Another advertising firm that made a specialty of war relief work was the firm of Curry & Saunders, who were undoubtedly the most unscrupulous solicitors in the business. They made arrangements for program advertising and the soliciting of donations for any percentage they could obtain; and the percentages charged by them ran from 30 per cent to as high as 80 per cent. They had a contract on a 65 per cent basis with the Junior Patriots of America, of which Mrs. Oliver Harriman was chairman; later, however, this arrangement was reduced to 60 per cent. The firm, in soliciting advertising, repeatedly signed the name of Mrs. Oliver Harriman to requests for money against her express wishes and her demands to the contrary. When summoned to the district attorney's office for examination, they were accompanied by their counsel, Keevie Frankel, of 51 Chambers Street. During the course of their examination their memories became very faulty. They could not recall the names of the war charities they had worked for, nor could they give the percentages they had charged. They stated they could not make satisfactory answers to the questions asked them without first refreshing their recollection by referring to their books and records. Upon their promise to produce their books the next day the examination was adjourned. The next day they returned to the district attorney's office without the books and records, and told the pitiful story that the night before someone had broken into their office and had taken every record, book, or paper, and had destroyed them. Even their cancelled check vouchers had been removed and destroyed. Curry was indicted on a charge of forging Mrs. Harriman's name to a request for funds. Saunders turned State's evidence against Curry and revealed the unscrupulous methods of the firm. He stated that in numerous instances checks, aggregating thousands of dollars were collected, cashed, and the proceeds misappropriated, without a cent going to the charity for which it was intended. The firm was forced out of business.

The Wheaton Service Corporation, of which Edward F. Wheaton was president, and E. J. Hutson, treasurer, was organized for the specific purpose of exploiting war-relief work. They had contracts with the Ninth Regiment, the Twelfth Regiment, and the Thirteenth Coast Artillery for the solicitation of advertisements and donations. Edward F. Wheaton, the president, is an exconvict, having served a term in the workhouse at Columbus, Ohio, some six years ago for larceny; he was formerly associated in business with Clarence W. Robnet, who was sentenced to the penitentiary by an Iowa court. The contracts were usually on a 30-70 per cent basis; that is, 70 per cent went to the Wheaton Service Corporation and 30 per cent to the charity for which the money was collected. After a visit to the district attorney's office, the corporation promptly retired from business. Wheaton left the city, and Hutson agreed to refund $1,500 to the war charity from which it was taken.

Samuel R. Wiley was an advertising solicitor associated with the Minute Men of America; he solicited advertisements for the program of the benefit and rally of that organization which was held at the Manhattan Opera House in November, 1917. Wiley was said to have received a flat salary of $30 a week and his solicitors were allowed 25 per cent commission on the amounts taken in. Wiley's picture is in the rogue's gallery, where he is listed as "a bogus collector"; he pleaded guilty in 1907 to the charge of fraudulently soliciting for charitable purposes. He also has retired as a charity worker.

MRS. WILLIAM CUMMING STORY AND THE NATIONAL EMERGENCY RELIEF SOCIETY.

The National Emergency Relief Society was organized in September, 1917, for the purpose of giving immediate relief and aid to enlisted men. The society has a membership of 125, and included on its roster are the names of many ladies of excellent social standing and reputation. Mrs. William Cumming Story, a well-known club woman, was president of this organization and the dominant figure in it.

The society raised approximately $30,000. The money was raised principally by an advertising solicitor named William Garland Brown on a 50 per cent50 per cent contract; that is, Brown received 50 per cent on all moneys he solicited on behalf of the society. Solicitation was made on the representation that the money was to be used to purchase comfort kits for soldiers. The subscription blanks requested that checks be made to the order of the treasurer, but the return envelopes were so addressed that they were sent to Mrs. William Cumming Story, who, in turn, it is presumed, handed the checks over to the 103162-19 -2

treasurer. Whether all the checks so received reached their destination can not be determined, for there is no way of checking them up.

It developed from the examination of Mr. Brown that 20 per cent of the net profits under his contract went to Sterling Story, the son of Mrs. William Cumming Story. Brown's net profit up to the date of his examination (Mar. 23, 1918) on the amount collected was, approximately, $3,500. and up to that time he had paid Sterling Story $715.15. It appeared from Brown's examination that Sterling Story had introduced Brown to his mother, and that after the contract had been put through by Mrs. Story with the National Emergency Relief Society Sterling Story came to Brown and demanded his share. Brown's statement of what Sterling said to him is as follows:

"He said he would like to get something out of it. * * * When I got down to the actual profit to me on the whole six months' contract, I find that I paid him 20 per cent for the work he did. I paid him the equivalent of 20 per cent on the whole net profit."

Brown, in an effort to justify his relations with Sterling Story, added that Story was paid this money because he had handed to Brown's stenographers names to whom literature was to be addressed. He stated, however, that under no circumstances would he have engaged Sterling Story on a salary basis, adding that “on a salary proposition I wouldn't give him 20 cents a week-he was too unreliable."

In further explaining his relations with Sterling Story, Brown stated that he had met him while he was working with the American Defense Society two years before, and that Sterling Story was on the pay roll of that society; and that when Brown later went with the Junior Naval Reserve he found Sterling Story was also engaged by that society on a salary.

Mrs. Story has endeavored to justify before the society the moneys paid to her son on the theory that he had done other work for Mr. Brown. point Mr. Brown's statement is as follows:

On this

"Q. Did Sterling Story ever work for you while you were connected with the American Defense Society or the Junior Naval Reserve?-A. No, sir.

1

"Q. Did you ever pay Sterling Story anything except the moneys you have specified here?-A. No, sir.

66

'Q. He was not on your pay roll at any time?-A. No, sir.

"Q. You never paid him for any work on the American Defense Society?A. No; that was two years before.

"Q. Never anything on the Junior Naval Reserve or any other organization?-A. No, sir; I don't recall paying him a cent.

66

'Q. The money you paid him was the correct percentage on the work done for the National Emergency Relief Society? A. Yes."

Upon the direction of the district attorney's office, on March 18, 1918, the "50-50" contract with Mr. Brown was canceled.

It may not be amiss to state that in December, 1917, Mrs. Story was requested to call at the office of the district attorney where she was informed that the district attorney did not look with favor upon “50-50" contracts and considered that contracts of that character were unsconscienable and a fraud upon the public. At that time, Mr. Brown had a contract with the society on a 40-60 per cent basis; that is, 40 per cent of the proceeds went to Brown and 60 per cent to the society, and notwithstanding the fact that both Mr. Brown and Mrs. Story had been warned in the manner indicated, a new contract on a "50-50" basis was thereafter entered into between Brown and the society under negotiations conducted by Mrs. Story.

It also appeared in the early history of the society that Mrs. Story had made an attempt to induce the society to publish a book written by Brown entitled "The Home Economic Book." The attempt, however, was unsucessful. It would have required upward of $5,000 to $10,000 to properly finance the publication and advertise the sale of the book, and it was only by the watchfulness of some of the members that the proposition was thwarted. It did not appear, however, that Mrs. Story had any financial interest in the proposition.

It is remarkable to note that although a treasurer had been duly elected by the society and had had the custody of upward of $14,000, Mrs. Story saw fit to collect from Hero Land $325 in March, 1918, which check she did not turn over to the treasurer until advised to do so by her counsel some months later after the district attorney had indicated that the retention of the check might constitute larceny.

The investigation into the affairs of his society revealed another interesting item of information, and that is Sterling Story's activities in regard to the

printing bills. The society contracted printing bills with one Robert Myer to the amount of $860.65, on which a commission of 10 per cent was given to a Mr. Gunthier, a solicitor who was associated with Sterling Story in the Naval and Merchant Marine Corps of the United States of America. Mr. Myer's books reveal the fact that the entries for the different printing orders were sometimes made in the name of Sterling Story and sometimes in the name of the National Emergency Relief Society. Whether any member of the Story family shared in the commissions on printing was not disclosed by the investigation.

A second son, Allen Story, received a commission of $90 for the rental of No. 238 Madison Avenue as a headquarters for the society. The negotiations for the leases were conducted by Mrs. Story.

Mrs. Story has been interested for some time in patriotic and war-relief societies. She was director general of the Daughters of the American Revolution for two terms and is a member of the Colonial Dames. Some time ago she became a member of the American Defeuse Society, and shortly thereafter became chairman of the woman's division of that society. Her son, Sterling Story, was put on the pay roll of the American Defense Society at a handsome salary. Mrs. Story was later dropped from the society.

Mrs. Story was also a member of the Naval and Merchant Marine Corps of the United States Army, and her name appears on the letterhead of that organization as national vice president; her son, Sterling Story, appears as commander and Capt. Lewis Till as commandant; Sterling Story also succeeded in getting his name on the pay roll of the Marine Corps. Sterling Story and Capt. Till had complete charge of the affairs of the Naval and Merchant Marine Corps of the United States Army until it became involved in financialdifficulties. Capt. Till stated that he had a post-office box at the Seventy-first Regiment Army, and that all letters and donations were sent there, and that no one had a key to his letter box there excepting himself and Sterling Story. There was an irregularity' "of some $3,700 in the corps, which Capt. Till has been allowed to account for at his leisure, and the Naval and Marine Corps of the United States Army passed out of existence; its work was taken up by the American Junior Naval Reserve. While the Naval and Merchant Marine Corps of the United States Army was in progress Mrs. Story unsuccessfully attempted to amalgamate it with the National Emergency Relief Society.

46

Mrs. Story and her two sons were indicted for accepting illegal commissions; additional indictments were also filed against Mrs. Story charging her with larceny. On September 2, 1918, Mr. Brown, who was the principal witness against the Storys, died, and with his death the indictments must fall.

BARONESS H

The Baroness His the daughter of a well-known American actor and the wife of a French artist. They had a small summer place in France which was in the war zone and in the path of the German advance on Paris. The place was captured by the Germans, but was later recaptured by the French. Her war experiences were put into book form, the books being based on her alleged experiences with the Germans and the capture of her home. She has lectured extensively in this country in behalf of war-relief work, her lectures containing the same alleged experiences related in her books. Her method of raising funds is to lecture before clubs, societies, and at public meetings, and immediately following the lectures an appeal for money is made. The work is conducted under the auspices of a fund for the ostensible purpose of furnishing a hospital said to be located in her home in France. At the lectures she also sells lithographs of her husband's paintings for $5 apiece. It is said that her book contains many fictions and exaggerations and that the ancestral chateau which is so elaborately described in her writings was a small place bought on mortgage shortly before the war in which they invested $700. The retinue of servants, automobiles, and carriages, we are informed, consisted of one horse, a cart, and a driving carriage, and the only servants were a peasant and his wife, who worked in and about the chateau. Her income from charity work, from royalty on her books, from the sale of lithographs of her husband's paintings, and fees for lectures amount to $15,000 annually. It is nevertheless true that she raised some $30,000 or $40,000 for the hospital fund. The accounts of this fund are regularly and well audited and the moneys furnished forwarded to France. The fact remains, however, that she is making a handsome yearly profit out of her war-relief work and her war experience.

COUNTESS T

Countess T

came to this country in October, 1915, and since that time has been engaged in war relief work and in raising funds for a European reconstruction committee. A trial balance of the committee, submitted on October 8, 1918, showed that the committee had raised $31,697.24.

Mrs. Tis the daughter of an architect and mining engineer and was born in Canada, but came to New York City at an early age. At present she is living with her sister in a small New Jersey town. In 1901 and 1902 she sang in the choir of a church in New York City. At that time she was an amateur actress and appeared in Shakespearean rôles. She went abroad in 1904 or 1905 to complete her musical education in Berlin, and was singing professionally in that city and other places in Germany in 1910. She claims to have married in 1907 a professor in one of the leading universities in Europe. She has three children, whom she brought with her from her adopted country in 1915. She has written a book * * ** in which she describes her alleged experiences with the Germans. The following is a brief review of her published story:

The book purports to relate the experiences of an American woman during the German invasion of Poland and is advertised as an authentic account of experiences that actually happened. She tells her experiences since the outbreak of the war in 1914, when the Germans invaded Poland and captured her home, and she discusses her escape from Poland into Berlin and from Berlin to America through Holland early in 1915. The book is written in true dramatic form with all the elements present that appeal to the sympathies. She lays considerable stress on the fact that she was alone with her three children, who were sick with typhus fever, and in true melodramatic form states that her husband, who just left to go on a Government mission a day before, was always absent when each misfortune befell her. She relates that one of her children was taken ill with typhus fever and she was unable to leave the place until after it was captured by the Germans. Then briefly follows her experiences with the Germans who were quartered within her house and a description in detail of how she finally obtained leave to go to Berlin, where she met the American ambassador, James W. Gerard, and through his good offices was able to get a passport to New York. Her application for a passport, however, was delayed until some one could be found to identify her. With an art that was worthy of the genius of George M. Cohan, at the proper time a man was found who heard her sing the Star Spangled Banner in Berlin some six years prior, and upon his identification the passport was issued. In order to fully arouse sympathy and to show that she was hounded even in America, she states that she was met at the pier in New York by three German women of wealth, who offered her money and help, all of which she spurned; and from the pier, as the story runs in the book, she went to the Martha Washington Hotel, where she reduced her mournful tale to writing.

She refers often in her book to the various homes, to her great retinue of servants, to her art treasures, and to her libraries and paintings; and she frequently related that while she was detained by the Germans she fed prisoners of war with a lavish hand; indeed, it is remarkable the number of clothes that her husband had; she kept giving them to soldiers, to prisoners of war, and to friends of Poland in a way that was astounding. She describes in an amazing manner the condition of her house after the Prussian soldiers left and tells with descriptive effect how her libraries, tapestries, bookcases, and priceless treasures had been cut, demolished, and befouled by the retreating Hun.

However, during all these horrible experiences she never saw her husband and only heard from him through messenger or by telegraph; always laying emphasis on the fact that when the horrible experiences occurred she was alone with her children. She describes in detail the condition of the refugees, telling how the women were maltreated and rushed to the railroad station, some of them giving birth to children in the station and on the trains; she tells how pitiful the prisoners of war were-the Poles who, starved by the Germans, dug out of dung heaps and in hospital yards crusts of bread and ate them.

While she does not mention Von Hindenberg by name, yet at page 119 she states that "the next Friday, the Great Man who was quartered with us," referring to Von Hindenberg; and then she describes him as a glutton and a drunkard. He drank copiously; in fact, "I have never seen such a capacity forschnaps,' ate tremendously, and the only topic of conversation was what he had done or was about to do." She also states that he was quartered in

the house for some time, and at page 123 she refers to the fact that the Crown Prince, although she does not mention him by name, visited Von Hindenberg and stayed at her house. Her statement reads, "On the last day when the Great Man was with us, another great personage was also there, quite a fat, beery, scion of royalty, neither clever nor interesting."

And while she does not mention in her book the fact that she had been insulted by German officers, yet she tells how her servant was taken by the Germans and delivered to the soldiers; and when she asked the officer to return the girl he said, "I am very sorry, but you are not allowed to take her; she belongs to the soldiers," intimating that the girl had been outraged by the soldiers, who had given her a horrible disease.

Mrs.

-'s activities have been carefully investigated, and the conclusion seems to be inevitable that statements in the book are greatly exaggerated. She was the wife of a railroad engineer at with a very small income and no social standing. Since she came to this country it is said that she has been associated with the K. O. N., the Polish National Defense Committee, the leader of which movement is one X* * *. It is said he was associated with Soukhomlinoff, the infamous Russian minister of war, who was tried by the Kerensky government and sentenced to life imprisonment for treason. X- was looked upon as decidedly pro-German; he is now in this country, and it is stated that he is against anyone of prominence 'who is interested in the welfare of Poland, and he is particularly opposed, and has been for some time, to Paderewski and the patriotic interests he represents.

It seems to be a well-established fact that neither Von Hindenberg nor the Crown Prince was in the neighborhood of the town where "The Countess " says Hindenberg was stationed at her house; and it is also doubted whether she was ever taken prisoner. Those familiar with conditions in Poland declare that the statements contained in her book are unreliable.

A prominent English official writes concerning her property in Poland: "The nature of his employment [the husband of Mrs. T- -] would seem to indicate that he had no fortune of his own, and the lady's declaration in the course of a New York interview to the effect that she paid the greater part of the contribution of 200.000 rubles levied by the Germans upon the Polish-Russian town of, where her husband was employed as a professor, should be received with a considerable amount of caution."

One thing seems to be certain, and that is that the T- - family is not a family of noble blood; her husband was not a count, and the Marquisate of Yis unknown. Neither of these titles appear in the pages of any of the official and standard lists dealing with the Russian, the Polish, or the German aristocracy. When she first arrived in this country it is stated that she assumed the title of marchioness. However, when her attention was called to the fact that the title of marchioness was essentially French or English, she discarded it and called herself a princess for a short time. That title became too conspicuous, and she condescended to take the title of "countess," which she is now using, and permits herself to be so advertised in the public press. Students of conditions in Poland say that there are very few counts in Poland; Poland was the first Republic, and that anyone who distinguished himself on the battlefield had the right to put "Icz" or "Ski" after his name, showing that he had rendered distinguished services to his country. It seems to be established beyond doubt that while in Poland "The Countess" lived very modestly and because of lack of money

in a small house in a summer resort near
was not able to rent an apartment for the winter in that city itself.

It is remarkable that once having been captured by the Germans, she was permitted to be released and allowed to proceed to America unhindered. She avers that her husband up to the time of the armistice was held as a prisoner of war by the Germans.

It has been repeatedly hinted that the family in Poland were pro-German, and were so listed by the patriotic Poles in Russia.

The fact seems to point to the inference that since she came to this country "The Countess" has greatly improved her financial and social condition, and that her war-relief work has contributed handsomely to her purse. She admitted in her examination in the district attorney's office that: "The first year I had a very hard time, because the Germans persecuted me continually, and after that I wrote my book, and then it got better Then, finally, some of my friends organized the reconstruction committee.'"

** *