turn this money over to the Treasury without any further drawing out of expense accounts and salaries for stenographers, etc. I understand they still maintain two offices, one in Philadelphia and one in New York. If it is a proper thing, I would like to make a motion that the Sugar Equalization Board be requested at once to furnish this committee with detailed information as to the amount of expenses for the past two years to date.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you make that request in the form of a motion?

Mr. ASWELL. I make that as a motion.

Mr. TINCHER. I second the motion.

Mr. VOIGT. Mr. Chairman, that is not relevant to the resolution that is pending before this committee.

Mr. ASWELL. I did not make it in connection with the resolution at all.

Mr. VOIGT. Well, there is not anything before this committee on which a motion of that kind could be based.

Mr. TINCHER. I think it would be pertinent. I think it is a thing we could bring in here when inquiring into these claims.

Mr. ASWELL. I think it would have something to do with the urgency of settling up these cases and dissolving that board and saving the expense.

Mr. VOIGT. Whether the Sugar Equalization Board is spending $100 a month or $50,000 a month I do not think would have any bearing on the justness of this claim. Mr. ASWELL. It would not have anything to do with that, but it would give some information to this committee as to whether we should reject the claim or should act upon it quickly and get rid of the whole thing.

Mr. VOIGT. I do not see how it would affect the matter one way or the other.
Mr. ASWELL. It would, if we could save $50,000 a month.

Mr. VOIGT. If the United States Government ought to pay this claim it ought to pay it no matter what the Sugar Equalization Board is doing or whether they are spending $100 a month or $50,000 a month.

Mr. ASWELL. Would it not be an economy for the United States Government to stop this expense in a reasonable time?

Mr. VOIGT. It might be, but that is not incident to the matter before the committee. Mr. ASWELL. I think it would be valuable information for the committee.

Mr. VOIGT. That may be, but the question now is whether this committee ought to call for that information without having anything before it.

Mr. ASWELL. We want to get something before it and that is the reason I made the motion.

Mr. VOIGT. There is no resolution of inquiry before this committee.

Mr. TINCHER. Mr. Glasgow is taking an interest or is manifesting an interest in these claims and is writing letters about them. He has testified for some of the claims and is slurring other claims. I do not know whether he is on salary from this Government or not, and I do not know who does know.

Mr. ASWELL. I would like to know.

Mr. TINCHER. Yes; I am with you on the motion. I agree with you once. find out and bring the facts in here.

Let us

Mr. JONES. I think it is very important to know what they are spending and why. Mr. ASWELL. I want to know what is behind these things and what salaries they are drawing.

Mr. VOIGT. Mr. Jones, do you think it is important to know that with reference to this matter?

Mr. JONES. No; I think this is perhaps an unhappy place to bring it in, for that matter, but it is information that the committee ought to have.

Mr. TINCHER. Suppose some one wanted to discuss the Sugar Equalization Board on the floor of the House when some of the bills are up for consideration. He ought to have the privilege of knowing all about Glasgow. When Glasgow was here he did

not know much about the Sugar Equalization Board, and I tried to find out some things from him, and I think for the committee to call for all the facts, as to what salaries they are paying, what expenses they are under, and how they are getting by with this thing would absolutely be information we ought to have in the record.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN of Michigan. If I could see that it had any bearing on this claim I would agree with you, and I would be willing to ask them for it at another time in another connection, but on this matter I do not see that it has any bearing at all.

Mr. ASWELL. I stated in making the motion that it had no connection with this claim, but I wanted the information. I have wanted it for several months, but we have not had but one meeting of the committee for some time.

Mr. JONES. I think the resolution or the motion should be separate from this particular claim.

Mr. TINCHER. Glasgow is knocking this claim and has knocked all of them except one, and I think it is a good time to have a show-down with those fellows.

Mr. VOIGT. Mr. Chairman, I do not want to stand in the way of these gentlemen getting any information they are entitled to, but as this matter stands, I am going to vote against the motion. If some member of this committee will introduce a resoultion calling for this information, independent of this claim, or introduce some resolution of invetigation, I will be glad to vote for that sort of motion, but I am not going to clutter up or complicate this proceeding before the committee now by an inquiry into the Sugar Equalization Board. I do not think it is fair to the people now before the committee.

Mr. ASWELL. I made the motion as a separate matter entirely, with no connection with the resolution now pending.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you ready for the question?

Mr. TINCHER. I do not want to delay matters. I was a little late getting here this morning but I have heard a good deal about these sugar claims. I am going to support the motion and I think in doing so I am doing the people who are presenting this claim a favor.

Mr. ASWELL. Certainly: so do I.

Mr. TINCHER. Because here is a man who sits up there and protests against anything except one claim. His evidence is in the record very strong for that claim and he continues writing to the committee, and I think in order for the House to act intelligently and for the Members to be fully advised, every member of this committee ought to be able to answer the questions, what has become of the Sugar Equalization Board since the war, are they maintaining offices, are they paying themselves big salaries, what is the attitude of this man Glasgow? Does he get a salary from the board or is he paid from some other source.

Mr. JONES. In other words, why a Sugar Equalization Board?

Mr. TINCHER. Yes; why a Sugar Equalization Board now? I think we ought to be informed on that when we go on the floor of the House with any of these claims, and I think it is pertinent for the committee to have that information. I do not think if is any reflection on any of the gentlemen who have any claims here. I do not know whether these gentlemen are advised or not. I have not read this letter, if you have a late one, but the last letter I read from Glasgow, he simply served notice on this committee that we must not pay but one claim, and we must do that quickly. Mr. MCLAUGHLIN of Michigan. No; you are unfair to Mr. Glasgow in that. Mr. ASWELL. That is substantially what he said.

Mr. TINCHER. I may have misconstrued his letter a little, but that is the way I understood it.

Mr. TEN EYCK. What is the difference whether we ask it now or ask it in a separate resolution? How would it clutter up this claim, Mr. Voigt?

Mr. VOIGT. I think it is unfair when you are investigating a claim here to tie that up with investigating the Sugar Equalization Board. Furthermore, it is an extraordinary proceeding for this committee to start an investigation of the Sugar Equalization Board-and that is what it amounts to-without having any resolution or anything of that kind before the committee which would warrant the committee in making such an investigation.

Mr. ASWELL. Having no information is why I made the motion, because we need the information.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN of Michigan. This claim, as other claims, depends on the relation of the claimant to the Department of Justice or to the State Department, and so on, at the time the transactions were made, or at the time the arrangement was entered into, and the present conduct of the Sugar Equalization Board has no bearing whatever upon it.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you ready for the question?