The Daily Missoulian. [volume] (Missoula, Mont.) 1904-1961, 1909-01-13

clearly illegal and in flat violation OF
! the statutory provision:
| That no employe of the Pinkerton
shall be employed in the government
service or by any officer of the Dis
| trict of Columbia
Is UnspeakabIe.
| Speaking of the use of private de-
tectiVes in investigating the Browns
| willie affair, Mr.. Foraker declared that
'it is impossible to find language
with which to fittingly characterize
such u procedure as this detective
business has been from it's incipiency
down to the monstrous stages 1t has
| reached. 1t is atrocious, revolving,
| shocking t every sense of fairness,
| justice and even common decency."
Mr.. Foraker reviewed the statements
made by the president in his message
| to congress on the Brownsville affair.
1T will be noted" he said, that
! the guilt of these soldiers, as charged
| by the president, was, according to
the president, conclusively' estab-
/ lished by the testimony first submit
| ted" The senator said, however, that
| the president Recognized the neces-
sity for strengthening his case and
thereupon dispatched Mr.. Purdy and
Mannor Blocksom to Brownsville to
secure the evidence reported by him.
I'm the message he sent to the SEN
ate after the report of the commit
| tee on military affairs, he reiterated
that the facts claimed by him had
been, by testimony thoroughly es-
tablished.' When the committee re-
ported, Senator Foraker said every
body, apparently, supposed TN in
vestigation was ended
Unreliable and Insufficient.
He continued: but not So AS
though conscious that, notwithstanding
all his assertions and declarations in
answer to the sufficiency Of testimony
it was, in fact, unreliable and insuffi-
clent to justify his order of discharge,
we were favored with the further mes
sage OF December IA, 1908, in which we
were informed that detectives had
been employed by the war department
and that they have been at work for
months"
Speaking of the reply of the presi-
dent and of the secretary of war to a
senate resolution calling for informa-
ton on the detectives investigation,
Mr.. Foraker said:
This message of the president, with
its exhibit, and this report of the sec
retary of war present a new and most
serious feature of this unhappy busi-
ness.
They not only disclose determined
effort on the part of the president to
again bolster the case against these
men, but that he has resorted to a
method in his effort to secure such
testimony that cannot be fittingly char
acterized without the use of language
which, If employed. might appear to
be disrespectful, and worst of all,
In this endeavor to secure such testi-
mony, the president has himself COM
mitted the serious offense, condemned
by every court that administers the
common law that has ever had occa-
sion to speak on the subject of hold
ing out to these men an inducement
Or reward for giving such testimony.
Utterly ObIivious.
ut does not lessen the gravity of his
offense that it appears to be imper-
ceptible to him; or, if not so, that he
has become utterly oblivious to all
the restraints of law. decency and
propriety in his mad pursuit of these
helpless victims of his ill-considered
action
I'm my opinion, aside from the
question whether there has been al
misappropriation of public funds,
no precedent for anything so shocking
can be found in all the history of
American criminal Jurisprudence.
1t will appear from the presidents
message and exhibits thereto attached
showing the mode in which the detec-
tives are operating and the testimony
in answer thereto that fraudulent i'm
personation, Misrepresentation, lying,
deceit, treachery, liquor and intoxica-
tlon, coupled with promises of i'm
munity and the excitement Of hope
and fear and the offer of employment
and remunerative wages have been re-
sorted to to secure the testimony
sought for, and that the so called con-
fessions' are not confined to such as |
affect the parties making them or to |
those affected by them who may be |
present when such confessions are |
made, but extend also to those not
present when they are made, but who |
are absent and without knowledge of |
what Is transpiring, and without any |
opportunity whatever to be heard in |
their own defense-even to make an |
objection that such statement and |
such confessions are untrue.
These facts make all such testi-
mony utterly incompetent and worth
less.'
Lodge Comments.
When, at 2:40 o'clock, Mr.. Foraker
Senator Lodge took the
floor. saying he had only one COM |
nent to make on Mr.. Foraker's re-
marks. that being in relation to the
egality Of the employment of Browne