The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-02-05
J. s. SENATOR DRYDEN
 ISSUES A STATEMENT
REPLIES AT LENGTH TO THE ADVERSE CRITICISM OF
 OPPONENTS.

Opposition to His Election Not Based
 on Any Act of Ills as Senator hut
 Upon Impressions That Hts Business
 Created Conditions Incompatible With
 fhe Discharge of His Public Duties
 insurance investigation Showed
 Nothing Wrong With Prudential.
 New York, Feb. 4.-United States Senator John F. Dryden to-day made public statement which he was to have delivered at a conference of re- publican members of the New Jersey legislature at Trenton in the interest of his candidacy for reelection. After he had prepared the address. however, he withdrew from the race In his pre- pared statement MT. Dryden replies at length to adverse criticism directed at him by his political opponents since the beginning of the present senatorial campaign in New Jersey. He says he understands that the opposition to his reelection was not based on any act of his as senator but upon impress sions that his business created condi- tions incompatible with the discharge of his public duties. He declares that the investigations into the large in- surance companies failed to show other than that the agents of the Prudential. of which he is president, were adninis- tered wisely and faithfully and in the l best interest of the shuhnblest policy holder. and adds:
 Tt appears to have been Suggested that the personal associations incident Ito a participation in the executive management of great financial insti- tuition have tended to deprive me of "a ] knowledge of the conditions of life silr- | rounding the great mass of my fellow 1 citizens and robbed me of sympathy in l the struggles and ambitions of those 1 Who are wage earners and recipients of ] moderate incomes. If were convinced that this were true, I should regret it far more deeply than the loss of a seat in the senate of the United States. Iii my boyhood and youth struggled with conditions identical with those with which am now charged to be out Of I sYinpathy.p
 4 Continuing, Senator Dryden entered at some length into a refutation of charges that he and his associates in the Prudential profited unfairly by their connection with the company through the legislative act of 1880, de- priving policyholders of the right to vote for directors. In this connection, he says:
 Mot q single policytolder has ever suggested that the legislature of 1880 deprived him of any right or any said he was agreved by this enactment"
 Referring to the charges that at one time money was offered as an induce- ment for votes for MT. Dryden in the party caucus, the senator declares
 'HThis election occurred five years ago. During those five years, so far as I can ascertain, these affiants never suggested the exastence of the alleged fact to which they now give the widest publicity. They waited to tell their story until the only lips that can deny it have been closed by death Even now they do not dare to insinuate or 10 as- sert that it was even claimed by the man whom they assert approached them that he was authorized to do SO by me or by any of my friends
 Unless I could be elected without the expenditure of one dollar for the purpose of improperly influencing the members of the legislature preferred to be defeated"
 The senator denies the assertion that a majority of the republican voters of : the state were opposed to his re-elec- t:on.