There was a little more to come before Gutzon could be through with his aircraft investigation. His inquiry had brought reliable evidence of the theft of securities worth more than a million dollars from a Western bank through the connivance of some members of the Aeronautics Board. This matter he took to Gilbert Hitchcock of Nebraska, chairman of the Senate Military Affairs Committee, whom he had known for many years. With his own authority from the President he took it for granted that he would not have to tell the names of the people involved until after subpoenas for them had been issued. Hitchcock agreed. The next day he declared he couldn’t do it, and the day after that he made a speech in the Senate declaring that he had had a long conference with Mr. Borglum, had seen all the aircraft evidence and that there was nothing to it. Monday morning Borglum saw Hitchcock and was in the middle of his attack when Senators Joseph Frelinghuysen, James Reed, John Thomas and James W. Wadsworth, the military committee, came into the room. Somewhat informally, as everything in Washington seems to have been done in those days, they sat down and listened to Borglum’s demand for blank subpoenas. Senator Reed nodded, stood up, and said, “Mr. Chairman, owing to the high character of this witness, I move that the subpoenas he asks be given. If he gets the evidence he says exists, I will move from the floor of the Senate the hanging of those men.” Borglum thanked him. “Senator Reed,” he said, “I have not told you the half of it, and I can’t. I beg of you to give me the subpoenas and assist me in getting the evidence.” Frelinghuysen and Wadsworth seconded the motion. The subpoenas voted by the committee were never issued, however. The chairman, in whose hands the matter was left, never seemed to find time. He retired to private life after the next election. Borglum’s last interview with Hitchcock relative to the subpoenas was just about the last of his aircraft investigation. President Wilson telegraphed that Gutzon had “misunderstood” his letter of January 2, and that he wished the inquiry stopped. When the sculptor was slow in stopping, the President made his order of dismissal public. Borglum published a letter in which he asked: “What is it, Mr. President, in this country that you are afraid of? What is it in this America that the President of the United States dare not face?” Charles Evans Hughes conducted the next investigation. He worked from May until October in 1918. The New York _Times_ of November 1, 1918, printed his report. Gutzon said of it that it reminded him of the story of an Irishman who was sent to locate a bucket lost in the bottom of a well. He climbed down and he climbed back with great difficulty. Then he returned to his office and reported: “Sure, it’s there.”