Junket? No!

SHIPPING

Junket? No!--Junket!

After nearly two weeks of accusation that he was taking the Leviathan on a $1,000,000 junket in the guise of a trial trip, Chairman Lasker replied to his accusers. The next day the Democratic National Committee replied that his reply was no reply. The substances of both charge and countercharge bear an interesting comparison, because both are true.

Said Mr. Lasker: " This very trial trip was fully provided for by experts engaged in December, 1919, by a Shipping Board headed by John Barton Payne under the Democratic Administration. . . . In January, 1922, the experts referred to ... asked the present Shipping Board . . . to appropriate $120,000 to cover the cost of the trial trip, which sum included the cost of guests."

Said the Democratic Committee: " John Barton Payne resigned from the Shipping Board and became Secretary of the Interior on March 15, 1920. Specifications for repairs to the Leviathan were sent to prospective bidders . . . in October. 1921." (19 months later).

In other words, a Democratic Shipping Board chose the experts who ordered the trial trip, and the experts delivered their opinion to a Republican Shipping Board which put them in effect. The two statements are not contradictory.

As to the real question of whether the trial trip is a junket, Mr. Lasker made three pertinent statements: that when the Leviathan was converted into a troop ship (undergoing changes "minor compared to those now made") she was sent on a five-day trial cruise in southern waters; that the cost of the trial trip will be $120,000, of which $13,000 will be caused by the presence of guests, and that the experts "insisted" that there should be between 400 and 500 guests to test the " complex organization and service machinery " of the ship.

On these points the Democratic reply did not touch, but stressed the fact that the cost of reconditioning the Leviathan, originally estimated at $6,110,000, had risen to $8,200,000.

Commented Arthur Brisbane, Hearst editor:

"By spending $13,000 more, Lasker, whose real business is advertising, has succeeded in getting several hundred valuable free press agents on board the boat, and in addition has got from the publishers of the United States free advertising that couldn't have been bought for $10,000,000."