Woodruff County news. [volume] (McCrory, Ark.) 1901-1910, 1909-01-07

pathy With the practice of judging men,
for good or for i'll, not on their several
merits, but in a mass, as members of
one particular body or one caste. To put
together all men holding or who have
held particular office, whether it be
the Office of president, or judge, or sena-
tor, or member of the house of represent
atives, and to class them all, without re-
gard to their individual differences, as
good or bad, seems to me utterly indie
feasible; and it is equally indefensible
whether the good are fonfounded with the
bad in heated and unwarranted cham
pionship of all, or in a heated and IN
warranted assault upon all.
Charge in Resolution Due
to Density of the Soions.
This allegation in the resolution, there
fore, must certainly be due to an entire
failure to understand my message.
'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.
eff you will turn to the Congressional
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
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 to the rights and wrongs
of the question.
Regarding Restrictions of
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 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 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.
/ append herewith as appendix A, the let
ter referred to. 1t makes no such adms-
sion as that which Mr. Tawney alleges.
1t contains on the contrary, 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 rs 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 I 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
q
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 We're those contained in the
repeated statements of Mr.. Sherley.
Shurley's Declarations on
pronounced Abuses"
Mr. Sherley stated that there had
been pronounced abuses growing out of
the use of the secret service for purposes
other than those intended, putting his
statement in the form of a question, and
in the same form further stated that the
private conduct of members of congress,
senator's, and others ought not to be in
vestigated by the secret service, and that
they should not investigate member of
congress- who had been accused OF CON
duct unbecoming a gentleman and a
member of congress In addition to these
assertions couched as questions, he made
one positive declaration, that This secret
service at one time was used for the pur-
pose of looking nito the personal con-
duct of a member of congress- This ar
gument of Mr.. Sherley. the only real ar
gument as to the merits of the question