The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-12-16
Special Message Is Sent to Congress on Subject of
 Panama Canal
NOTHING WRONG IN TIE
 ENTIRE TRANSACTION
Roosevelt Pours Out a Flood of InVec- tive Upon Newspaper Liars lnsGen- eral and Upon Joseph PuIlt-
 ger In Particular.

Washington. December 15-(special.1-. The President today sent to Congress a special message on the charges of crook edaess in the Panama canal matter. It differed little from his ordinary mes sages in it's total lack of dignity and the use of the words. lying" "libeious,s 'wantonly," "wickedly," and "lniquity." It received from even the Senate a flood of laughter and over on the House side peels of mirth greeted it. Members are in hopes that the President has about exhausted his vocabulary and that his reply to the resolution expunging his re- marks on the secret service will be some what tempered. For this, however. there is little hope. Until March there is ex- pected to be a continuous avalanche of special messages, reinforced daily by White House statements.
 "If the Presidents message accom- plishes anything said Representative Rainey of Illinois, the author of the reso- lution of investigation recently intro- duced in the House, it is that the trans fer appears to be regular-something no
  transfer was in the hands of a good law yer and does not dispose of the conten- ton that the United States was made the victim of a syndicate. If MT. Crom- we'll has furnished a list of the stock holders we do not know whether any of them were dummies, and there Is noth- ing in the message to indicate any of these things I shall continue my per- sonal investigation and if there is prima faeie case I will present it to tine committee and ask for a favorable re- port on my resolution. It may be that interviews with number ot French cit izens who received mones at the dis | bursement in Paris would reveal some- thing"
 The Message.
 President Roosevelt's statement con- corning the purchase of the Panama ca nal property by the United States de- nounced in strong language charges that there was anything wrong in the acqui- sition by the United States of the canal property.
 These stories" he continues were first brought to my attention as pub lished in a paper in Indianapolis called The News edited by MT. Delavan Smih. The stories were scurrilous and lbeous in character and false in every essential particular. MT Smith shelters himself behind the excuse that he merely ac- cepted the statements which had ap- peared in a paper in New York, The World owned by MT. Joseph Pulitzer. It is idle to say that the known char acter of MT. Pulitzer and his newspaper are such that the statements in that paper will be believed by nobody; un- fortunately thousands of persons are ill- informed in this respect and believe the statements they see in print, even though they appear in a newspaper published by MT. Pulitzer"
 Wicked Islanders.
 Summarizing charges made in this com neotion, the President says:
 These statements sometimes appeared in the editorials, sometimes in the news columns, sometimes in the shape of con- tributions from individuals, either un- known or known to be of bad character. They are false in every particular from beginning to end. The wickedness of the islanders Is only surpassed by their fatuity. So utterly baseless are the
 
 in part merely material collected for cam palgn purposes and in part stories origin ally concerted with a view of possible blackmail. The inventor of the story about MT. Charles P. Taft, for instance. evidently supposed that at some period of the Panama purchase, MT. w, H. Taft was secretary of war, whereas in reality MT W. H. Taft never became secretary of war until long after the whole trans action in question had been closed. The inventor of the story about MT. Douglas Robinson had not taken the trouble to find out the fact that MT. Robinson had not the slightest connection, directly or indirectly. of any kind or sort with any phase of the Panama transaction from beginning to end. The men who attacked MT. Root In the matter had not taken the trouble to read the public documents, which would have informed them that MT. Root had nothing to do with the pur- chase, which was entirely arranged through the department of justice, under the then attorney general. MT Knox.
 Need No investigation.
 Now these stories as a matter of fact, need no investigation whatever No shadow of proof has been, or can be produced in behalf of any of them. They consist simply of a string of infamous libels. Tn form they are In part libels upon individuals, upon MT. Taft and MT. Robinson, for instance.
 But in fact they are in form and who'll ly a libel upon the United States gov- ernment. I do not believe we should con- cern ourselves with the particular indi- viduals who wrote the lying and libelous editorials, articles from correspondents or articles in the news columns. The real offender Is MT. Joseph Pulitzer editor and proprietor of The World. While the criul- inal offense of which MT Pulitzer has been guilty is in form a libel upon in- dividuals, the great injury done is in blackening the good name of the Ameri- can people. It should not be left to a private citizen to MT. Pulitzer for libel. He should be prosecuted for libel by the government authorities. In point of encouragement of iniquity, in point of fufamy. of wrong-doing, there is noth- ing to choose between a public servant