Concealment by Disinformation
Concealment by Disinformation

Concealment by Disinformation.

An attempt at concealment in governmental reports would explain the New York Customs House's convenient combination of the January 11th engagement of $500,000 and January 12th engagement of $3,000,000 as a single line item - the $3,500,000 January 12th entry - in the "Statement of United States Gold Coin...." Although these engagements were originally reported and made separately, and a standard policy of the Customs House was to report engagements separately (as can be seen in other "Statement..." items) these two distinctly separate engagements were combined into one $3,500,000 figure appearing in official reports of exports.

The Customs House, too, as we have shown in the analysis, apparently adjusted the coin exported in January, 1909, reducing that amount by $500,000 to $2,500,000, but increased the amount in May's export by a comparable $500,000, to $810,000 (Only $310,000 was shipped in May; we have surmised that the New York Customs House needed to balance its books and show an accurate aggregate export of $3,310,000 to France in order to close the 1909 fiscal year, which ended in June) - all to avoid a $3,000,000 gold coin export appearing within its January, 1909, records. See: The January 16th Export Report and One Other 1909 Gold Coin Export to France.

The US (New York) Customs House reports were submitted by U. S. Customs Collector E. S. Fowler and dated January 30th, one week after the REPUBLIC disaster.

We further believe that the rumor of a $3,000,000 loss aboard the REPUBLIC caused an article to appear in the center of the front page of the Financial Section of the New York Post on the evening of January 23rd, the very day that the REPUBLIC disaster was front page news, that read:

No gold has been shipped to Paris since the OCEANIC sailed with a $3,000,000 consignment, which arrived just in time to do service in yesterday's Russian loan financing. ...

New York Post, January 23, 09, Fin. 1:4

The $3,000,000 consignment, unspecified as to composition in this report, contradicts the Post's own figure of January 12th, 2:3, of $3,500,000 as the shipment aboard the OCEANIC and, with the information that we now have, was apparently released to suppress the rumored loss of gold aboard the REPUBLIC. See also: The Oceanic's Cargo