The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-01-13
.FORAKER ATTACKS
 TIE PRESIDENT
William H. Taft Also Falls
 Under Ban of Criticism
OLD BROWNSVILLE CASE
The Charge Is Made By Foraker That Roosevelt and Taft Illegally Divert ed Public Funds While
 Taft Was In Office.

Washington, January 12-Illegal diver sion of public funds by the President and William H. Taft while Secretary of War, to pay for the Investigation by private detectives Into the Brownsville affair, was charged by Senator Joseph Benson For aker of Ohio in the Senate today in speech in replying to statements of Her bert J. Browne of tliis city and William G. Baldwin of Roanoke, Va, who were employed by the Secretary of War to se cure evidence of the guilt of negro sol diers of the Twenty-ffth infantry, Uni ted States army, in shooting up Browns vile on the night of August 13-14, 1906 The government use of the private detec tives was characterized by MT. Foraker as "atrocous shocking and revolting.'
 This charge of illegally divertlng S15,0o0 from the war fund of $S,000.OOO appropri- ated by the deficiency act of March 3, 1899, was made by MT. Foraker in concluding his remarks which consisted of a very careful consideration of certain legal phases of the Brownsville affair and the reading of a number of affidavts by sol- diers whose testimony and confessions MT. Browne alleged had been secured to unravel the mystery of the identity of the meE who did the shooting. and these af- fidavits denied with great particularly nearly every statement of importance made by the detectives.
 War Fund of 1899,
 Speaking of the s3OOO,OoO war fund of 1899, appropriated as an emergency fund "to meet unforeseen contingencies con- stantly arising to be expended at the dis cretion of the President" MT. Foraker said:
 'It will probably be surprising infor- nation to the appropriations committee, as it will be to most senators, that this appropriation. made 10 years ago at rhe close of the Spanish h-American war. to en- able the President to meet emergency army contingencies, such as were then arising in connection with our military es- tablishment, should have bean @ 'stiued to be permanent appropriation, and that there is still a large unexpended balance out of which payments of the character TOW under consideration are being made ;
 Continuing, MT Foraker declared that section 193 of the revised stautes enacted in 1S42, and still in force. directs the head of each department to make an annual re- port to Congress. giving detailed state ment of the manner in whica tke con- tingent fund of his department has heen expended, giving the names of every person to whom any portion of such fund has been paid.
 Expenditure of Money.
 This appropriation" he said being for the war department, the report should have been made by the Secretary of War, and he is not relieved of that duty oy the fact that the money can be expended only With the approval of the President. The Secretary of War evidently mas enter tained this view, but so far as l can as certain no detailed or itemizej reports to Congress of expenditures iron, this fund have teen made, but only general reports showing the aggregate sums expended for each year"
 The "contingency" under which this use of the war fund of 1899 was used, MT. For aker declared, was "the remote one that men should be required to prove their innocence of a crime before judge who had already pronounced them guilty "un- der a bill then pending in the Senate" And all this" insisted Mir. 'Foraker, .in the presence of the fact that there was the most bitter and determined op- position to the measure and that there was another measure pending which pro- vided that all might be re-enlisted who cared to re-enlist, but that the right to further prosecute before civil or military tribunals should be reserved as to all against whom any evidence might be se- cured in any manner at any time after such enactment.
 Payments Questioned.
 "But. waiving all technical or doubtful