The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-07-13
NEW INTERESTING PHASE
 OF COTTON LEAK INQUIRY
PRESIDENT OF N. r. EXCHANGE
 WRITES TO ROOSEVELT

Greatly Shocked at Recent Disclosures
 of VenaIity fin the Department of
 AgricuIture-Requests Full Investi-
 gation of the Methods Which Have
 Led to the CorruptiOn-No Notice
 Given to Complaints of LeaIxages
 Made Year Ago.
 Washington, July 12.-A new and inc teresting phase of the cotton leak in- vestigation was developed to-day through the publication of the letter of Walter c. Hubbard, president of the New York Cotton Exchange, addressed to President Roosevelt, in which the writer declared that the members of the exchange had been greatly shocked by the recent disclosures of venality in the department of agricui- ture' and rsquesting a full investiga~ tion of the methods which led to the corruption with a view of preventing the possibility of recurrence. That letter, is believed asre, to be the out come of recent correspondence between Secretary Wilson and Mir. Hubbard, in which the latter called upon the secre- tary to make him a public apology be- cause he had some years ago called the secretary's attention to alleged leaks and that no notice had been given the suggestion. The secretary wrote 9 tart reply, in which he informed MT. Hubbard that he owed no one an apol- ogy in the light of having done his duty to the best of his ability, and that when he got anything that looked like facts he promptly sent it to the secret service officers to hunt down. The case to which MT. Hubbard referred in his recent letter to ths secretary oc- cured in 1900. On December 20 of that year MT. Hubbard sent the secre- tary certain papers showing that a MT. steinberger wanted to sell information to a New York cotton brokerage firm, claiming that he could get 1t in advance from the department. Secretary Wil- son immediately turned the matter over to the secret service officers, but in about a week Chief Wilkie reported that It looks like ar attempt Of Stsin- berger to hluneo the New York firm" After allowing two months to elapse and not hearing anything further the secretary on March 25, 1901, called upon the secret service for information as to- whether they had made any discov, cries. On the following day Secretary , of the Treasury Gage replied as fol- lows: x # @ < The action of this han who wanted to sell information was done with the hope of being able to sell information, but as matter of fact his efforts to obtain the advance information failed, as he received no assistance from the person in Washington upon whom he ! depended for information
 This report of MT. Gage was trans mitted to MT Hubbard by Secretary Wilson the next day and the matter WcAs clluA5hAlO dEOp. -nuI III JuuudIyt 1902, Mr.Hubbard complained of having besn advised that Southern ginners were sending to the department re- turns of their ginning operations bear ing date of December 22 or 29, and" said MT. Hubbard, T am unable to understand why additional returns from ginners should be obtained, since the result is to be published" It seems, however, that the department of agrf- ! culture had not called for any ginners' { statistics al. that time, but that the cir culars had been issued from the census bureau.
 Tn the same month, MT. Hubbard wrote the department of agriculture asking for certain information on cot- ton, but the secretary, in the course of a sharp letter denying the request, ! written under date of January Il, 1902 said: $5s. -. j.
 we take the ground here that noth- ing goes out unless.i 1t goes to the whole people. We have no favorites.
 Secretary Wilson to-day permitted the examination of the correspondence in order to show that as far back as five years ago he had taken prompt action to discover any leaks in his office. -