The State’s Missing Millions

Seattle—The looting of the state industrial insurance commission, perhaps the most complete and clever crime, or series of crimes, ever perpetrated in a state office, remains an unsolved mystery, and what is more, there is apparently no official effort being made to solve it. Statements from Governor Lister and the members of the commission all seek to minimize the loss, although it is evident that the officials do not even know what the possible total of theft may be, and apparently have no way of finding out. One subordinate officer of the commission has lost his job, but no charges have been preferred against him, and while the commissioners and the governor hold occasional conferences on the subject, the state is as far from convicting the guilty as on the day the looting was discovered. Unless the officials are able to discover who was responsible for the losses, the road contractors and other contributors to the industrial insurance funds will stand the loss. The looting and subsequent scandal, in which members of the commission were charged with borrowing money from employees, and engaging in oil and mining stock speculations, has served to point out the very loose way in which this fund, amounting to nearly four millions a year, has been handled.