Indictment

Last week the Department of Justice secured an indictment from a Federal grand jury in Manhattan. It made the beginning of another chapter in the great volume of charges, trials and scandals growing out of the War.

Strictly speaking, the crime alleged in this indictment was a post-War affair but it grew out of War measures. Stock of the American Metals Co., property of the Metallgesellschaft and the Metallbank of Frankfort-am-Main, was seized as alien property by the Government soon after the U. S. entered the War. Some $7,000,000 was derived from the sale of these shares. In 1921, this amount in cash and Liberty bonds was turned over to the Societe Suisse pour Valeurs de Meteaux, of Basle.

The indictment charged two Germans and two Swiss with conspiring and their companies with conspiring to defraud the Government, and added further that John T. King, former Republican National Committeeman from Connecticut, received $50,000 for taking part in the conspiracy; that the late Jesse W. Smith (notorious from the Department of Justice and Veterans' Bureau investigations) received $25,000, and Col. Thomas W. Miller, former Alien Property Custodian, got $391,000 in Liberty bonds, for approving and securing completion of the plot. All these were indicted except John T. King, who it is said is needed as a witness.

Colonel Miller's attorney declared: "The charge against Colonel Miller is entirely without foundation. Colonel Miller, however, does not intend to try the case in the newspapers. The charges will be met and answered in open court and the facts will be brought out. The records of the Department of Justice itself show that the action of the Alien Property Custodian, with reference to the return of the property turned over by the American Metals Company, was entirely proper. The Department of Justice itself passed upon the claim and allowed it."