Lagniappe

"Buy a fleet and get a mail contract thrown in." To that effect was the high-pressure sales-talk of the U. S. Shipping Board when it advertised its merchant ships. Lured by the lucrative lagniappe, the United States Lines, the Mississippi Shipping Co. and several other corporations contracted to buy fleets and straightway confidently filed applications for mail contracts. The fleets were handed over promptly, but the mail contracts, purporting to "foster U. S. shipping," lingered on.

Last month Postmaster-General Walter Folger Brown, perusing a roseate stock-selling prospectus of the United States Lines, opined that no fostering was needed, withheld its mail contracts. Last week Mr. Brown, finding mail bids of the Mississippi Shipping Co. and other Shipping Board fleet buyers higher than those of competitors, again held back. He begged President Hoover to direct him to reject all pending mail contracts until Congress could decide whether the lagniappe should actually go to Shipping Board buyers, or whether, now that the fleets were sold, the contracts might not be given to lowest bidders as required by law. The President indicated that he would refer this delicate ethical question to Congress.