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PIRACY IN THE WAR PROGRAM
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faster right now than it has any time in history, and a lot of it is being done with the complete knowledge and consent of the government's contracting officers who are handing out the dough.
The primary blame for the squandering of public funds of course rests on men like General Brehon Somervell, the head of the Army Service Forces. He has handed out billions in public funds, and some of his contracts are livid examples of things that should not be done. He has concealed his mistakes and the loose prac^ tices that have grown up in his program under the cloak of military secrecy and even to this day nobody but a Congressional investigating committee with the power of subpoena can look over the accounts or the contracts connected with such defunct projects as Canol.
But somewhere between the General Somervells and the John Joneses there is a responsibility that has not been assumed. And if you look objectively for the place where that responsibility should rest, you cannot
find any place but Congress.
It is an easy thing to criticize Congress, and a lot of people seem to make a hobby of it. But in this case, Congress rightfully deserves some criticism.
The members of Congress have made sacred cows of too many agencies in the government which are directly connected with the war. If they critici^d those agencies, the agencies and the agency heads came back with the cries that they are interfering with the war effort, and in all too many cases Congress has been scared off.
The result has been that Congress has taken an attitude toward the Army and the Navy similar to the attitude a fond parent might take tO' ward a spendthrift son. As long as they do effective work in the job of carrying on the War, Congress asks no questions whatever on the amount of money spent.
To be sure, if Congress turned too far in the other direction and started penny-pinching in the war program, the result could be disastrous. But there should be some middle-ground approach which would put a stop to some of the squandering of public funds.
The Comptroller General of the United States, Mr. Lindsay Warren, has been hammering away at Congress for years on this very question. He has told both houses on frequent occasions that public money is being thrown away with a reckless abandon never before equalled, and he has repeatedly urged that some action be taken to stop it.