Mr. KITCHIN. If you got out of a job to-morrow you could get another one?

Mr. HALPER. Yes, sir.

Mr. KITCHIN. Do you know of any men who have been hunting for jobs and could not find them?

Mr. HALPER. I can only speak for this city. But I have heard, and if you gentlemen want to hear what I heard, I can only tell you that in some of the cities throughout the country there are men looking for employment, and I have in mind Detroit, when one of our associates was in Detroit, and he said that there was quite some unemployment in that city.

Mr. KITCHIN. Who did you say?

Mr. HALPER. One of my associates, a man on this committee.

Mr. KITCHIN. It has been my observation, from what I can learn from the press, and from reports, that jobs are looking for men and have been since the armistice, and a fellow has to run away from a job to keep from getting one.

Now, you spoke about the people that went into the war leaving school. The draft age was really 21 years, was it not?

Mr. HALPER. Yes, sir.

Mr. KITCHIN. Until 1918 they never called any of the 19-year class. Generally a fellow stops school by the time he is 21.

Mr. HALPER. I am not speaking of the man who is going to a university. There were thousands of men who were studying nights and taking courses through correspondence. Of course, I know of cases of university men quitting school and going into the Army. I know cases in this city where men were attending law schools and accounting schools in this city, and lost just enough time in the Army to prevent them from having graduated. They would have graduated had they remained.

Mr. KITCHIN. Most of those men in the law schools, after 21, got some kind of commission?

Mr. HALPER. Not all; no. I know of cases where they did not. Some did, I believe. They were not men of 21 years. They were men of 30 to 45 years, men employed during the day and taking up courses at night.

Mr. KITCHIN. Were you a commissioned officer?

Mr. HALPER. No, sir. I entered as a private and was discharged as a battalion sergeant-major.

Mr. KITCHIN. How many men belong to your organization?

Mr. HALPER. Well, roughly, 500,000.

Mr. KITCHIN. How much do they pay a year each?

Mr. HALPER. The fee is $2. One dollar includes a subscription to the paper, which has not been issued yet, but it will entitle them to a year's subscription.

Mr. KITCHIN. So you collect about a million dollars a year.

Mr. HALPER. Well, now, we have not collected any money from the 500,000, because, as I said in my opening remarks, these organizations are carrying on separate organizations, and pledged to meet in national convention, and while they are affiliated with the national body, they have their own system of keeping books and collecting money. Mr. KITCHIN. $2 apiece?

Mr. HALPER. $2 apiece.

Mr. KITCHIN. Were you ever connected with any of these other organizations, soldiers' organizations?

Mr. HALPER. Yes; I was connected with the Private Soldiers' and Sailors' Legion of this city.

Mr. KITCHIN. Do you belong to that now?

Mr. HALPER. No, sir.

Mr. KITCHIN. Why did you get out of that? Did not that carry out your plans, your ideas as to the bonus?

Mr. HALPER. Yes; the Private Soldiers' and Sailors' Legion stands practically upon the same program as we do.

Mr. KITCHIN. Why did you leave?

Mr. HALPER. I left because I disagreed with the tactics of the men who were connected with it, the men who were associated with me in the Soldiers' and Sailors' Legion.

Mr. KITCHIN. You were never expelled from that order, were you, the Soldiers' and Sailors' Legion?

Mr. HALPER. Well, legally I have not been expelled; that is, according to the rules and constitution of the order a man can not be expelled from the organization, especially when that is incorporated.

Mr. KITCHIN. Did they go through the formality of expelling you? Mr. HALPER. Just sent me a notice that I was expelled.

Mr. KITCHIN. What did they accuse you

of?

Mr. HALPER. Well, the statement that they

Mr. KITCHIN. I understand how these little jealousies arise. I can understand that expelling you meant nothing. What did they accuse you of?

Mr. HALPER. They accused me of giving away the secrets of the organization, although there were no secrets, and accused me of diverting the mails of the organization.

Mr. KITCHIN. Tampering with the mail?

Mr. HALPER. According to the accusation, violating the laws of the United States, but you see I am still at liberty. I went to the postmaster and explained the circumstances to him. I do not know whether you want to know the details.

Mr. KITCHIN. No; I had no idea that you had been expelled. I just wanted to know how you got out of the order.

Mr. HALPER. I am not afraid to tell the truth.

Mr. KITCHIN. Then you went out, in other words, because that organization was not pursuing the tactics that you thought they ought?

Mr. HALPER. The brand of men associated there were not the brand of men that I wanted to associate with.

Mr. KITCHIN. So they expelled you, so that you could get rid of their company. I understand how those things are. Then after you were formally expelled-I suppose wrongly; I know how those things come about you went out and helped organize another organization? Mr. HALPER. The first thing I tried to do was to try to clean up that organization.

Mr. KITCHIN. And they cleaned you up first? [Laughter.]

Mr. HALPER. I called upon the officers of the executive committee— and we were in the majority-called a meeting of the executive committee and asked the officers to attend, and they conveniently had appointments with their grandmothers and one thing and another

you know when a man wants to evade he can do it so I never got the committee assembled.

Mr. KITCHIN. Who were the officers in charge of this other organization that you were associated with?

Mr. HALPER. The president of the organization was Marvin G. Sperry, and the power behind the throne-do you want to know that?

Mr. KITCHIN. Yes.

Mr. HALPER. A man named H. B. Martin, who was not a soldier. Mr. KITCHIN. Is that the gentleman who used to beat around Congress here years ago?

Mr. HALPER. I guess that is the same one. I do not know.

Mr. KITCHIN. Mr. Martin, a little man with iron-gray mustache? Mr. HALPER. Yes.

Mr. KITCHIN. I know. He is a very smart gentleman.

Mr. HALPER. Yes; indeed, he is, or I would not have been out of the organization. [Laughter.]

Mr. KITCHIN. It was not Sperry, the soldier, but it was Martin, the citizen, that got you out? How did Martin, between us, ever get into this soldiers' organization?

Mr. HALPER. Well, I heard of the organization about June, 1918. I came up there and saw the sign they had up over their door, and I went up and asked for information about it, and I met these men, Sperry and Martin. I thought Martin was just hanging around. I had never heard of him. I became a member.

Mr. KITCHIN. If you had come to me, I could have told you something about Martin. [Laughter.] Go ahead.

Mr. HALPER. I became a member and joined the local legion, called Legion No. 1, and one day when I came up to the national headquarters I found that they were having an investigation of the national officers, and the local organization asked me to join in, and I found that the specific charges against the officers was that the president had taken a drink or two, and that the secretary and the president were at odds. So I said that it was not a crime to take a drink, and I said that since we were engaged in forming an organization of the private soldiers here, the personal faults and shortcomings of the men should not be considered, but rather the great work that we were carrying on. So I stood by Sperry and told the boys there to forgive him and give him another chance. So he was reinstated, or they dropped the charges, and then Sperry came to me and told me that he could not get along with his secretary, that the secretary was opposed to spending any money because he wanted the money for his salary. I suggested that one or the other ought to get out. I said to Sperry, "You are a big, powerful fellow. You have been gassed over there. You are better than Sanders. I do not like his tactics," and I engineered Sanders out of the organization. [Laughter.] Mr. KITCHIN. Was it after that that Martin engineered you out of the organization? [Laughter.]

Mr. HALPER. Yes, sir.

Mr. KITCHIN. Tell me how Martin got you out of the organization. Mr. HALPER. Then Sperry was very thankful to me, and appreciated what I had done, and he asked me to become secretary of the organization. I told him that I worked during the day, but that I would be glad to come in during the spare hours and conduct the

correspondence. I told him that I did not want any pay. I did that for some time, and I found that there was no money in the treasury; that Sanders had been pretty bad in drawing the money for his salary; and that Sperry had borrowed money from his friends and had put it in the organization, and was not getting any salary.

Mr. KITCHIN. By the way, how much salary did the secretary get? Mr. HALPER. $50 for one or two months, and $100 for another month. He was there only two or three months.

Mr. KITCHIN. He got out mighty quick after you got in?

Mr. HALPER. Yes.

Mr. KITCHIN. Tell how they got you out.

Mr. HALPER. I conducted the correspondence of the organization and Sperry was there and I did not know about it. I saw him sitting around there. Martin was not saying much, but advising how to do things, how to organize. He told us that he was connected with large organizations throughout the country, and he knew all about organizations. Well, I got hold of a fellow who acted as the treasurer, but he did not let his name appear on the papers, and he was an accountant. I was satisfied that he would keep the books. Another man acted as president. We were really the only active officers. Things went along very nicely, and then Martin disappeared. He did not disappear in the sense that he ran away, but he went to New York or some place, and Sperry and I were carrying on the work.

Sperry was coming up on the hill visiting gentlemen of the Congress, getting suggestions from them, getting them to endorse the organization, and writing throughout the country to organize, to get the members in. I did not know anything about the policy. I simply wanted to get the members in. Through the hard work of this treasurer and myself we got $120 together. We had no money to pay rent, we could not pay the telephone bill. But it seems that Sperry had a lot of credit in the town, and could get money when we had to get it. I could not get any money, and I was working for a salary. At one time I contributed some of my money. Finally one day Sperry says, "We will have to go to New York and see some newspaper people there and enlist their support for the purpose of publicity. He says, "Will you come along with me?" I told him I could not go because I was working during the day. He said that he was going himself, so Sperry went away and then the fuss started, because a week passed

Mr. KITCHIN. Did you go with Mr. Sperry?

Mr. HALPER. No, I stayed there and took care of the office, and he telephoned and telegraphed down that he was getting along fine. Mr. KITCHIN. Did Mr. Martin come around while Sperry was away?

Mr. HALPER. No, he was not in town, I believe. We got $120 together. I got some of the fellows in Detroit and Los Angeles to organize, and they sent in their money. We got $120, which was fine for a start, because there had been no money before.

One morning I came there before going to work. I was in the office and wondering what had become of Sperry. That was the 1st of September when they arrived, and I became better acquainted with Martin. Sperry arrived, and he was under the weather. But of course I had forgiving ideas, so I did not think much of that. He borrowed some money from me, and I had the money that belonged

to the treasury, and I thought he was going out and have some dinner or an eye-opener or something, and get on the job again. Then about

Mr. KITCHIN. Is that the place the treasurer kept the money, in his pocket?

Mr. HALPER. No, when I came to work I stopped at the bank and deposited the money. If the records could be found you would find that a deposit was made every day.

Mr. KITCHIN. I knew that. I wanted you to put that in the record, because it might show that the treasurer was keeping it in his pocket.

Mr. HALPER. I put it there prepared to go to the bank that morning. The money was there and I gave Sperry $10, and I would have given him some money out of my own money to get fixed up. Martin was on the job. I told Sperry to beware of Martin.

Mr. KITCHIN. Martin had come back in the meantime?

Mr. HALPER. He came back with him, and the trouble started. Mr. KITCHIN. Martin was a sort of outside advising officer?

Mr. HALPER. Outside? No. He was inside and all around [Laughter.]

Mr. KITCHIN. He was a citizen adviser?

Mr. HALPER. Yes, sir.

Mr. KITCHIN. He had never been overseas, in the Army or Navy? Mr. HALPER. No, he was too old. I know he had not.

Mr. KITCHIN. He was the real adviser of this organization?

Mr. HALPER. Yes. He came back, and I found when the statement came from the bank that the money was all gone.

Mr. KITCHIN. All gone?

Mr. HALPER. Yes.

Mr. KITCHIN. Go ahead.

y?

Mr. HALPER. They withdrew it from New York, telegraphed for some, and there had been checks protested and everything. Mr. KITCHIN. Did Martin get away with the money Mr. HALPER. No, it was all done under Sperry's signature. Mr. KITCHIN. But you do not know how much Martin got? Mr. HALPER. I could not say; have not the least idea.

Mr. KITCHIN. If he got any, I will bet you'll never get any back. [Laughter.]

Mr. HALPER. I know that myself. [Laughter.] It happened that

Mr. TREADWAY. Was it only $120 all told that Sperry and Martin got? Did you not have more than $120 ?

Mr. HALPER. That was cash on hand for the purpose of running the organization?

Well, then, the statement came from the bank and we found that they had withdrawn the money. I thought that was pretty bad, because we were getting along. What hurt me was that $50 of that had to be returned to the organizers, and my policy at the executive committee meetings was that if any money was to be paid it should be paid to the men who did the actual work, the organizers, and the man who swept out the place, and the creditors should be stalled off, and preference should be given the men that actually did the work;