The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-01-04

reau.l It cOuLHlnoO an uGCcTly uaWdf- ! ranted attack on the secret service division of the treasury department and it's chief. The opening paragraph includes, for instance, statements like the following:
 He Che chief of the division) and his men are desirous of doing the secret de- tective work for the whole government and are not particular about drawing the line between the lawmakers and the law breakers. They are ready to shadow the former as we'll as the latter.
 Then, after saying that congress will insist that the men shall only be used to stop counterfeit1ng, the article goes on:
 Congress does not intend to have a Fouche or any other kind of minister of police to be used by the executive de- partments against the legislative branch of the government. It has been so used, and 1t is suspected that it has been so used recently. The legislative branch of the government will not toler- ate the meddling of detectives, whether they represent the president, cabinet off, cers or only themselves. Con- gressmen resented the secret interference shadowed some of the most respected members of the house and senate. When it was discovered that the secret service men were shadowing congress- men there was a storm Of indignation at ; the capitol, and the bureau came near being abolished and the appropriation for the suppression of counterfeiting cut off. At another time the chief of the secret service had his men shadow congressman with a view to involving them in scandals that would enable the bureau to dictate to them as the price of ef1D Tbn nvry%a have shown an inclination again to i shadow members of congress knowing them to be lawmakers, and this Is no Joke. Several of the departments have asked congress for secret funds for in vestigation, and the treasury department wants the limitation removed from the appropriation for suppressing counter feiting. This shows tendency toward Foucheism and a secret watch on other officials than themselves.
 At the time of this publication the work of the secret service which was thus assailed included especially the in- vestigation of great land frauds in the west and the securing of evidence to help the department of justice in the beef trust Investigations at Chicago, which resulted in successful prosecu- tions.
 In view of MT. Busbey's position I have accepted the above quoted state ments as fairly expressing the real meaning and animus of the attacks made in general terms on the use of the secret service for the punishment of criminals. Furthermore, in the per formance of my duty to endeavor to find the feelings of congressman on public questions of note I have ire quently discussed this particular mat ter with members of congress, and on such occasions the reasons alleged to me for the hostility of congress to the secret service, both by those who did and by those who did not share this hostility, were almost invariably the same as those set forth in MT. Busbey's article. I may add, by the way, that these allegations as to the secret serv ice are wholly without foundation in fact
 Real Issue Named.
 But all of this is of Insignificant im- portance compared with the main, the real, issue. This issue is simply, Does congress desire that the government shall have at its disposal the most efficient instrument for the detection of criminals and the prevention and punishment of crime, or does it not? The action of the house last May was emphatically an action against the tn- terest of justice and against the inter- est of law abiding people and in it's eff feet of benefit only to lawbreakers. I am not now dealing with motives Whatever may have been the motive that induced the action of which speak, this was beyond all question the effect of that action. Is the house now willing to remedy the wrong?
 For long time I contented myself with endeavoring to persuade the house not to permit the wrong, speak ing Informally on the subject with those members who, believed, knew anything of the matter and commu- nicating officially only in the ordinary channels, as through the secretary of the treasury. In letter to the speaker On April 30, protesting against the cut ting down of the appropriation vitaly necessary if the interstate commerce commission was to carry into effect the twentieth section of the Hepburn law, I added: "The provision about the employment of the secret service men will work very great damage to the government in its endeavor to pre- vent and punish crime. There is no more foolish outcry than this against 'spies.' Only criminals need fear our detectives" q inclose copy of the whole letter, marked Appendix C." The postscript is blurred in my copy book, and two or three of the words cannot be deciphered) Appendix 0 is letter dated April 30, 1908, from President Roosevelt to Speaker Can non protesting against the cutting down in the sundry civil bill of the ap- propriation for secret service work. ''The only people benefited would be the very worst of the big railroad men whose misdeeds we arc trying to pre- vent or correct" were the words of the president.1 These methods proved un- avaiiing to prevent the wrong. Messrs. Tawney and Smith and their fellow members on the appropriations com- vNff x~