The Kendrick gazette. [volume] (Kendrick, Idaho) 1892-1968, 1910-05-20
BALL|NGER'S CLERK
SPRINGS SENSATION
Claims Letter of Exoneration
Was Prepared by Interior
Department for Taft.

WASHINGTON, D. C.-The Balm
ger-Pinchot investigation was enliv-
ened by publication of a statement at
tributed to F. NJ. Kerby, a stenograph-
er in the office of Secretary Balm
ger, to the effect that the Presidents
letter of September IS, 1909, exoner-
ating Secretary Ballinger, was sub
stantially prepared for the Presidents
signature by Assistant Attorney Gen.
eral Lawler, of the Interior Depart.
ment.
Kerby asserted also that Ballingei
himself reviewed and revised his own
letter of exoneration before the draft
went to the President and that all of
the preliminary drafts used in the
preparation of the letter were burned
in CRATE in the Interior Department
as the suggestion and under the sup
ervision of Don A. Carr, Mr.. Ballin-
gers private secretary. Kerby drew
the inference that the Lawler draft
had been adopted by the President
essentially as his own; that Mr.. Bal
inger and his legal adviser had there.
fore virtually prepared the exonera-
tion which Mr.. Taft had issued over
his own signature.
Custom Pointed Out.
1t was further pointed out, both at
the White House and by Attorney.
General Wickersham, that a compari-
son Of the Lawler draft and the Presi-
dents letter would show that the in
ference of the Kirby statement was
unwarranted
Mr.. Wickersham alluded to the prac-
tce common in the Government de-
partments of subordinates preparing
letters and documents for the consid-
GRAFTON of their superiors and their
use by them in whole or in part as
they might see fit.
Almost simultaneously with the pub
lication of the Kerby statement Attor-
ney.General Wickersham sent to the
Ballinger-Pinchot investigating COM
mittee, then in session, copy of the
Lawler draft, accompanied by letter
to Chairman Nelson, in which Mr..
Wickersham declared the document
had been overlooked in sending the
papers requisitioned by the committee
at the request of Attorney Brandeis.
White House Makes Denial.
President Taft, over his own sig
nature addressed long letter to Sen
ator Knute Nelson, chairman of the
Ballinger-Pinchot investigating COM
mittee in which he declared that Law
erl did prepare esuch a letter as Kirby
said, but that he did so by the Presi-
dents specific direction. When he re-
ceived it he found, he says, that it
was not what he wanted to issue,
and he wrote the letter himself in
the form in which he desired it, using
from LAWYERS draft only one or two
general statements.
"Back Dating'' Explained.
The President goes still further and
takes up the question of the back
dating" of Attorney General Wicker
shams summary of the CLAWS charges
to which Attorney Louis D. Brandeis
has drawn attention. Mr.. Taft says
that the attorney-general's letter was
in fact back Dated" and that this
also was done by his specific direction
because time did not permit embody-
ing the attorney-general's analysis and
notes in the opinion. He therefore
directed him to embody in a written
statement such analysis and conclu-
sions as he had given, file it with
the record and date it prior to the
date of the opinion, to show his de-
cision was fortified by his summary
of the evidence and of his conclusions
therefrom.
Frederick NJ. Kerby, the stenograph-
er in the Office of the Secretary of
the Interior, who issued a statement
regarding the Lawler memorandum on
the CLAWS charges to the President,
was discharged from the government
service by Secretary Ballinger.