The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-06-24
HOT FIGHT ON PAYNE
EFFORTS TO DRIVE HIM FROM
 CABINET ARE REDoUBLED.
President Stands by Him-Postmas. ter General Admits Mistakes, But Declares He Will
 Not. Resign.

Not Resign.
 Walter wellman's Washington Special to
 Chicago Record Herald.
 Now 1t Is the head of the Postoffice De- partment. Postmaster General Payne him. self. who is under fire. The effort to drive him out of the Cabinet is being renewed with redoubled energy The little plot formed some time ago to destroy certain officials, to smirch Perry Heath and to put an end to the political career of Mir. Payne. is stili on. Many newspapers and newspaper correspondents are in a hue and cry for MT. Payne's head. They call upon him to resign; they urge President Roosevelt to dismiss him. Evidently they have in mind the fate of MT. Alger, Secre- tary of War; It will be remembered that MT. Alger was offered up in sacrifice by President Mckinley to appease the news papers which demanded a victim. Within forty-eight hours after saying that MT. Alger had done nothing wrong and that to dismiss him would be a confession of guilt on the part of his administration. President Mckinley yielded to the pres sure and sent Vice President Hobart to General Alger with a request for his res- ignation. General Alger fell a victim to the bad system which prevailed in the War Department and in the faulty or ganization of the army which Secretary Root has since successfully bent his en- ergies to correcting. It Is now generally admitted, even by his most loyal friends, that in dismissing General Alger Presi- dent Mckinley for once showed the white feather in the face of public clamor.
 Can President Roosevelt be stampeded into dismissal of MT. Payne? Probably not, and yet there is no certainty about 1t. At the present time President Roosevelt stands squarely behind his Postmaster General. He says he is all right and that 1t is absurd to talk of letting him go. The President expresses his opinion with char acteristic frankness of this well organized and deliberate attempt to force MT. Payne out. He speaks of his Postmaster General in terms of confidence and affection. Though not denying that MT. Payne has made mistakes. he says they were trivial errors, of the head and rot of the heart, and have no important bearing upon the question at issue. The President declares that all talk to the effect that the Post master General has not faithfully and zealously pushed the investigation of the Postofhce Department is stuff and non- sense.
 And yet. in the nature of things, no one is able to foresee what effect upon the mind of the President the crusade against MT. Payne may have. If the newspapers continue their demand for the head of the Postmaster General and insist in their scathing comment upon his mistakes and shortcomings. his judgment and nerve may in the end be affected in the same way MT. Mckinley was affected in the Alger case. That is for the future to de- termine. Just now the President is firm and frank in his defense of Payne. At the same time it is possibly somewhat signifi- cant that semi-official announcement has been made at the White House that the President knew nothing of one of Mr. Payne's mistakes, the reference to Presi- dent Mckinley, until he read 1t in the newspapers. In other words. that state ment of Mir Paynes to the effect that the Tulloch charges were an attack upon President Mckinley was not authorized by President Roosevelt and is not now ap- proved by him.
 So far as MT. Payne is concerned, he meets the situation in a manly way. He does not claim to be infallible, and does not assert that he has made no mistakes He does not attempt to evade responsibll- ity for his errors, but he does say that his conscience is perfectly clear he has no intention of resigning. He will not run l under fire, he says Mir Payne realizes | that he has had particularly hard luck. He took charge of a department which neeued lnVeSUgatlOn ana oVerhauung Tor crimes. offenses, faults, bad methods, ir- regularities which existed under former administrations. So far as he Is aware he has conducted this investigation with zeal and vigor, and yet a contrary im- precision has spread throughout the coun- try. Now he has the pleasure of seeing in the local papers every day a column or two of extracts from various Journals de- manding his resignation or dismissal.
 MT. Payne frankly says that if he could have foreseen what a mess of trouble he was running his nose into he would never have taken tho job. But now that he Is in 1t. and his sincerity and zeal are ques- toned, he thinks it must be cowardly to retreat. His health is not good. Never very strong, the anxieties and worries of this long investigation have to some extent unsettled his nerves. The outlook Is anything but encouraging. There Is more trouble ahead and plenty of it, and yet MT. Payne says he would deem 1t craven to escape this annoyance by res- ignation and he is determined to stick and fight 1t out as long as his physical and nervous forces will permit.
 'I am not a quitter," says MT. Payne laconically.