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The Indianapolis Times investigated the guardianship affairs of those veterans, now wards of the court with banks for parents, and found estates dwindling over a period of years from large balances to pin-money. The Times will show in this series on the affairs of patients and former patients of the Marion hospital for veterans that one estate alone dropped from a $5,000 bank balance to FOURTEEN CENTS and several bonds of doubtful value. It will show that it was necessary for one closed bank to lend money to the guardianship it held in trust, in order that court reports might be made to balance without the sale of doubtful holdings. It will show that court reports on the condition of the finances of the veterans' estates were sworn to by banks but that the true values of the securities held in the veterans' estates were not divulged. Change Charged Investments of thousands of dollars were made without court order. In some cases, the securities were purchased two and three years before the circuit court of Grant county knew of the purchase. The series will relate how the Grant Trust and Savings Company, a closed institution, bought bonds in one company when reports of that company showed that it had not paid taxes for two and one-half years and had sustained a net loss the year bonds were purchased, of $14,000. It will show, however, that officers of the Grant Trust in petitioning Grant circuit court for the right to invest. declared the investment "safe and sound and without hazard." Wholesale transfers of mortgages to veterans' estates will be shown to have been made on one day by the Grant Trust Company. One month later, the Grant Trust was merged with the First National bank of Marion (now a closed institution.) The mortgages in some cases still remain unpaid. It will be shown by court records that loans were made to a beer importer of Marion at that time, an official in the bank where the trust was held. Aproval of the purchase of securities for the veterans was given by the court in some cases and some of those securities are never shown again as having been bought or transferred, in the guardianship records of the Grant circuit court. The series will trace operations of one trust officer, who also was listed as secretary, as being in direct contact with these estates of veterans through three banks. Laxity Is Hinted It will charge that he had knowledge of investments from as far back as 1922 and 1923 until the present day. Present state of these investments indicates that the circuit court was lax in investigations before giving approval to the purchase of securities for the estate of the veterans. It will be shown that up to the time of The Times' investigation, Circuit Judge O. D. Clawson never had ordered an audit of the books of the Grant Trust. The Grant Trust is in receivership in his court. Much of the frozen assets and losses to the estates of the incompetent men occurred during the business years of the Grant Trust and up to November, 1930. It will be shown that those anemic investments were taken over in the merger of the Grant Trust and the First National of Marion (now in receivership) It will be shown that records of some estates have come to the attention of the United States district attorney in the guardianship estates, but no action has been taken. While on one hand, the guardianships have been depleted in one closed bank by insecure investments it will be shown that in the Marion National bank (now in liquidation) the securities, or declared main liability, were adequate and safe, but that the wards were permitted seemingly extravagant expenditures. One veteran was permitted to buy eight watches and five watch chains in ten years' time by the
