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, PAGE TWm• _I PRESIDENT USES MANY WORDS IN MAKING DENIAL (Contit.iM'd front page one.) therefore, must certainly he due t< an entire failure to understand ntv message. The resolution continues: "That the president In- requested to trans mit to the house any evidence upon which he based his statement that the ‘chief argument in favor of th« provision vvtts that the congressmen did not themselves wish to lie in vestigated by secret service men This statement, which was an attack upon no one. still less upon (he con gress, is sustained by the facts. If you will turn to the con gressional record for May 1 last, pages 555:: 556ft. inclusive, you will And the debate on litis subject. Mr. Tawney of Minnesota. Mr. Smith of Iowa, Mr. Sheri.v of Kentucky, ami Mr. Fitzgerald of New York, appear in this lb-bate as the special cham pions of the provision referred to. Messrs I’arsotis. IteliDet, and Dris coll were the leaders of those who opposed the adoption of the amend ment and upheld the right of the government to use the most efficient moans possible in order to detect criminals and to prevent and punish crime, The amendment was carried in the committee of the whole. Where t o votes of the individual members are recorded, so I am un able to discriminate by mentioning the members who voted for and the members who voted against the pro vision. Init its passage, the journal records, was greeted with applause. 1 am well aware, however, that in any case of this kind many members who have no particular knowledge of iht' point at Issue, are content simply to follow the lead of the committee which, had considered the matter, and I have no doubt that many members of the house simply followed the lead ot Messrs. Tawney and Sin it It, without having had the oppnrtimiM to determine very nttieli as to tin- right and wrong of t he question. I would not ordinarily attempt ill this way to discriminate Itetween members of the house, hut its objec tion has been taken to my language, in which I simply spoke of tite action of tite house as a whole, and its ap parently there is a desire that I should thus discriminate. I will state that I think the responsibility rested on the committeee on appropriations, under the lend of the members whom 1 have mentioned. Now as to the request of the con gress that I give the evidence for my statement that the chief argument in favor of the provision was that the congressmen did not themselves wjsit to be investigated by secret service men. The part of the congressional re cord to which- I have refered above entirely supports this statement. Two distinct lines of argument were followed jn the debate. One con cerned the question whether the law warranted the employment of the secret service in departments other than the treasury, and this did not touch the merits of the service in the least. The other line of argument went to the merits of the service, whether lawfully or unlawfully em ployed. and here the chief if not the only argument used was that the service should lie cut down and re stricted because its mem tiers had “shadowed" or investigated members of congress and other officers of the government. If we examine the de bate in detail it appears that most of wliat was urged in favor of the amendment took the form of the simple statement that the committee held that there had been a "violation of law" by the use of the secret service for other purposes than siiu nressing counterfeiting (and one or two other matters which can he dis regarded.) and that such language was now to lie used as would effec lully prevent all such "violation of law" hereafter Mr. Tawney. for in stance. savs: "It was for the pur pose of stopping tite use lof this service in every possible way by the departments of the government that provision was inserted;” and Mr. Smith aa.vs: "Now, that was the only way in which any limitation could be put upon the activities of the secret service." Mr. IFitzgerald followed in the same vein, and l»y far the largest part of the argument against the employment of the secret service was confined to the statement that it was In "violation of law." Of course such a statement is not in any way an argument in favor ot the justice of the provision. it is not an argument for the provision at all. II is simply a statement of what the gent lenten making it conceive to have been tbe law. There was Dot it bv implication and direct statement the assertion that it was the law, and ought to lie tite law. that the secret service should only lie used to suppress counterfeiting; and that the law should lie made more rigid than ever in titiq respect. IncidentII.v I may say Dint in my judgment there is ample legal au thority for the statement that this appropriation law to which reference was made imposes no restrictions whatever upon tite use of the secret service men. tint relates solely to the •zpenditure of the money appropriat °4. Mr. Tawney in the debate stated ’hst he had in hfs possession a let ter jforn the secretary of the treas ury received a few da's ago” in wlih-Y ,he secretary of the treasury "hi.maqi admits tlistt the provisions under yjjjcn die appropriation has been ttWij, have been, violated year after yet, ,-or. a nujn|„>r of years in his own Vepartment." I append herewith hAppendix A the letter re ferred to. t niakpf, nw Huch admis sion as 1 b-w which Mr. Tawney al leges. It «>\ng on tjjg contrary, as you will see \ reajinB (( an “cm. phatic prote* ;lg,a|nSf any such •* i Sb{lllP ♦ r% the secretary <>f the treasury by ex isting law." and concludes hy assert ing that he "is quite within his tights in tints employing the service of these agents" and that the proposed modi fication which Mr. Tawney succeeds | in carrying through would lie "dls 'tittctly to the advantage of violators .of criminal statutes of the t'nited States." I call attention to the fact that itithis letter of Secretary Cortel you to .Mr. Tawney. as in my letter to the speaker quoted below, the ex plicit statement is made that tin* pro posed change will be for the benefit of the criminals, it statement which I simply reiterated in public form in my message to the congress this year, 'ami which is also contained in effect in the report of the secretary of t In* treasury to the congress. A careful reading of the con gressional record will also show that practically the only arguments ad vanced in favor of the limitation pro posed hy Mr. Tawney's committeee, beyond what may lie supposed to lie contained by implication in certain sentences as to "abuse" which were not specified, were those contained in the repeated statements of Mr. Slterly. Mr. Sherl.v staled that there had been "pronounced abuses grow ing out of the use of the seeret sev viee for purpose other than those in tended." putting ltis statement in the form of a question, and in the same form further stated that the "private conduct" of "members of congress, senators," and others ought not to he to Investigate a "member of congress" who had been accused of "conduct unbecoming a gentleman and a mem ber of congress." In addition to these assertions couched as questions, in* made one positive declaration, that "This secret service at one time was used for the purpose of looking into the personal conduct of a mem ber of congress." This argument of Mr. Sherley, the only real argument its to the merits of t lit* question made on behalf of the committeee on ap propriations, will lie found in col umn a I and 2 of page 5550, and column 1 5557 of the congressional record, in column I of page 5556 Mr Sherley refers to the impropriety of permitting the secret service men to investigate men in the depart ments. officers of the army and navy, and senators and congressmen: in column 1, page 5557. he refers only to members of congress. His speech puts most weight on thu investiga tion of members of congress. Wit at appears in the record is (lilt'd out and explained by an article which appeared in tile Chicago Inter Ocean of January 1904, under a Wash ington headline, and which marked jthe beginning of this agitation against the secret service. It was a special article of a bout .‘i.ooo words, written, as I was then informed and now understand, by Mr. I,. W. Itus bey, at that time private secretary to the speaker of the house. I in close a copy of certain extracts from the article, marked Appendix It. It contained an utterly unwarranted attack on the secret service division of the treasury department and its chief. The opening paragraph in cludes, for instance, statements like tin* following: "He (the chief of (he division I and his men are desirous of doing the secret detective work for the whole government and tire not par ticular about drawing the line be tween the lawmakers and the law breakers. They are ready to shadow the former as well as the latter." Then, after saying that congress will insist that the men shall only be used to stop counterfeiting. the article goes on: “Congress does not intend to have a Fouche or any other kind of minister of police to he used hy the executive departments against the legislative branch of the government. It has been so used, and it is sus pected that it Ims been used recently. * * * The legislative branch of the government will not tolerate the meddling of detectives, whether they represent the president, cabinet officers, or only tIteselves. * * * Congressmen resented file secret Interference of the secret service men, who for weeks shadow ed some Of till* most respected I mem Iters of the house and senate. * * * When it was discovered that the secret service men were shadowing congressmen there was a storm of indignation at the capitol and the bureau came uear be ing abolished and the appropriation for tlu> suppression of counterfeiting cut off * * * At another time tlte chief of tlie secret service had ills men shadow congressmen with a view to involving them in scandals that would enable the bureau to dic tate to them as the price of silence. * * * The secret service men have shown an inclination again to shadow mem Iters of congress, know ling them to lie law makers, and this is no joke. Several of the depart ments have asked congress for secret funds for Investigation, and the , treasury department wants the limi tation removed from the appropria tion for suppressing counterfeiting. This shows a tendency toward Fotichelsm and ft secret watvh on other officials than themselves.' At the tittle of litis publication tile work of the secret service, which was tints assailed, included especially the investigation of great land frauds in the west, and tlte securing of evi dence to help the department of justice in the beef trust Investiga tions at Chicago, which resulted in successful prosecutions In view of Mr. Husliey's position. I have accepted the above quoted statements as fairly expressing the real meaning and animus of the at tack made in general terms on the tiso of the secret pervlce for the punishment of criminals. Further **wi**o In ( hi) iMirfMemonoi r*f I* rfitlr 1X11X1J 1 J.'II to endeavor to find the feelings °l congressmen on public questions ot . note, I have frequently discussed this j particplar matter will) members of congress; and on such oecassions the^ reasons alleged to me for the hostili ty of congress to the secret service, both by those who did and by those who did not share this hostility, were almost invariably the same as those set forth in Mr. Bushev's arti cle. I may udd, bv the way. that tnese allegations as to the secret ser vice arc wholly without foundation in fact. But all of tiiis is of insignificant importance compared with the main, the real issue. This issue is simply. Docs congress desire that the govern ment shall have at its disposal the most effeient instrument for the de fection of criminals and the preven tion and punishment of crime, or j does it not? The action of the house last May was emphatically an action against the interest of jiist'ee and against the interest of law abiding , people, and in its effect of benefit | only to lawbreakers. 1 am not now 'dealing with motives; whatever may have boon the motive that induced tile action of which I speak, this was beyond all question tile effect of that action. Is the house now willing to remedy the wrong? For a long time I contented my I self with endeavoring to persuade | the house not to permit the w rong, speaking Informally on the subject ' with those members who, I believed, knew anything of the matter, and coiiiiiiHiiicatiug officially only in the I ordinary channels, as through the secretary of the treasury, in a let ter to the speaker on April 50, pro testing against the cutting down of tlic appropriation vitally necessary it I the Interstate commerce commission I was to carry into effect tin* twentieth } section of the Hepburn law. I added: j "The provision ulsuit the einploy | ment of the secret service men will j work very great damage to the gov ernment In its endeavor to prevent land punish crime. There is no more ! foolish outcry Hum this against spies;' only criminals need fear our detective*.’ (I inclose copy ot the whole letter, marked "Appendix C ' The postscript is blurred In my ropy i book, and two or three of the words i can not be deciphered, t These j methods proved unavailing to prevent i the wrong. Messrs. Tawuey and Smith, and their fellow members on the appropriation comniitteee paid no heed to the protests; and as the ob I noxious provision was incorporated | In the sundry civil bill, it was im possible for me to consider or dis cuss it on its merits, as I should have done had it been in a separate bill. Therefore I have now taken the only method available, that of dis cussing it in my message to congress: and as all efforts to secure what I regarded as proper treatment of the subject without recourse to plain speaking had failed. I have spoken plainly and directly, and have set fortli the facts in explicit terms. in connection with the Nebraska prosecution the government has by decree secured the return to the gov ernment of over a million acres of grazing land, in Colorado of more than 2,000 acres of mineral land, and suits are now pending involving 150,000 acres more. All these investigations in the land cases were undertaken in conse quence of Mr. Hitchcock, the then pecretury of the inferior, becoming convinced that there were extensive frauds committed In his department: and the ramifications of the* frauds were so far-reaching ttutt he was afraid to trust his own officials to deal in thoroughgoing fashion with them. One of the secret service men acordinglv resigned and was appoint ed in the interior department to car ry on this work. The Hist tiling he discovered was that the special agents' division or corps of detectives of the land office of the interior de partment was largely tinder the con trol of the land thieves: anil in con sequence the investigations alcove re ferred to had to lie made by secret service men. If the present law, for which Messrs. Tawney. Smith, and the other gentlemen I have above men tioned are responsible, had then been in effect, this action would have been impossible, and most of the ■ criminals would unquestionably have escaped. .No more striking in | stance can be Imagined of the desir ability of having a central corps of skilled Investigating agents who can at any time lie assigned. If neces sary in large numbers, to investigate some violation of the federal stat utes, in no matter what branch of the public service In this particu lar case most of tin- men Investlgat | ed who were public servants were in 'the executive branch of the govern ment. But in Oregon, where an enormous acreage of fraudulently alienated public land was recovered for tiie government. ,c Bulled States senator. Mr. Mitchell, and a member of tlio lower house. Mr. Williamson, were convicted on evidence obtained by men trail • '‘erred from- the secret service, and unoihor member of con gress was indicted Frui.i I'i c in I nut a successful in vestigation oi uat iirali/.iition affairs was made by the secret service, with ! result of obtaining hundreds of con ' vlctions of eouspirators who were convicted of selling fraudulent pa pers of naturalization. I Sulisequeiii j ly, congress passed a very wise law providing a special service and np i pronriatlnn for the prevention of nat uralization frauds; but unfortunate ly. at the same time that the action against the secret service was taken, congress also cut down ihe appro Ti find for lilts special service, with he result of crippling the effort to -top frauds in naturalization.» The ,itiv‘ (»reeiie ami tiaynqr. impli ' ‘d in a peculiarly big government contract fraud, were located and ar rested in Canada by the secret ser vice, and thanks to this they have since gone to prison for their crimes. TV" secret service was used to as sist iu the Investigation of crimes under the peonage laws, and owing partly thereto numerous convictions were secured and the objectionable practice war. practically stamped out, at least in many districts. The most rvf<y»io|iin iMnnirirllfiv opium in the history of the treasury ; department was investigated I agents of the secret service m N ' York and Seattle and a suoressfu prosecution of the offenders 'tnd.r taken. Assistance of the minus value was rendered to the deport ment of justice in the beet trust In vestigation at Chicago prosecutions were followed up and tines indicted. The cotton leak scandal In the agri cultural department was investigat ed and the responsible parties local ed. What was done In connection with lottery investigations is dis closed in a letter just sent to me by the 1’nlted States attorney for Dela ware, running as follows: The destruction of the Honduras National Lottery Co., successor to tlie Ismisiana Lottery Co., was <11 tireD the work of the secret service. * * * This excellent work was accomplished by Mr. Wilkie and his subordinates. I thought It might be timely to recall tills prosecution. Three hundred thousand dollars in tines were collected hy the govern ment in the lottery cases. Again, the ink contract fraud In the bureau ot engraving and printing ta bureau ot the treasury department) was inves tigated hy the secret service and the guilty parties brought to justice. Mr. Tawtiey stated in tie* debate that this was not investigated hv the secret service hut hy a clerk "down there conveying the Impression that the Clerk was not In the secret service. As a matter of fact, he was In the se cret service; his name was Moran, and he was promoted to assistant chief for the excellence of his work in tills case. The total expense for tile office and field force of the se cret service Iasi year was $ tn.i.nioi; and by this one investigation they saved to the government over $ I (Hit) a year. Thanks to the restric tion imposed hy congress it Is now very difficult for the secretary of the treasury to use the secret service freely even in his own department: for instance, to use them to repeal what they did so admirably in tin case of 1 liis ink contract The gov ernment is further crippled by tin law forbidding It to employ detective agencies Of course the government can detect the most dangerous crimes, and punish the worst crim inals. only by the use. either of tin* secret service or of private detect ives: to hamper it in using the one, and forbid b to resort to the other, can inure to the beneflt ol none sav* tin* criminals. The facts above given show be yond possibility of doubt that what the secretary of th- treasury and ) had lsitli written prior to the enact ment of 1 In* obnoxious provision, and what I have since written in my mes sage to the congress, slate the facts exactly as they are. The obnoxious provision is of benefit only to the criminal class and ran he of lieiietit only to the criminal class If it had been embodied in the law at tin* time when I became president all tin* prosecutions above mentioned, and many others of the same general type, would either not have been un dertaken or wi hi have been under taken with tin government at a great disadvantage: ami many, and proba bly most of the chief offenders would have gone scot-free instead of be ing punished for tln-ir crimes Such a hod 1 as tin* see re I service, such a body of trained investigating agents, occupying a permanent po sition in tin* govern incut service, and separate from local investigating forces in different departments, is an absolute necessity If the best work is to In* done against criminals. It is hy far the mo. 1 efficient Instrument possible' to use agaiusl crime Of course tin* more efficient an Instru ment Is, the more dangerous It Is if misused To tin* argument that a force like this can In* misused It Is only necessary to answer that the condition of its usefulness if handled properly is that it shall tie so effi cient as to In* dangerous If handled improperly. Any instance of abuse hy the secret service or other Inves tigating force In the departments should la* unsparing iy punished, and congress should hold itself ready at any and all times to Investigate the executive departments whenever there Is reason to believe that any such instance of abuse lias occurred 1 I w isli to emphasize my more than cordial acquiescence ill the view that ibis is not only the right of congress, lint emphalicitlly its duty To use tin* secret service in the invent Iga tIon of purely private nr political matters would la* a gross abuse. Hut there has been no single Instance of siu*h abuse during my term as presi dent. In eoiiclilsiou. I most earnestly ask. in the name of good govern ment and decent administration. In tin* name of honesty and for the pm pose of bringing to justice violators of the federal laws wherever tliev may In* round, whether In public or private life, that the aetion taken by the house last year In* reversed When this aetion was taken, the sen ate committee, nilder tin* lead of (hi* tale Senator Allison, having before it a It mngh w 01 dcil protest 1 \op, 11 dix l>) from Secretary Oortelyou like that he had sent to 1 Tawtiey, accepted the secretary's views; and , the senate passed the hill in the shape presented by Senator Allison. In the conference, however, the house conferees insisted on the re tention of the provision they had In serted, and tin* senate yielded. tin* child nl tin* secret service is paid a salary utterly Inadequate to till* importance of his functions and to the admirable way in which |„. j,UH performed them. I earnestly urge that it be increased to $tl.nun per annum I also urge that the secret service tie placed where ii prop.-t ly belongs, and made a bureau in th, department of justice, as the chief of the secret service has repeated ly requested: but whether this is done or not it should ho explicitly pro vided that the -orrot service can lit* used to detect and punish crime wherevi r It Is found. THBODOKK UuuSKYKLT. ) judge In Washington lined .1 loan a very small sum the other day heeau.-c he smashed a man who •ailed him a liar. The judge said a liar should expect something in re turn, It may lie that the judge was thinking of one his neighbors. f national bank j A. B. WITCHER, Pres. 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