River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1909-01-07
BIG STICK SINASHES;
ROOSEVELT DEFENDS
THE SECRET SERVICE
In Message to House President De-
clares His Statements in Previous
Words to Congress Were Gross
~ Misunderstood.

/ ''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 1 last, pages 5553 to 5561,
| 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
| 1 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 we'll aware,
/ however, that In any case of this kind
/ many members who have no particular
/ knOWleuSS OIL IHe 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 Off
Roosevelt's Shoulder.
II 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 1 simply
| spoke of the action of the house as a
| whole. and as apparently there is a de-
| sire that should thus discriminate will
| state that 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 I 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 1 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 it's members had
| 'shadowed' or investigated members Of
| congress and other officers of the govern
oixnn In dnINo IN in n
| 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
| violation of law by the use of the secret
| service for other purposes than suppress
ing counterfeting (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 VIC
! 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 statement of what the gentle
men making it conceive to have been the
| law
Regarding Restrictions Of
| the Secret Service.
There was both by implication and di-
4 t.
| 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 I 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
| which the appropriation has been made
have been violated year after year for a
| number of years in his own department.
| I append herewith as appendix A, the let
| ter referred to. 1t makes no such adTnis-
| 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 SIS quite within his
rights in thus employing the service of
| these agents and that the proposed modi-
/ fication which Mr.. Tawney succeeded
/ in carrying through would be distinctly
| to the advantage of violators of criminal
statutes of the United States 1 call at
| tention to the fact that in this letter of
| Secretary Cortelyou 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, statement which
/ 1 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 Congression-
| 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.