The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1909-01-08
BIG STICK SlNASHES;
ROOSEVELT DEFENDS
THE SECRET SERVICE
In Message to House President De-
ClareS His Statements i'm Previous
Words to Congress Were Gross
ly Misunderstood.

1.-The resolution continues: That the
president be requested to transmit to the
house any evidence upon which he based
| his statements that the chief argument
in favor of the provision was that the
congressman did not themselves wish to
be investigated by secret-service men,.
This statement which was an attack
upon no one, still less upon the congress-
is sustained by the facts.
IF you will turn to the Congressional
Record for May / last, pages 5553 to $780,
inclusive, you will find the debate on this
subject Mr.. Tawney of Minnesota. Mr.
Smith of Iowa, Mr. Sherley of Kentucky
and Mr.. Fitzgerald of New York, appear
in this debate as the special champions
| of the provision referred to. Messrs. Par
sons Bennett and Driscoll were the lead
ers of those who opposed the adoption
of the amendment and upheld the right of
| the government to use the most efficient
means possible in order to detect GRIM
inals and to prevent and punish crime
The amendment was carried in the COM
mittee of the whole, where no votes of
the individual members are recorded, so
l am unable to discriminate by mention
ing the members who voted for and the
members who voted against the provision,
but its passage, the journal records, was
greeted with applause. 1 am well aware
however, that in any case of this kind
|
knowledge of the point at issue, are con-
tent simply to follow the lead of the
committee which had considered the mat
ter, and have no doubt that many mem
bers of the house simply followed the
lead of Messrs. Tawney and Smith, with
out having had the opportunity to know
very much as to the rights and wrongs
of the question.
Chip Is Knocked OF
Rooseveit's Shoulder.
IT would not ordinarily attempt in this
way to discriminate between members of
the house, but as objection has been ia
ken to my language, in which I simply
spoke of the action of the house as
whole. and as apparently there is a de-
sire that / should thus discriminate, will
state that 1 think the responsibility rest
ed on the committee on appropriations.
under the lead of the members whom
have mentioned.
Now as to the request of the congress
that 1 give the evidence for my state
ment that the chief argument in favor
of the provision was that the congress-
men did not themselves wish to be inves-
tigated by secret service men.
1.-The part of the Congressional Record
to which / have referred above entirely
supports this statement. Two distinct
lines of argument were followed in the
debate. One concerned the question
whether the law warranted the employ
ment of the secret service in departments
other than the treasury, and this did not
touch the merits of the service in the
least. The other line of argument went
to the merits of the service, whether law
fully or unlawfully employed. and here
the chief If not the only argument used
was that the service should be cut down
and restricted because its members had
'shadowed' or investigated members of
congress and other officers of the govern
ment. If we examine the debate in de-
tail 1t appears that most of what was
urged in favor of the amendment took the
form of the simple statement that the
committee held that there had been a
violation of law by the use Of the secret
service for other purposes than suppress
ing counterfeiting (and one or two other
matters which can be disregarded), and
that such language was now to be used
as would effectually prevent all such 'vio-
lation Of law hereafter. Mr. Tawney, for
instance, says: 1t was for the purpose
of stopping the use OF this service in
every possible way by the departments Of
the government that this provision was
inserted; and Mr.. Smith says: Now, that
was the only way in which any limitation
could be put upon the activities of the
secret service Mr.. Fitzgerald followed in
the same vein, and by far the largest
part of the argument against the employ
ment of the secret service was confined
to the statement that it was in violation
of law OF course, such a statement is
not in any way an argument in favor of
the justice of the provision. 1t is not an
argument for the provision at ALL 1t is
simply a statement of what the gentle
men making it conceive to have been the
law.
trin IS
the Secret Service.
There was both by implication and di-
rect statement the assertion that it was
the law, and ought to be the law, that
the secret service should only be used
to suppress counterfeiting: and that the
law should be made more rigid than ever
in this respect
Incidentally may say that in my
judgment there is ample legal authority
for the statement that this appropriation
law to which reference was made i'm
poses no restrictions whatever upon the
use of the secret service men, but re-
lates solely to the expenditure of the
money appropriated. Mr.. Tawney in the
debate stated that he had in his pos
session a letter from the secretary of the
treasury received a few days ago in
which the secretary Of the treasury him
self. admits that the provisions under
tlc appropriation has Deen IMAGE
have been violated year after year for a
number of years in his own department.
l append herewith appendix A, the let
ter referred to. 1t makes no such admis-
sion as that which Mr.. Tawney alleges
1t contains on the contrary. as you will
see by reading it, an emphatic protest
against any such abridgment OF the
rights delegated to the secretary Of the
treasury by existing law and concludes
by asserting that he is quite within his
rights in thus employing the service of
these agents and that the proposed modi-
fcation which Mr.. Tawney succeeded
in carrying through would be distinctly
to the advantage of violators of criminal
statutes of the United States I call at
tention to the fact that in this letter of
Secretary Corteiyou to Mr. Tawney as
in my letter to the speaker quoted be-
low, the explicit statement is made that
the proposed change will be for the bene-
fit of the criminals, a statement which
/ simply reiterated in public form in my
message to the congress this year, and
which is also contained in effect in the
report of the secretary of the treasury
to the congress.
"A careful reading of the COMPRESSION
al Record will also show that practically
the only arguments advanced in favor of
the limitation proposed by Mr. Tawney's
committee, beyond what may be supposed
to be contained by implication in GER
tain sentences as to abuses which were
not specified, were those contained in the
repeated statements of Mr.. Sherley.