Daily Kennebec journal., 1908-12-11

| New York, Dec. l0.-W llllam Nelson
Cromwell authorized the following
statement today:
| my attention has been called 10 a
statement issued by the editor of the
Indianapolis News III which he at
tempts to reply to the charge made by
President Roosevelt that certain state
ments made in the Indianapolis News,
before ana since the recent election, as
relating to the purchase Of the Panama
| canal by the United States, We're false
and untrue.
| Tho. President said: The News gives
currency to the charge that the United
States bought from American citizens
for $40, ,0000no, property that cost these
citizens only $l2,000,00o, the statement
| is false. The United States did not pay
cent of the S40,0O0,000 to any Ameri :
can citizens, etc.
From the statement issued IN reply
by the editor OF the News, | quote the
following: The only man who paid any
attention to them Chat is the criti-
cisms referred TO, etc) was Mr. Charles
F. Taft who did deny that he was in
any way related to the affair. We had
no word from the President or Mr.
Taft. The other men, such as Cromwell
and Morgan, who were believed to have
full information IN regard to the busi-
ness, said nothing
And he attempts to justify the pub
lication Of the false statements ap-
pearing in his paper by saying that
they were based largely on statements
of the New York World. criticisms
which We're made over and over again
during the campaign and we're utterly
ignored until today
The reply Of the editor OF tie News
furnishes another proof of the justice
of the Presidents chara cteriZat1ons, for
in the very journal. under whose sheets
ii now takes refuge, namely In the New
York Wcrld of Oct 3, 1908, appears an
eNpl1it aud unqualified denial by my
story referred to in which L used the
following language:
We may expect during heated!
political contest, all kinds or storie
which are not worthy of notice, but this
one | wish to denounce in the strongest
terms as a lying fabrication without
shadow of truth in it. Neither | nor
anyone connected with me either d
rectIy or indirectly at any time or in
any place in America OF abroad ever
bought, sold, dealt in or ever made
penny of profit out of any stocks
bonds or other securities of either tn,
old Panama Canal Co. or the new Pan
anna Canal Co, or ever received for the
same a single dollar of the $4,000, 900
paid by the United States. I make this
the most sweeping statement that Ian
guagc can convey.
Gas everybody connected with the
affair knows. l abstained from receiV-
ing the $40,000,000 in my own hands al
Washington or New York, as the gen
eral counsel of the company and my
self arranged for the payment OF the
entire $4,000, 900 direct from the treas
ury Of the United States through the
bankers of the government into the
Bank of France at Paris to the credit
of the liquidators of the two com
panies. There it remained subject t
the order of the liqujdators until dis
trbuted Ey them to the hundreds OF
thousands of beneficiaries and not one
dollar of it ever came to me OF anyone
in any wise connected with me. OF
course l do not refer to our regular
compensation as counsel
Il wish to call attention to the fact
that upon the first day of the hearing
before the committee of intcr-OceanlC
canals of the Senate of the United
States in February, 1906, ] voluntarily
made an explicit and detailed state
ment showing how the $4,000, 900 Wa,
paid by the United states through
Messrs j. P Morgan & Co. as the
agents to the Bank of France at Paris
= Of l,a n q Canal
CO.. who in turn distributed the same
to their respective stock and boEd
holders, numbering hundreds of thou
| sands of persons.
II further submitted to the Senate
committee with the permission of the
Panama government, detailed state
ment of the disposition by the Repub-
lie of Panama of the Si0,00O,OOO paid
| by the United States to Panama i'll
| 1904. accounting for the payment of the
| whole amount and showing the invest
| ments and disposition by the Panama
, government of every dollar.
Upon the same public inquiry fur
| ther stated with reference to the pro-
roSed AmericaniZation of the Panama
Canal Co. in the year 1899 and the pro-
| posed formation Of a syndicate for
| that purpose in that year, that the pro-
| posed plan never matured into any
| thing 1t was never consummated
either by subscription or by assent and
| it is obsolete and an imprac.icable
thjng-proved so to be. 1t has no life
or force Of being, did not exist, and
never has existed and is as dead as a
door nail.
/
| THAT was a fruitless suggestion Of
| the company which came to naught
and under which I acted as their coun-
| sci solely,
1.-The testimony taken by the Senate
committee is public record and was
available to the editors of the News
and the World. and had either Of them
| been as interested in publishing the
truth as they were to create a political
sensation, they doubtless would have