The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-01-12

which he charges me can be attributed to personal malice alone"
 Referring to the Presidents letter to Senator Hale, Mir. Tillman declared that the President recognized the ex- traordinary character of his action, "as well as the unlawful use he has made of the secret service"
 MT. Tillman said he did not deny the authenticity of the letter or the tele- gram of which photograph were made, and he presumed the letter from Wil- liam E. Lee was also a correct copy, but he was not aware of it's ex- istenee until it was brought to his at tention by the Presidents statement. and added that he was not in any way responsible for Mir Lees ideas ex- pressed In it. Taking up the Presi- dents statement concerning Door, a land agent making his filings through Reeder & Watkins of Marshfield, Ore. Mir. Tillman said:
 Tt will be noted that I accused Dorr in the Senate of being a swindler and asked the postefhce department to issue a fraud order against him. Dorr declared in his circular:
 Doris Circular.
 "'So sure is Senator Tillman of our success that he has subscribed and paid the necessary fees for a quarter section for himself and 10 other sections for 10 of his nearest relatives It was this bold and outrageous falsehood mainly that caused me to denounce Dorr as a swindler as well as to declare in the Senate that he had no warrant for the assertion. The sleuths which the Pres ident put upon my trail have made nd of 1 to any fair minded man that so far from endeavoring to justify fraud or der against Dorr they were really put to work to investigate me and endeavor if possible to discover something to my discredit, while the President directed the investigation. I say this because 1t is hardly possible that a postoffiee inspector would set about getting pho tographic copies of the letters of a United States senator, and trying to convict him of lying if the orders did not come from a high source.
 Let us suppose for a moment that I vas guilty of a faisehood in declar- ing that I had not undertaken to pur- chase any land. What did that have to do with Doris transparent and open use of the malls to induce men to send him money to purchase land? Dorr' s declaration that I had paid the fees is an absolute falsehood and the postof- flee inspectors while they searched the records for entries at Coquille, noted that Reeder & Watwins had filed sev- eral hundred applications. nowhere mentioned that any had been filed in my name or for me. Therefore, the falsehood is proven on Dorr, and yet the President declared, the assault which Senator Tillman made on Dorr 41,.1 spectors a wanton assault made to GOV CT up Senator Tillman's own transac- tions.'
 No Statement Made.
 "No such statement was made by the inspector. In fact, so earnestly intent on convicting Senator Tillman is the President he actually commits himself to this proposition, towit: Tillman, voluntarily and without any compul- sion from any source and with notfing to conceal, brought up a matter In the Senate which he need not have done to cover up transactions which were ab- solutely unknown to anyone except himself and his correspondents Reeder & Watkins. and were entirely honor able and clean. Such exposure closed out the swindlers. Dorr, when his mail was not delivered, retired from the land business and became a fruit grower, as reported by the inspectors. The swindlers had secured a good many thousands of dollars before the ex- posture in the Senate stopped people from being duped, and yet Theodore Roosevelt, who poses as the only re- maining honest man in public life, in the face of these facts, has felt called upon to attack the character of a man |. | questioned. and whose official position is second only to his own. In doing this, he makes a false declaration, for the inspectors nowhere say any such thing as above quoted, which can be proven by an examination of their re- port
 Now, about the lying: My letter of February b, of which the President has secured a photographic copy antedated by four days my statement in the Senate that I had not bought any land or under taken to buy any, and the President con- siders this positive proof of falsehood. I did not say had not considered the pur- chase of land; I did not say l had not contemplated the purchase of land, be- cause had done both.
 The Resolution.
 "In my conversation with the Attorney General in regard to the resolution which I introduced, and which he himself pro- posed after we had talked over the whole land situation, distinctly remember tell ing him that my interest in the matter had been first aroused by my desire to purchase some of the timber land, and that my coming to him was due to the fact that had discovered upon investiga- tion that I could not buy it through any agency whatsoever that I could not buy it even by lawsuit because I was advised by very able lawyers in the west among them the Hon. George Turner of Wash ington, that in attacking the holders of those land grants no one would have any standing In court except the grantor, the government itself. I was, perhaps, disin- genuous but a moments thought will con- vince any honest minded man that as ] had not signed any papers and had not paid any money, had taken nobody's re- ceipts, the usual processes by which one undertakes to buy land, I was speaking accurately and not falsely. Everything hinges on the meaning of the word 'un- dertaken and my use of it. Did I mean to conceal the fact that I was anxious to buy some of the land? Not at all Did I mean to attack Dorr as a swindlei when I myself was engaged in a dis honest and dishonorable traction? That Is what the President would have people believe. Can I be justly charged with falsehood when if I had told the Senate of the entire transaction it would have made no difference whatever, while would have been charged with intrudine my private affairs into public discussion Just what law did I break? What wrong did I do or contemplate?- According tt the renort of the Attorney General In an. sWer to the resolution which I introduced