The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-01-05

iative officer, whether he belongs to one
 branch or the other of the government.
 Message Not Understood.
 This allegation in the resolution, there
 fore, must certainly be due to an en-
 tire 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 Congressmen 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 556O,
 inclusive you will find the debate on this
 subject. MT. Tawney of Minnesota MT.
 Smith of Iowa, MT. Sherley of Kentucky,
 and MT. Fitzgerald of New York appear
 in this debate as the special champions of
 the provision referred to. Messrs. Par
 sons. Bonnet and Driscoll were the lead
 CTS of those who opposed the adoption of
 the amendment and upheld the right of
 the government to use the most efficient
 means possible in ordereto detect crim-
 inals and to prevent and punish crime.
 
 mittee of the whole, where no votes of
 the individual members are recorded, so
 I am unable to discriminate by mention ing the members who voted for and the
 members who voted against the provision, but it's passage, the Journal records, was
 greeted with applause. I am well aware, however, that In any case of this kind
 many members who have no particular knowledge of the point at issue. are con- a-yf- -Q4 4l.>
 mittee which had considered the matter, and have no doubt that many members
 of the House simply followed the lead of Messrs. Tawney and Smith, without having had the opportunity to know very much as to the rights and wrongs of the question.
 would not ordinarily attempt in this way to discriminate between members of the House, but as objection has been taken to my language, in which I simply spoke of the action of the House as a whole, and as apparently there Is de- sire that should thus discriminate, I will state that think the responsibility rested on the committee on appropriations. under the lead of the members whom I have mentioned.
 Now as to the request of the Congress that I give the evidence for my statement that the chief argument in favor of the provision was that the congressman did not themselves wish to be investigated by secret service men.
 Two Lines of Argument.
 The part of the Congressional Record tc which have referred above entirely sup | ports this statement. Two distinct lines | of argument were followed in the debate | One concerned the question whether the l law warranted the employment of the se- 1 cret service in departments other than the ] treasury and this did not touch the l merits of the service in the least. The 1 other line of argument went to the merits 1 of the service, whether lawfully orr un. l lawfully employed, and here the chief fl l not the only argument used was that 1 the service should be cut down and re- | stricted because it's members had "shad- | owed" or investigated members of Con | gress and other officers of the govern | rnent If we examine the debate in detai l 1t appears that most of what was urged ir 1 favor of the amendment took the form oi l the simple statement that the committed 1 held that there had been violation o1 1 lawr by the use of the secret service fol l other purposes than suppressing counter 1 feiting (and one two other matters l which can be disregarded), and that sucf l language was now to be used as wouc 1 effectually prevent all such violations ! of law" hereafter. Mir. Tawney, for in | stance, says: "It was for the purpose o1 | stopping the use of this service in every 1 possible way by the departments of the