The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-03-10
JEROME ANSWERS
 LIST OF CHARGES General Denial Is Made to the
 Allegations NO FAVORS TO ANYBODY District Attorney Refutes Charge That Contribution to His Campaign Fund Was for Any But Per
 sonal Reasons.
NO FAVORS TO ANYBODY

1 Albany. N. Y, March 9--District Attor-
 ney Jerome of New York filed today with
 Governor Hughes his answer to the
 charges preferred against him by William
 F. King. former president of the New l York Merchants association. and com-
 mittee of minority stockholders of the Metropolitan Street Railway company. in l which the governor is asked to remove 1 MT Jerome from office. The answer is a 1 general denial of the charges The gov
 ernor said he would announce the l1o-
 cedure 10 be followed after he had exam ] ined the documents
 The district attorneys answer declares 1 that the charges against him were bas 4d l on assumptions which are purely gratui- l tous; that in each instance of alleged fail- ure to prosecute the matter did not as d matter of law constitute a crime or if l crime had been committed it was by req son of some defect of evidence, such as | the lack of corroboration, where the law forbade prosecution unless there was d corroboration, impossbility to sustain a | prosecution and that the law and the ob-
 
 1 bade him to institute prosecutions in the l absence of evidence to justify them. Each of the B charges against him was taken 1 up by MT. Jerome and are in the detail. Campaign Fund.
 With reference to the charges concern ing MT. Jeromes campaign fund, which was in charge of Howard S. Cans, who
  lates that save and except in a few in- stances" he was not informed and did not know from whom the contributions to the expenses of his campaign were made. The answer sets forth also that thS largest l contributor to the fund, so far as MT. Je- | rome knows was Samuel Untermeyer, who has been for a long time personal ;, friend of the district attorney.
 Mir Untermyers contribution was s5000, | The charges against MT. Jerome alleged that this contribution was improper on l the ground that MT. Untermyer was an attorney for James H. Hyde, formerly vice president of the Equitable Life As surance society. To this the reply is ! made that MT. Untermyer at that time did not represent MT. Hyde in criminal mat ters and that neither before nor since that time has any evidenve been produced to indicate that MT Hyde had been guilty of any criminal act
 Denial is made that Mr. Cans, since he has been an active practitioner of the law, has at any time received any favors or been shown any other or great CT courtesies or considerations that is shown to every practicing lawyer. Denial 1 is made also that any favors have ever been asked or received of the district at l torney from any corporation.
 With reference to the charge against the district attorney to the effect that he had failed to bring prosecution for any alleged criminal conspiracy for the ao- tation of illegal, worthless and fictiti- ous securities of the United States Ship building company in 1902, MT. Jerome re-
 plies:
 Difficulty in Prosecution.
 That while it was probable a crime had been committed and that certain per sons connected with the enterprise had
 been guilty of procuring money by false representations, the legal evidence To prove the fasity of the representations
 could be secured only by taking the testimonies of the witnesses in five diff ferent states"
 Under the elementary criminal law, MT. Jerome says depositions when taken,
 without the jurisdiction" are not avail able either for preliminary steps in d
 
 case and that he had no means of securing the attendance of the witnesses whose evidence would have been essential to the case, and he was therefore, power less to prosecute.
 In reply to the allegations that the dis trict attorney had lost almost complete- ly the confidence of the people in the county of New York, the answer disclaims any ability to judge of this assertion, but sets forth, bearing upon the question, some of the numerous letters which he has been receiving since these charges have been filed containing assurances of confidence and expressions of approval of the district attorneys course In the
 list of letters referred to are communi- cations from Joseph H. Choate formerly ambassador to Great Britain; Gen. Benja-
 min F. Tracey, formerly secretary of the navy, and Edward M Shepard writ of habeas corpus, on his own mo- ton, and treated with contempt the ad- judication of the supreme court Yet MT. Bryan constantly appeals to Lincoln for sanction of his democracy
 The true democrat of the Jefferson-Ti- den, Jackson Cleveland stripe believes that free government was established among men to protect minorities from the expressions of majorities, and the wisdom of all the sages of all the world could not have devised a better plan to vitalizc that idea than is found in our constitu- tion establishing the United States Sen ate. In that body Delaware ranks with New York, and there the majority and the minority meet on plane of perfect equality Nor is that all-tlle election
 of United States senators by the states, speaking through the legislature, instead of by the popular electorate, is but cum ulative security of the minority from the
 unbridled license of the majority. It has worked admirably for more than a cen- tury, and will work admirably for many
 centuries to be, if it is preserved from
 the rapacity of predatory politicians What we call states rights is only anothe CT phase of the same principle home rule, the good old democracy Of the fathers. But here comes the leader of the latitudinarian democrarcy sup porting the Beveridge child labor bill that is not only insanely unconstitn- tional, but an impertinent meddling with things that do not concern Con- gress. Another democratic creed, in the time of Jackson, taught by Tilden and practiced by Cleveland, was sound money The latitudnarans abolished that as democratic doctrine and sub stituted fiat in it's stead--a thing the republicans invented in 1862 over the | protest of more than 99 per cent of l the entire democratic membership, Tn I