On Monday morning, October 22, 1923, the three members of the committee investigating the US Veterans Bureau—Senators David Reed (chair), David Walsh, and Tasker Oddie—sat on the long side of a rectangular table in room 410 of the Senate Office Building facing the audience and prepared to begin their long-awaited hearings. A great gilt-framed mirror hung over the tall mantle behind the senators, reflecting the room’s ornate cut-glass chandelier. A separate table and chair awaited the first witness. The director of the investigation, General John F. O’Ryan, backed by his staff, commanded a third table, piled with documents. Significantly, for the ensuing spate of scandals, members of the Washington-based press were present, eager to write front-page stories and send them out across the nation.
When Colonel Charles R. Forbes planted himself down conspicuously—pugnaciously—at the end of the senators’ table, an opportunity occurred immediately. He had come to be heard, and when he tried to do so (as he did several times), he was quashed. “He appeared to have gone through severe illness,” wrote a reporter for the New York Times: “His face was tightly drawn and his vigorous figure appeared to have suffered under a long nervous strain.” His appearance was disastrous for any image he might wish to project as a responsible government official. Senator Ashurst of Arizona described him in his diary as a “man with disheveled hair, loose lips, and trembling hands.”1
O’Ryan reported in his opening statement that the Veterans Bureau had not functioned effectively in 1922 and early 1923 (that is, under Forbes) and that its expenditures of $467 million in fiscal 1923 were unprecedented. Thus, he set the stage for potent themes of malpractice, temptation, and the likelihood of fraud. Forbes interrupted him midsentence. O’Ryan halted. “Colonel Forbes,” said Chairman Reed, in a belated acknowledgment of his presence. Forbes said he wanted to make a statement. Reed said he might produce a written statement for the committee but not interrupt the proceedings “for the sake of order and rapid progress.” Forbes considered this “a bit unfair to me”: he had traveled 3,000 miles from his sickbed, wanted to be of help but also protect his reputation, “which is being attacked in this hearing,” and have the opportunity to challenge what was said and not have press reports across the country describe him as “sitting here mute.” Reed was both firm and denigrating. This was “not a trial of Colonel Forbes or any other particular individual,” he said. Objections would not be tolerated from anyone “who may consider he is reflected on.” O’Ryan continued with his statement. Forbes stayed put. After another interruption, O’Ryan was heard to tell Reed off the record, “You will have to shut him down.”2
The first witness, General Frank Hines, testified with grace, authority, and gentlemanly restraint, listing progress at the Veterans Bureau under his management and illustrating his talk with detailed charts. By the end of the first morning, it had been established that a man who knew what he was doing was effectively and rapidly transforming a previously malfunctioning organization. In the afternoon, Hines gave an upbeat report on the construction of veterans hospitals. He singled out Hospital 81 in the Bronx (chosen by the White Committee and criticized by Forbes) as poorly sited, which it was, and American Lake (chosen by Forbes and built by Forbes’s old boss Charles B. Hurley) as “splendidly located for an ideal hospital.” Hines told the committee he was expanding the bed supply, from about 25,000 to more than 30,000 hospital beds, of which 46 percent were slated for tuberculosis and 32 percent for neuropsychiatric patients (in contrast to prior criticism of Forbes for adding too many hospital beds) and lambasted dentistry (as Forbes had before him), noting that papers on fraud had been turned over to the Department of Justice “at one time” (under Forbes). Hines tried to explain to the committee that some difficulties were inherent in the organization of the Veterans Bureau: “The bureau is a large machine. It has taken a long time to become effective. … You can readily understand that we are bound to make some slips.” O’Ryan quickly changed the subject. In the first two days of the hearings, his systematic review of the bureau’s programs made it clear that Hines had brought needed skills and energy to the bureau and that constructive reform was under way, whereas Forbes had made decisions according to cronyism and political pull, paid individuals who were incompetent or did nothing, and (relying on the report O’Ryan had received from Judge Graupner) participated in circumstances “surrounded by graft,” illustrated by his decisions for the hospital at Livermore.
Positive results from Forbes’s tenure were attributed to Hines or disregarded, including a report by an expert accountant and auditor, Fred W. Lindars from New York, selected by O’Ryan, and mentioned later in the hearings, which commented “very favorably upon the methods in vogue here,” though there might be too much “checking and rechecking.” The role assigned to Forbes was as a failed, possibly corrupt, leader, such as a deposed king in a drama. His greeting by the committee showed him to be a man without status—a rude interloper into civilized proceedings.3
Forbes did not appear the next two days. By the end of the third day (October 24), General O’Ryan had established fundamental themes for the hearings based on his perception of Forbes’s low moral character, and Elias H. Mortimer had become a star witness. Mortimer’s answers to O’Ryan’s rapid-fire questions quickly associated Forbes with corruption, immoral behavior, and membership in a “ring” of conspirators, evoking images of money-driven racketeers in prohibition cases. It was hard not to make this connection when the New York Times headlined the first day of the hearings as “General Hines Charges Fraud and Waste in Veterans’ Relief” on the same front page as “Means, Liquor Plot Exposer, Indicted in Big Conspiracy.” (That was the flamboyant, corrupt special investigator Gaston Means, who was under indictment for supplying the New York bootlegging trade with the “finest quality liquors” from bonded warehouses, with an alleged profit for the New York ring of more than $100,000.) O’Ryan: “Well now, did any of the members of this ring, this group, such as Thompson or Black, ever tell you how much they had paid Forbes up to any particular time?” Mortimer produced the highly questionable figure of $30,000, which he said he had heard as “hearsay” from the late contractor James Black, who mentioned this as an impression Black got from contractor John Thompson. There was no confirmation; Black had died in February after four months of illness, and Thompson was not called as a witness.4
Mortimer was in his element, poised and confident, illuminating his testimony with a fine sense of detail. He inserted innuendo about Forbes and Mrs. Mortimer, added colorful observations, and skated nonchalantly over circumstantial and absent evidence. He acknowledged his role as a fellow conspirator, knowing he would not be charged. O’Ryan took Forbes’s lack of worth for granted and treated Mortimer courteously. They were an effective team. Newspapers generally agreed. Forbes’s “former chum” gave his shocking testimony under oath, one remarked, “and we must assume it to be true unless disproved.”5
General O’Ryan’s opening strategy paid off. Dramatic excerpts from the hearings were reported far and wide: “Forbes Allowed Fee of $64,000—Paid for Useless Hospital Plan.” “Forbes Grafted on Vet Bureau Job, Is Charge.” “Accuses Forbes of Plotting Big Graft—Witness Describes Booze Parties and Wild Times—Says Veteran Bureau Head Tried to Sell Liquor and Drugs.” Subheadings in the Atlanta Constitution included “Drinking Party Trail from Coast to Coast” and “Embarrassed in Hotel.” Chairman Reed was convinced that there had been a conspiracy in which both Forbes and Mortimer were involved: “It is my judgment that having established a conspiracy that anything said by any of the conspirators is evidence against them, and if the committee agrees with that, I think we can hear conversations, even if Colonel Forbes was not present when they took place.” Reed also announced (and the other senators concurred) that because of Mortimer’s “very extraordinary testimony” and Forbes’s “rather dramatic appearance” on the first day, Forbes should be called as a witness. O’Ryan agreed to “give him the opportunity to come if he cares to” but stipulated that he would be subject to cross-examination, and his role should be limited. Scheduling Forbes’s testimony was a matter of tactics: O’Ryan left Forbes in limbo until the hearings were winding down and called Mortimer back to reestablish the basic themes at the end.6
Forbes issued a statement to the Associated Press that Mortimer’s testimony was “utterly and absolutely false.” He called the story of the “recent receipt by me of a $5000 bribe” false and “so absurd as to be ridiculous.” Businessman John W. Thompson made a statement in St. Louis that he knew Mortimer only slightly and that Mortimer had never represented his company. Washington State builder Charles B. Hurley strongly denied Mortimer’s charges of his role in a byline from Seattle:
Any suggestion of Mortimer that either I or the Hurley-Mason Company secured the American Lake Hospital contract through understanding with Colonel Forbes, Mortimer, or anybody else, that Forbes or anybody else was to share with us in the profits of the contract, is absolutely false and never had any foundation in fact. … The [Army] Quartermaster General’s Office not only drew the plans for the buildings but it analyzed the bids and recommended that the contract be awarded to the Hurley-Mason Company, which was the lowest bidder. … Colonel Forbes had nothing to do with it except to sign the contract we submitted to him, which he was compelled to do under the law.
None of these statements made any difference. At the end of the first week of the hearings, Senator Reed made his position clear. Evidence showing conspiracy and corruption would be turned over to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution. Reed said the committee had so far “only scratched the surface” and referred to the “scandal” in the Veterans Bureau. On October 26, Attorney General Daugherty announced that he had had a conference with President Coolidge and was preparing to present evidence of the alleged frauds in the Veterans Bureau to a special grand jury. On October 27, Senator Oddie called at the White House as a member of the investigating committee to report on the hearings to President Coolidge, who steered a fine course, upholding the separation of powers while taking a firm line. He wanted a full probe, it was reported, and hoped the Senate would go sufficiently far to see whether action by the Department of Justice was justified. According to a White House statement, “none of those guilty in the frauds will escape.”7
Belatedly, after the first day, Forbes consulted his lawyer. James S. Easby-Smith was a civilized Alabama gentleman, writer, scholar, and classicist, who knew Bob and Kate Forbes from their Washington days. A trim, intellectually curious man in his early fifties, he held a graduate degree in classics from Georgetown University, where he taught law for many years while in private practice. He had also served as attorney in charge of pardons at the Department of Justice and as a US attorney and published a history of the Department of Justice and translations of the songs of Sappho into English poetry (both available at the time of writing via the Internet). During World War I, he administered the selective service system (the military draft), for which he received a Distinguished Service Medal. Afterward, he dropped his military title, Colonel. He was well known and respected in Washington as a man of intrinsic fairness. Easby-Smith stood by Forbes as his counsel through the hearings, trial, and thankless appeals in a case stacked against his client, supporting him unconditionally and without full payment. As a first step, he worked with Forbes on the statement of innocence he was determined to present at the hearings, if and when he was called to do so. Meanwhile, October ended, November moved in, and O’Ryan strengthened his case.8
Easby-Smith and his client had a herculean task. It is not easy, often impossible, to prove a negative. Mortimer had to be shown not to be the truth-teller happily accepted by the investigators and the populace but, rather, a fantastic liar. Forbes had to show he had not received money as loans, paybacks, or bribes; had not engaged in conversations about spoils, as had been vividly reported; and had not used a coded message system to advance the conspiracy’s goals; indeed, he had to show he was not part of a conspiracy at all. Forbes also had to demonstrate that he had been justifiably upset when he made interruptions on the first day of the hearings and was not fundamentally an uncivilized, out-of-control wild man, which is how the story was characterized in Washington’s gossip networks.
The use of a code for communicating via coded telegrams was the easiest topic to address, because Mortimer could not confirm that Forbes had a copy of the codebook, only that “I know he was supposed to have one.” (Later he changed his tune and said he did.) Other challenges were difficult because significant pieces of evidence to support Mortimer’s statements were missing, if indeed they ever existed. He had no receipt for the $5,000 in cash he allegedly gave Forbes (privately, in a bathroom) in Chicago. Other documents had been stolen from Mortimer’s apartment at the Wardman Park Hotel in three separate burglaries, or so he said. (He hinted at the hearings that at least one of these was conducted by someone connected with the Veterans Bureau and that Forbes was trying to get into his bank vault.) Among the missing papers were an old checkbook, which would supposedly document a sum of $1,000 or $1,500 Mortimer said he had given to Forbes by check; a copy of the putative advance list of veterans hospitals to give Mortimer’s clients an advantage in bidding for construction contracts; and examples of coded letters and telegrams between Mortimer and Forbes. Mortimer made both the documents and the thefts real by descriptions that became more vivid when he was called back at the end of the hearings. The lost papers included a “great many of the telegrams that I had submitted to Colonel Forbes that he had made notations on; a great many letters that were sent to me, of a confidential nature, from Mr. Black and Mr. Thompson [fellow conspirators], and telegrams, all relating to veteran hospitals.” Although he did not call the police, after the third burglary of his apartment he had a steel plate and two new snap locks installed in his apartment, number 508-B, and the steel plate was still there when he moved out on March 1. “And, Senator [Reed], I had this special Yale lock put on, and they had to cut a hole out of the door to put the thing on.” Easby-Smith could show (as he did at the trial) that Mortimer lied when he said he reported the thefts to the security officer at the Wardman Park. However, by that time, concern about a burglary or two seemed trivial compared with the central, serious issue at hand: namely, that a senior government official had conspired against the federal government.9
Forbes and Easby-Smith waited, but the Senate hearings moved ahead without them being heard. During the middle sessions, October 29 through November 12, creamery purveyor and Mortimer-acolyte James M. Williams, Katherine Mortimer’s uncle, evoked fanciful images of broken packages of narcotics being spirited out of government warehouses at Perryville in milk trucks under Forbes’s direction. According to Williams, Forbes said he would have Mortimer arrested by “strong-arm” men and “flog him and turn him loose with the promise that he would leave Washington.” Forbes sat in the audience making notes while Easby-Smith kept him from interrupting. O’Ryan, an acknowledged expert on supply trains and logistics, spent a good part of three days focusing on Perryville: it was a “perfect outrage,” and “almost inconceivable” that the Perryville depot should harbor 84,000 new sheets and more than 1.1 million towels when sheets were being offered for sale at a fire-sale price; new sheets came in and “went out the other side” to waiting boxcars. Witnesses attempted to explain the purchases of sheets as the result of a time lag between ordering and delivery, with old orders still being filled while policies were switched to closing down the depot. Such explanations were thrust aside. As for the purchase of more than 30,000 gallons of cleaner and wax and more than 19,000 gallons of liquid stain, as a train of witnesses demonstrated, it was not clear who had been responsible for these purchases.10
Forbes was absent when his admitted nemesis, Brigadier General Charles E. Sawyer, testified on November 7. An erect, earnest-looking white-haired elderly gentleman, tiny and trim, Sawyer stood rather than sat at the witness table “to have advantage of better light” as he read the statement he had written that morning. The crux of it was that Sawyer ordered materials unloaded from loaded train cars at Perryville on President Harding’s authority, but Forbes was “insubordinate” and Harding asked him to resign. The charge of insubordination was front-page news. The New York Times headlined this point as “Tells How Harding Ousted Col. Forbes for Defying Him.” (In his testimony later, Forbes said he followed Harding’s directions.)
Sawyer laid out towels and blankets on the table like a small-town salesman, some in their original wrappings, samples he had collected from Perry-ville to show President Harding. An olive-drab army blanket was “good enough to be used in any private home, anywhere in the country,” while a gray blanket was “perhaps not so good” but “would at least keep men warm on cold winter nights.” O’Ryan examined the sheets as if he were a customer and asked whether they were of the type known as “Pequot,” which a witness had described as “de luxe, high-grade, first-class sheets.” Sawyer thought they were. He suggested that Forbes’s supplies chief, Commander O’Leary, might have selected his own sample of goods to show the president “with the intention of showing how bad they are.” Chairman Reed asked Sawyer his views on the Veterans Bureau. Sawyer claimed that the “autocratic power … to a single individual” [Forbes] was the “cause of a great deal of trouble.” Reed and Sawyer discussed veterans’ medical services. Reed: “You would not put a dement of filthy habits in the next bed to a mild case of melancholia?” Sawyer: “No sir.” The mentally ill patient was no longer an outcast. Sawyer: “Today we know that many of his troubles are due to physical derangements and from infections from tonsils, from sinuses, from absorptions from the intestines, from kidneys, from livers and so on.” Having gained valuable evidence against Forbes on the Perryville case, O’Ryan invited Sawyer to produce a document to describe his ideal leaders in neuropsychiatry.11
Elias Mortimer was riding high. He was providing essential facts to an eminent major-general and three US senators—and winning points for them! He was famous. He could not afford to make any slips. Outside the hearing room, he put direct and indirect pressure on his wife, not yet divorced, who could support his otherwise uncorroborated statements, by lies if necessary, if she could be made to do so. Notably, she had been present in the suite at the Drake Hotel at the time Mortimer claimed he handed $5,000 in cash to Forbes.
In a letter to his father-in-law, Dr. George Tullidge, he made the unbelievable claim that he, Mort, could get General O’Ryan to look at Dr. Edward Tullidge’s case for release from incarceration in the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth and act on it. O’Ryan “told me to bring all of the papers down to him personally,” Mortimer wrote Dr. George, but say nothing to anybody about it. A postscript to the letter suggested the quid pro quo. Put bluntly: Give me your convicted son’s insalubrious record (which could be held for blackmail), and I will be nice about your daughter at the hearings. His actual words: “I will protect (Katherine) in every way.” The answer from Dr. George was no. A few weeks later Mortimer tried a direct deal with Dr. Edward Tullidge, this time promising to have his case for a pardon taken up with the navy via “prominent personal friends” of Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. The deal here was that Edward had to get his sister Katherine to stop divorce proceedings, because if not, Mort’s friends would halt their efforts. Edward broke with Mortimer at this point. Mortimer continued to play his games with his wife: harassment interspersed with loving letters.12
Katherine Tullidge Mortimer was ready to expose Mortimer for brutality and for lying business practices. She testified to the Senate committee at her own request, but the testimony was given in private. She asked for the release of the testimony and asked to testify publicly to “vindicate her character and good name” after a number of “very grave and serious, if insinuating attacks” had been made against her. Senator Reed criticized her in the process of denying her requests: “Because Mrs. Mortimer was a woman we permitted her in her statement to cover matters that she wanted to bring up, that, in our judgment, had nothing to do with the purpose of our appointment. … We were not appointed to investigate the domestic affairs of Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer.” She could have gone directly to the press but her lawyer, former Judge Daniel Thew Wright, persuaded her not to do so. A woman’s character was “a very fragile thing,” he said, “as delicate as the frost upon the morning window, which a breath dispels, and it is forever gone.” He called on the senators for fair play. However, since insinuations had already been made, it was not clear what he thought “fair play” was. Mrs. Mortimer’s private testimony was not released and appears no longer to exist.13
Background investigations continued while the hearings were in session. Finding a stash of money hidden by Forbes would strongly support Mortimer’s claims of bribery and corruption. Major Arnold, O’Ryan’s key staff member, instructed a former naval intelligence officer, Lieutenant Commander C. V. Cusachs, to see whether Forbes had hidden money in property near Staunton, Virginia, and to find out what he was up to as he waited to be called to testify. Cusachs had been awarded the Navy Cross for analyzing German submarine movements when posted to Madrid but proved sadly unskilled at pavement-pounding detective work. On October 30, he visited Staunton, where someone told him the plan was to develop the property at Augusta Springs as a business to market mineral water and suggested a search warrant for the “merry parties” that went on there. But that was all. On November 5, in Washington, he heard through the club grapevine that a cargo of wine had once been shipped to Veterans Bureau lawyer Charles Cramer, with Attorney General Daugherty acting as the middleman and also that Forbes had “deposits in many banks.”
On November 7 and 9, he conducted surveillance on Forbes, who was staying at the Hamilton Hotel, where the hotel manager, Mr. W. H. Barse, told him Forbes was ill. Forbes, however, had his own detectives, and knew he was under surveillance. Somewhat rashly, he fed messages through Barse, with Barse’s help, via Cusachs to the Senate investigating team. Forbes had a number of letters from President Harding endorsing everything he had done as Veterans Bureau director, Cusachs reported. O’Ryan “had always shown great animosity to him.” Forbes said that he had “never touched a cent of government money, and that if he had he would be worth millions today instead of being a poor man.” Forbes was “on a fight to a finish.” Unless he was allowed to appear on the stand on Monday, November 12, Forbes told Barse, who told Cusachs, who told Major Arnold, he would call a press conference and tell a “story which would be more startling to the public than anything they had yet received.” It was “criminal” that “that Dirty Hound Sawyer” had not been cross-examined, in view of his “lowdown immoral character” (which included picking up young girls, according to Forbes).14
Colonel Forbes, fists clenched to fight, had not paid attention to the fact that General O’Ryan had built his career as a master in tactics and that he was expert in interpreting enemy information and using it to his advantage. His team received the information that Forbes was set up for intemperate confrontation—and could be provoked into foolhardiness when raging about General Sawyer. O’Ryan scheduled him for November 13.
An unusually large crowd of spectators packed the room on Tuesday, November 13, 1923, to listen to what Colonel Charles R. Forbes had to say. Some had waited in line for hours, but the wait was worth it. One observer described him as a “man who had broken down under the strain of his work and the defamation which had been heaped upon him.” Nonetheless, far from broken in spirit, he proclaimed a “general, sweeping, and absolute denial of every charge, statement, innuendo, and insinuation which in any matter whatsoever reflects upon the honesty and integrity of my official or personal conduct while I occupied the office of Director of War Risk Insurance or Director of the Veterans Bureau.” The charges of “official and personal neglect, dishonesty, graft, liquor drinking, loose conduct, and any and every other dereliction of duty, official or personal, which have been ascribed to me either by the witness Mortimer and Williams and others, or charged against me by the counsel of this committee,” were “utterly false and groundless.”
So far, so good, but then, however valiantly, he courted trouble. First, he accused General O’Ryan for misleading the Senate committee and the committee for being taken in. Second, he countered the charge that he was part of a conspiracy to commit fraud against the government by claiming that the opposite was true: “A conspiracy has been on foot, the purpose of which is to encompass my destruction by means of perjury, subornation of perjury, attempted subornation of perjury, and the suppression of material facts and documents bearing not only upon my personal conduct as Director of the Veterans’ Bureau, but also upon the official conduct of the affairs of the bureau by myself and my subordinates.” Among these, he made multiple criticisms of General Sawyer (and thus implicitly of Harding, whom Sawyer reportedly represented) for impeding his work at the bureau.15
Leaving senators, investigators, and audience to ruminate on these accusations, Forbes’s lawyer, James Easby-Smith, then began a list of prepared questions for him to answer calmly, one by one. The two men completed this in a workmanlike fashion in the midafternoon the next day, marked by some emotional lapses by Forbes.
This was the only time Charles R. Forbes gave public testimony on his role as director of the US Veterans Bureau. The gist of his testimony follows:
On hospitals. The structure of decision making for new veterans hospitals went beyond the Veterans Bureau. Forbes was not the sole decision maker. He was responsible for veterans hospitals for only ten months, and no new hospitals were constructed start to finish during his tenure. He felt obliged to go along with Sawyer’s directives because Sawyer claimed presidential authority, and President Harding never clarified their relative responsibilities. The engineering departments of the army and navy (not Forbes) drew up plans and specifications.
Speed of construction was needed at the hospital at Northampton, thus the contract that promised construction in the shortest time was a matter of common sense, and the decision saved forty or fifty days. Forbes’s old firm, Hurley-Mason, received a contract for almost $1.4 million for construction work on the hospital at American Lake in Washington State, but it was the lowest bidder, and Forbes had no financial interest in the firm. Each new hospital was discussed with President Harding, and it was Harding who suggested getting a local architect for Livermore.
Mortimer’s testimony that he had received a confidential list of hospital sites before others was false. There never was such a list, “and he knows it.” (“Don’t get excited,” said Easby-Smith.) Sites were advertised in the newspapers eight days in advance of bidding. If Mortimer stated he had earlier information on hospital sites than anyone else, Forbes said, “he states it as a lie.” (Mortimer, present in the room, smiled at this point, leading Forbes to exclaim, “You laugh!” Again Easby-Smith advised him, “Do not get excited, Colonel.”)16
On selling surplus supplies at Perryville. The Perryville depot was “one of the best junk piles the Government had,” with stuff “just thrown around,” it cost $700,000 a year to maintain, and Forbes was for closing it down, but there was political pressure in Maryland to keep it open. The government had sold other war surplus for less than Forbes had authorized for Perryville.
Forbes had little firsthand knowledge of the Perryville supplies; he was “unfamiliar with this stuff, because I was not at Perryville.” Three bidders were considered for the Perryville contract. (At this point, Forbes became unsuitably colloquial, damaging his cause—Easby-Smith had difficulty moving him off the topic. One would-be bidder was a “little fellow” called Mr. Silberman, who came into his office and “threw out a handful of cancelled checks on my desk. And I told him to get out.” Then the next day, “in walks this hombre sitting right over here [indicating a Mr. Anchester, who was present at the hearings], swinging a gold-headed cane like a drum major.” Anchester said, “I am a friend of W.J. Burns of the Department of Justice, and I want to figure on this surplus property, and I am going to get some of it.” Forbes asked Burns about Anchester and what Burns said “would not do to put on that paper there.” The third, successful, bidder was Thompson and Kelly.)
Forbes obeyed Harding’s two orders to stop the sales and had heard no charge of “insubordination” until Sawyer used the word at these hearings: “I would never commit insubordination to the President. I wouldn’t do it if I was a corporal, to a sergeant. I wouldn’t do it to the President of the United States.”17
On Forbes’s relationship with Elias H. Mortimer. Forbes was under the impression that Mortimer’s business was arranging contracts for medical supplies and that he worked for Mulford & Company of Philadelphia, a pharmaceutical company. He fell out with Mortimer after learning he was “the social and professional bootlegger of Washington.”18
Forbes never discussed Veterans Bureau liquor or narcotics supplies with Mortimer, and he had nothing to do with liquor or narcotics, for which the medical and supply divisions were responsible. Mortimer had talked with him about construction of veterans hospitals, “but I never gave him any encouragement.” Mortimer’s testimony that he had spoken with Forbes about hospital contracts at Atlantic City was “absurd” and “false,” including the assertion that the contracts would be let on a cost-plus basis: “I have always been opposed to cost-plus contracts, always.” (He was on record for arguing strongly against them at congressional appropriations committees.)19
Elias and Katherine Mortimer accompanied Forbes on the western trip in the summer of 1922 because Mortimer “suggested that he had never been to the Pacific Coast, and would like to go,” and Forbes saw no reason not to invite them. There was “no carousing or anything wrong” on the trip, and Mortimer was the only person who got drunk. Forbes described Mortimer’s heavy drinking, his “repeated and habitual getting full,” and his abuse of his wife during the western trip: “He would usually meet some men around town and come back to his quarters very much intoxicated.”20
Forbes had never allowed Mortimer to pay his expenses on an official trip and never asked Mortimer for a loan of $5,000. “I never accepted a penny from him in my life.” Again, “He never loaned me a bean, nor did I ever ask him for any.”21
Forbes had not said he expected to become secretary of the Interior, succeeding Albert Fall, as Mortimer had testified: “I had given up long before that any figuring on anything in the Government service.”22
He denied all knowledge of a communications code. On learning that his code name was “McAdoo,” Forbes surprised Easby-Smith by responding, “Thank you!” (Former Treasury Secretary, and President Wilson’s son-in-law, William Gibbs McAdoo was then a leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for president.) The code, Forbes said, was “perfectly ridiculous.”23
Repeatedly, in response to quotes from Mortimer’s testimony, Forbes accused Mortimer of lying. Easby-Smith read out O’Ryan’s prompting of Mortimer when he asked Mortimer to agree that Forbes had told him, “We fixed things so that no one lost any money.” Forbes: “Again Mortimer lies.” Easby-Smith: “Colonel, try to restrain yourself, won’t you?” Forbes: “I am restraining myself.”24
On Forbes’s relationship with building contractor John W. Thompson. Forbes met Thompson in Washington about a month before the western trip and saw him in Chicago but had made no plans to meet him there. He did not know anything about Thompson’s subsidiary companies and had never met him, as Mortimer had testified, in Walter Content’s apartment in New York, where there was allegedly much drinking.
On the testimony of James Williams. Forbes did not talk about narcotics with Williams at any time, as Williams had testified. The last time he visited them “the house was full of company.” Forbes had no private conversation with Mr. Williams in the kitchen, as claimed. Williams, who was in the dairy business, sat on a chair in the middle of the living room and “began talking about cheese. He talked cheese for about four hours and a half.”25
On criticisms of Forbes’s integrity. Forbes never took a decision without being advised by experts. He objected to the “charge or insinuation of dishonesty. … I want to tell you honestly and truthfully from the bottom of my heart. I have nothing to conceal, and I think it is—excuse me please.” Again, he was overcome by emotion.26
After Easby-Smith exhausted his set of questions (there were many more than noted here), O’Ryan attacked the charges Forbes made in his opening statement: “You thought originally that this investigation was of the bureau and not of you. … You believe it is an investigation of you?” Forbes, “I do.” Who were the conspirators? Forbes named Mortimer, Williams, and “others.” O’Ryan, with a supercilious edge: “And all those who have testified against you?” No, Forbes replied, only those who had been “induced to testify” against him: “Those who have perjured themselves, and have been so browbeaten that they were afraid to do otherwise.” Here Easby-Smith backed up Forbes by saying they had proof of this. O’Ryan’s interrogation suggested subtly, without actually saying so, that Forbes was delusional.27
O’Ryan characterized Forbes’s relationship with General Sawyer, quite fairly, as “strained,” tied him up in verbal knots, and provoked him to say that Sawyer had lied in his testimony. O’Ryan: “Had the doctor any improper motives in giving the testimony that he did, or do you believe him to be simply mistaken?” Forbes: “No: he is not mistaken: he just told a lie.” Forbes tried to get O’Ryan to understand that Sawyer had impeded his actions, to no avail. O’Ryan ignored him. With consummate skill, he presented Forbes as an administrator who was inadequate, untrustworthy, and confused.28
Next, O’Ryan made a frontal attack on Forbes’s professional expertise, beginning with his qualifications. Forbes had referred to himself as an engineer. “What kind of an engineer?” Civil engineer. “What college did you graduate from?” Forbes: “I took my work privately and special work at Columbia.” “Do you hold a degree?” No. “How are you a civil engineer, if you do not hold a degree?” He cast doubt on Forbes’s assertion that he could get a state license if he needed one, and then walked Forbes rapidly through a confusing array of topics, asserting dominance. The session on November 14 ended with O’Ryan in full flow at 4:30 p.m., ready to begin again on the morrow. He appeared to be enjoying himself.29
The following day, Thursday, November 15, 1923, O’Ryan went all out to bring Forbes down: “It is a well-known recourse of embarrassed witnesses to distract attention from themselves by attacking others. Colonel Forbes I regard as irresponsible. I expect, however, to prove much more than irresponsibility in his conduct of office and in his lack of care of the disabled. I expect to prove convincingly the whole truth of Mortimer’s charge that Colonel Forbes was one of a gang of conspirators who were tied together neck and jowl to defraud the Government. I expect to show further that this criminal conduct was in consonance with his previous life record.”30
Front-page news carried the following headlines: “Says He Will Prove Forbes a Grafter.” “Forbes Led Gang of Conspirators, Declares O’Ryan.” Forbes’s personal history and character were now fair game. Senator Reed protested, as he had before, that this “is not an investigation of Colonel Forbes,” but then waffled: “But the charge has been made that witnesses have been suborned, and that testimony has been suppressed; and if those charges are true, it is important that the committee should know them.” O’Ryan interrogated Forbes about his family background. “Are you a native-born citizen, or naturalized?” (In other words, are you a real American?) Forbes explained he was a citizen through his father’s naturalization papers, which was true. O’Ryan jumped to what he was paid when he worked at the Hurley-Mason Company. Forbes says he had a $6,000 “drawing account.” O’Ryan seemed to be suggesting that Forbes was a $6,000 man, not worth his $10,000 salary at the bureau. Peppering him with questions, O’Ryan completely unsettled Forbes.31
Leading questions made the interrogation move fast. Why did Forbes permit unacceptable conditions in Veterans Bureau hospitals? When Forbes tried to explain, O’Ryan turned to Reed: “I would prefer, Mr. Chairman, that this witness, who was allowed full rein yesterday to make stump speeches, be required now to answer questions categorically.”
O’Ryan asked Forbes about giving a highly paid job to Mortimer’s brother-in-law (Katherine Mortimer’s younger brother George Tullidge, who is misidentified in the hearings as “Ralph”). “Now, Colonel Forbes, do you swear before this committee that that appointment was not made to please Mrs. Mortimer?” Forbes seemed mesmerized, then solemnly replied, “I swear.” The hammering continued. Did Colonel Forbes “recall that on October 6, this year, an action was commenced against you in Seattle?” The question forced Forbes to say that the case was a divorce action brought by his wife. Easby-Smith objected to questions about the divorce. Reed ruled the question acceptable if O’Ryan could show evidence of “moral turpitude” with respect to any government authority, past or present. O’Ryan produced a copy of the divorce papers and suggested that Forbes used the name Charles Forbes without his middle initial in the divorce papers to avoid publicity. The questions had come a long way from an investigation of the Veterans Bureau.32
O’Ryan: Why did Forbes consider Elias Mortimer an attractive companion? “Well he seemed to be plausible” is the best Forbes could do. O’Ryan gave the impression that he, John Francis O’Ryan, would never have been taken in by Mortimer and that, by saying Mortimer was “plausible,” Forbes was either lying or a fool. Nothing was made of the fact that Mortimer was plausible enough to be the star witness at the hearings, but that was not the issue. Mortimer was a tool O’Ryan was exploiting as he would any valuable informer in a war. In turn, Forbes was apparently Mortimer’s tool.33
The committee members wanted to speed up proceedings and get back to their other work. After the lunch recess on Thursday, Reed came out with a statement that the committee strongly supported General O’Ryan and praised him for “carry[ing] out the purposes of his appointment with zeal that does him credit.” Forbes drew on a hidden reserve of energy. Confusing attempts to say what trip happened when, as O’Ryan kept producing new copies of hotel bills, provoked him: “What kind of a badger game is this?” Reed rebuked Forbes. The battering continued. Did Forbes expect the committee to believe that Mortimer had no business purpose in making the western trip? Forbes: “Absolutely.” Did he by then not think Mortimer had some ulterior purpose in mind? Forbes: “I do not know what he had in mind.” Though invited to do so, Forbes refused to involve the bureau’s former legal counsel, the late Charles Cramer, in possible crime. He seemed more relaxed, even excessively so, veering toward flippancy. The best we can say of his performance is that he survived O’Ryan’s ruthless, well-honed cross-examination.34
By the end of Thursday, Forbes had been giving testimony for three days, but O’Ryan had not finished with him and Easby-Smith had further questions. Forbes reconfirmed to O’Ryan that he had known nothing about the code: “Absolutely: never saw it in my life until you put it on the desk here the other day.” He confirmed that he reviewed a contract document for the Colombian project and had Milliken of the bureau’s legal department look at it from the legal perspective but said he did not discuss the project with Mortimer and did not consider further involvement. O’Ryan leaned on Forbes’s personal weaknesses and Forbes did not see the trap. How was it that he carried around with him on the western trip a man (Mortimer) who was, according to Forbes, a drunkard? Forbes: “He would have his little souse parties, and I would tell him unless he cut it out he would have to leave the party. He would always apologize and say, ‘I am perfectly all right, and I won’t do it again.’” O’Ryan: “And you believed it?” Forbes: “I believed it.” O’Ryan: “Continuously?” Forbes: “Yes; I did.”35
O’Ryan petitioned the committee to introduce further materials about Forbes’s past. “Oh, I do not intend to say what those records are,” said O’Ryan ingenuously, when Easby-Smith objected; he merely thought it his “duty” to show Forbes’s record, “good, bad, or indifferent, whatever it may be.” Reed refused the petition, but the denial helped substantiate descriptions of Forbes as outlandish or picaresque, a man with a disreputable background.36
Everyone was tired. Fortuitously, brief testimony from veterans’ representatives sparked new energy when they complained that the hearings were irrelevant to veterans’ needs. Leaders of Disabled American Veterans (DAV) were outraged at the direction the hearings had taken, not because they were unfair to Forbes but because they had gone off-track: “The men want to know what is hoped to be gathered from all these charges, denials, and countercharges which at best read like a newspaper account of a dog fight.” Two of the senators rushed to defend themselves. Republican Reed lectured DAV Commander James A. McFarland on the importance of listening to the “defense” being made “by an official who is charged by very grave crimes” in his administration of the Veterans Bureau, thus portraying Forbes as an accused criminal in need of a defense. Democrat Walsh: “We never again can have in charge of this bureau a man who allows politics to control his action, or who allows incompetents to serve under him.” He declared that the president (Harding) should be held responsible.37
Easby-Smith regained the floor on Friday afternoon. His points included (among others): Forbes did have his suspicions of Cramer, but it was “so much hearsay.” There was nothing concrete to substantiate the many rumors. Forbes regretted firing his chief medical adviser, Dr. Haven Emerson. Kate Forbes had some (minimal) involvement with the Mortimers. Katherine Mortimer had telephoned Forbes at the Wardman Park to go up to the Mortimer apartment where he found her injured (by Mortimer). Forbes was reluctant to get “mixed up in family rows,” and so on. Each little piece of evidence was useful, but there was no effect large enough to overcome received perceptions of Mortimer and Forbes.38
The proceedings were becoming more and more like a trial. O’Ryan cross-examined Forbes, pushing at his “moral character.” First, sex: The name of the actress Forbes met in Atlantic City was “Teddie.” (This was actually the name of the racy flapper Francine Larrimore played on stage.) Ms. Larrimore had asked Forbes to meet her in Europe for a “good time,” but he declined. Then liquor: “You are quite sure about this drinking on your part in the bureau, are you?” (He meant lack of drinking, to which Forbes had testified.) Marital behavior: O’Ryan tried to shake Forbes over his divorce record (without asking Forbes whether he had been divorced from his first wife).
Finally, Forbes was excused as a witness. His face was flushed, his voice weak. His physician gave him a sedative. The Associated Press, reaching across many of the nation’s smaller papers, summed up the past few days: “The sharp plowshare of the senate veterans’ committee driven forward again Friday through the affairs of Director Charles R. Forbes, turned up another collection of charges, denials and counter charges.”39
Easby-Smith’s remaining efforts backfired. His first witness, Stephen Davis Timberlake, the smart, long-winded lawyer from Staunton, Virginia, who had counseled Katherine Mortimer about her divorce, launched into long and convoluted testimony against James and Margaret Williams and Mortimer. O’Ryan would have cut him off, but O’Ryan was away for a change, and Major Arnold was in control. Walsh claimed they might have to strike Timberlake’s testimony from the record. Reed said Timberlake had called Mortimer “an unrepeatable and filthy name” during the recess the previous day. Timberlake said he called Mortimer a “very opprobrious name” because “he had the effrontery to speak to me while I was addressing Mr. Hogshead,” his friend from Staunton. When Mortimer hid behind Major Arnold, Timberlake said, he invited both of them outside. He did not say, as Arnold alleged, that he would knock Arnold’s head off. Timberlake referred them to the Capitol police to confirm what he said. It was time for a change of direction.40
On Saturday, November 17, the Senate investigating committee made a declarative statement: no more attempts would be allowed to impeach Elias H. Mortimer. Shorn of the possibility of shaking Mortimer’s testimony, Easby-Smith focused his string of witnesses on pro-Forbes testimony: hospital contracting procedures were not in Forbes’s hands, sobriety existed at work, Forbes had not seen coded messages, Forbes’s staff had seen no evidence of favoritism or corruption, and so forth. Such facts were dull stuff for audience and reporters, not good theater. But, then, on Saturday evening, O’Ryan and Mortimer came back onstage and regained control of the production. O’Ryan strengthened his stated belief in a conspiracy. Mortimer dropped more sexual innuendoes and sharpened up his role as a cruelly deceived husband: “I had never had any trouble in my life before until I met this fellow Forbes.”41
Most usefully for the accusations, Mortimer gave a brilliant new description of the secret handover of $5,000 he said he had made to Forbes at the Drake Hotel, Chicago, when they were on the western trip:
Forbes was in with Mrs. Mortimer when Thompson and I were in this bathroom. I got the money. [Here the audience could imagine a fistful of crisp 500-dollar bills changing hands, $15,000 in all.] Thompson came out and went in with me into our room, and I said, “Forbes, I want to see you.” He said, “All right, Mort.” He came out and we went in there and I counted them out. [Fingering and crackle of $5,000 worth of banknotes.] He put them in his pocket and didn’t do anything more, only just laughed and went back into the room and started shooting craps. After that we dressed for dinner, and Thompson took us out to a club, one of the country clubs there.42
It mattered not in the crafting of public opinion that Mortimer’s account varied from other claims he made, or whether the transaction happened. The public was familiar with similar stories about bootleggers and others passing ill-gotten gains to one another. Such stories could be found in the press, in fiction, and on the ubiquitous movie screen. His account was, in a word, believable. In it, Mortimer and Forbes were cronies, equally complicit. The gem in this telling is the laugh.
Thus, the early themes of the hearings survived. By the end of the hearings there were two strikingly different versions of Forbes as a “character”: the Forbes who had put the Veterans Bureau together (a thankless job), had started the US national veterans hospital system, and was defended by Easby-Smith and the Forbes described by O’Ryan and Mortimer as a crook in league with other crooks. Press accounts portrayed the character of Colonel Forbes not as he and his supporting witnesses presented it, but as he was described by the investigators: soaked in the forces of corruption and its attendants—graft, sex, booze, and greed.
James Easby-Smith said his formal goodbye to the Senate investigating committee on Monday, November 19, submitting additional materials to the committee later in the week. The transcript of the hearings supports his contention that the positive case for Forbes was not made, but this was an investigation, not a court of law, and not the first or last congressional hearing to be biased. The committee had investigated and concluded. Charles Sawyer was a believable witness on the Perryville supplies. Elias Mortimer dropped his stories into willing ears. John F. O’Ryan seemed convinced of fraud from the beginning. He told Easby-Smith his purpose was to bring out “the complete story of this conspiracy” and that he was not interested in hearing about discrepancies in testimony. The senators did not object. If there was fraud in government, it was their duty to detect it.43
Privately, James Easby-Smith held strong views. The hearings “were unfair in the extreme,” he wrote Kate Forbes. “After consuming several weeks with hearing utterly inadmissible and incompetent testimony, most of which was pure hearsay and plain perjury, Colonel Forbes took the stand and was examined by me, and then cross-examined by the committee and its counsel, for three days … and after proceedings for one single day the committee cut me off and refused to permit me any further time to present evidence. It is simply impossible for me to find language to express my feeling concerning the conduct of this committee and its so-called counsel.” He ended with a message of characteristic graciousness to Kate, who remained affectionately attached to the husband she was divorcing: “It may not be necessary but it may be of some consolation to you for me to say that I have investigated Colonel Forbes’s life and conduct with extreme care and in the most minute detail, and I do not hesitate to express the opinion that he is absolutely innocent of any official or personal wrongdoing and that the attacks made on him before and during the Senate investigation constituted one of the most unjust and unjustified persecutions of a faithful official that has ever come under my notice.”44