Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1900-02-22
WHAT FREER HAS TO SAY
OF the Many Different Stories Circu'
lated BY His Opponent.

VI Ihc u toEl0 OAASo-
lated By His Opponent.
A Register reporter called on Judge
Romeo H. Freer at the Mcclure House
yesterday afternoon and asked if he
had heard of the latest story which
his opponents are circulating in West
Virginia concerning him. He replied
that these stories are so numerous and
follow each other with such rapidity
that one is scarcely able to determine
which one is the latest or the most
extravagant. If the reporter had a
new one or n that Mr.. Freer had not
heard, he would be glad to hear it.
But a few minutes before, an Ohio
county officeholder had confided to the
reporter as a fact, not as a rumor or a
current report, that Mr.. Freer had re-
Gently gotten drunk in Washington,
and while in that condition had visited
a certain house where wine flows and
women make merry in a decidedly in
decorus way, for the ediication and
qualification of Congressman and other
Washington gentlemen who have mon
ey to squander and evil tastes to in
dulge. The story carried the further
information that Mr.. Freer was no less
indecorus than were the scarlet wo-
men, and that his actions, to put it
mildly, were "perfectlySawful."
This was a new story to the reporter,
so he reported it to Congressman
Freer, and asked what he had to say
about it.
The little grey haired Congressmal's
face twitched nervously for a moment,
he bit his cigar rather v~iciously, then,
with measured deliberation, said:
1T is not So"
That seemed about all there was to
say, but the reporter couldn't see much
of a story in those four words, SO he
waited and looked an appeal for a
further statement.
Congressman Freer waited a couple
of minutes and went n
81 might characterize the story as a
base fabrication, or a f%alsehood, or a
lie, or l might make any denial of the
whole matter very much more vehe-
ment and emphatic, but when / say
1T is not So l mean it and it means
just as much as a whole column of
denial"
The reporter asked if there was any
basis whatever for the charges made
against him. Mr.. Freer declared there
was none. He had heard the story in
Washington, or rather, friends in West
Virginia had sent him word that it was
being circulated. The particular house
and the day of the occurrence were
made parts of the fabrication. He had
employed two clever Washington de-
tectives to run the story down, and
they had succeeded in discovering
that it was first told by two Federal
officeholders in Washingtops-who hail
from West Virginia, and who owe
their places in the government service
to a member of the West Virginia dele
CATION in Congress other than Mr..
Freer. The detectives had taken a
photograph of Mr.. Freer and visiting
the house in question had secured from
every inmate an explicit and positive
denial that he had ever been in the
house, or that they had ever seen him.
Certificates to this effect are now
among the archieves Of the pending
~gubernatorial contest which Mr.. Freer
carries about with him in his valise,
and they will be used where and when
they will do the most good.
Mr.. Freer could, or at least would,
give no information as to who may
have put these two Federal officehold-
ers up to lie about him. but his man
ner seemed to indicate that he has
some idea of his own on that subject
which may come out later.