The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-12-18
MARsE HENRY WATTERsON
 REPLIES TO LAFFAN

Louisville' Courier Journal.
 4, 0ur attention. has been called" to the following extraordinary statement Wnich we arc informed" appeared in recent issue of The New York Sun:
 Henry Wattersony ordinarily a foun. tain Of exact truth and perspicuity is singularly obsessed upon the Panama subject and tntimates to Mir. Roosevelt and the Editor of The Sun are very Food friends. We hasten to relieve MT. Cromwell of this imputation. hav- ing never came In contact with the ed with his doubtless distinguished personal appearance.
 This is important, if true. But it win v,ad net not bear the lights, especially the Dabney Pags observed to the late Col onei Bob Rutherford when the Colonel lnEmated a belief that his body-ser- whiskey than he did himself. "Onpos- sible, Marss Robert, onpossible,
 Chevalier William Nelson Cromwell, oG Paris-Panama-Manha attan. Washing ton, and elsewhere Is one of the most distinguished virtuos0s in the. world. Not to know him is to confess one's self unknown--and this alone should De proof conclusive--for Mir. William si Mselchlzsdec oLaffan is second only to as 2 virtuoso. Argal, where does Mr. Laman get the nerve to seek so to iIn- pose'upon the eredulity of his country men men and how can he think. that any-
 The Courier-J Journal has evidence. which it Is willing Co lay before a pro- porly constituted committee of either o'clock. the afternoon of the i4th of February, 1909. and again on the 1st of April, 1903, at 10:46 a. ,m.. MT. VII. Ham Nelson Cromwell was seen to pass out of the side door of No. 2s Wall Street, New York fthat ts. No. 1 Broad Broadway. there to take Car No. 7s1. in the first instance, and Car No. S20, City Hall and cross over in the direc- tion of Park Row.
 Dare Mir. Lafean deny this?
 That great man became lost in the crowd upoE both occasions. But 1t is clear that he was going to the ofice of The New York Sun. He could. in the pRtufe of the case. have been Ko- ing ing nowhere else. Nov. if he was go- See except Mir. Laffan? Did he see MT. Laffan? Mir. Laffan does not tell us this. He suffices himself with the that he did not see Mr. Cromwell, and he actually asks us to credit him! Preposterous,
 But we waive testimony so irrefraE- advantage of no mans misfortune. Mir. Laffan may be short-sighted. He may be afflicted with an frnpefect mem ory. Far be it from The Courier Jour- nal toA insinuate that his aesthetic sen abilities have been cultivated at the expense of his moral nature. Neither shall we suggest the baseness of de- nying friend in extremis Mir. Theo- paper, No more does MT. James Stet- son Metcalfe.
 We wish to yield Mir. Laffan the benefit of every doubt. Nay. we put he N~fa NF rfrr.r, ,sr.r,- sy behind us, we cast the weapons of intellectual combat over the garden wall. and extending the open hand of fratanity toward the rosy altars of friendship, we appeal to Mir Laffan in the name of Art-behold we spell it with big A-to reconsicer-at least to mOdffy-a statement calculated so to disarrange the fitness of things
 What are the everlasting Verities as among connoisseurs and constitutional lawyers What is history but the fic- tions agreed upon by the members of the Ananias Club in reasonable stand you don't know Mir. Cromwell. Next you will be saying that you don't know little Red Riding Hood and Vanilla Bean, and that you never heard of the two Bills" Cromwell and Laffan:
 Two artificial gods Both on one sampler, sitting on one Both warblins of one song. both in
 one key.
 Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!
 Panama, Panamai Panama!"
 Not acquainted with Cromwell? Do we not find it recorded by the Bard of Avon that you slept together. rose at an instant, learned, play'd. ate togeth- l CT: so that each might say to the oth- CT; "Wheresoe'er we went. like Juno's swans, still we went coupled and in- separable;" whether through the buck et-shops of Paris, the mud-hoIes of the ] Isthmus or the labyrinths of the Lob by at Washington-no?
 We'll have it your own way. Mir Laf- fan. We wash our hands of the whole business Never again ask us to sup ply you with horrid examples or 10 | come to the rescue of heleaguered thought. or, reading betwixt the lines of The New York Sun, expect us to he, lieve what we find there. Never!