ATTACHMENT 3 MOVERS' & WAREHOUSEMEN'S ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA, INC., To Whom It May Concern: I am the Executive Secretary of the Movers' & Warehousemen's Associat. of America, Inc. Throughout the years that I have acted as Executive Secretary I have invited members from various regulatory agencies including the Interstate Commerce and Federal Maritime Commissions and various private persons who have special expertise in the moving industry to speak before our members whie in convention. It has been our practice to assume payment for both travel and hotel expenses of these guest speakers. In 1969 the Honorable H. Neil Garson, Secretary of the Interstate CommeTTE Commission, was, together with other officials of the Interstate Commerce C mission and other agencies, invited to address a convention of the members of the Association in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It has been a customary arrangement with our speakers to have their wives accompany them, and in many instabeva even in the case of our General Counsel, their expenses for travel and hotel have been paid by the Association. This privilege, however, was not accepted by Mr Garson in so far as his wife's travel expenses were concerned. On this occasio Dr. Helen S. Garson, his wife, accompanied him and was also a speaker at the above convention. Contrary to this practice Mr. Garson did not permit his wife a travel expenses to be assumed by the Association. At the very least we beleve that the Association should absorb the hotel expenses and we insisted on this On or about November 18, 1969, Mr. Garson called me and asked that I suba:” a bill so that he could reimburse the Association for all hotel expenses incurred. On several occasions prior to November 18, Mr. Garson requested that I subm:: a copy of the hotel bill. I had not done so because we do not follow that practive for any of our speakers. I certainly did not want to establish a new practice billing to past guests their expenses. However, on November 18, 1969, Mr. Garc insisted that I accept payment for the expenses and delivered to me a check in the amount of $229.75. I then called our General Counsel, Mr. Herbert Burge and asked whether the check should be accepted by the Association. He saw D reason why it should be accepted for if this was followed we would establish a precedent and create additional problems. I thereupon returned the check to Mr Garson and considered the matter closed. I have no knowledge of what happened to the check. Finally on or about January 7, 1970 Mr. Garson delivered to me a replacement check dated November 18, 1969. I indicated to Mr. Garson that I could accept the check only upon advice and consent of General Counsel. I then communicated with Mr. Burstein who repeated his prior advice. However, he suggested that we accept the check which I forwarded to him at his request to review the matter with my executive committee and me at a convenient time. In the meantime Mr. Garson repeatedly insisted that I deposit the check s I then called Mr. Burstein and he agreed that he would return the check to me at a meeting in Atlanta, Georgia of the American Movers Conference in the latter part of March to which we were both scheduled to attend. Mr. Burstein returned the check to me in person at that time. In Mr. Burstein's opinion this was a bad precedent, but since Mr. Gara insisted there was no alternative but to deposit the check, which I did on April 7. 1970 following my return to Washington, D.C. Respectfully submitted. CARROLL F. GENOVESE, Executive Secretary. |