Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1910-05-20
Summoned to Keep Order at
BaIIInger Probe.
SENSATIONS ARE NUMEROUS
Lie Passed Between Witness
and Counsel BrandeiS.

| Washington, May 18.-Sensation fol-
lowed sensation with Kaleidoscope
rapidity at the session of the Balm
ger-Pinchot investigating committee.
! Testimony of startling character was
introduced. The president of the
United States was drawn directly into
the controversy. The lie was passed
| between witness and counsel, bitter
clashes between members of the COM
mittee were frequent. The spectators
were aroused to a demonstration of
disapproval of Oscar Lawler, assistant
attorney general for the interior de-
partment. A policeman was called in
to the room to see that order was pre-
served A witness was forced to apollo
gize to the committee for Incorporate
! language used by him, and melodrama
of one kind or another was rampant
throughout the day.
Stump speeches from the witness
| stand; from attorneys, and from about
| the committee table were quite the or
der of the procedure, and so intense
was the feeling aroused that Senator
Root was twice stirred to the point
where red faced with anger he
thumped the table vigorously to en-
phasize his questioning of witness
! and his denunciation of Attorney
Brandeis for undertaking to divert
the investigation into an assault upon
President Taft. . r
kerby Contradicts Ballinger.
Frederick M. Kerby, the stenogra-
pher, who revealed the genesis and
production of the now famous Lawler
memorandum, who was dismissed
from the government service by Sec
rotary Ballinger, and Assistant Attor-
ney General Oscar Lawler, who pre-
pared the memorandum at President
Taft's request, were the witnesses OF
the day. Kerby told how he came to
give his story to a newspaper asso-
citation, contradicted fatty testimony
given to the committee by Secretary
Ballinger and made new charge
against the secretary, to wit: That
Mr.. Ballinger had planned to depose
F. H. Newell, director of the reclama-
ton service, and appoint as his sue
cessor r. H. Thomson, former city
engineer of Seattle. Incidental to
Kerby's testimony and in connection
with the Newell-Thomson affair cor
respondence was produced at the call
of the committee showing a certain
degree of intimacy between Secretary
Ballinger and George w. Perkins OF
the J. Pierpont Neutrality-suspicious.
syndicate by fastening to patent the
Cunningham Alaskan coal claims on
which the syndicate had an option.
This correspondence showed that
Mr.. BalIinger had been Mr.. Perkins
guest at the latter's home in Yonkers,
N. Y, and had undertaken to find an ex-
pert engineer. to accompany Mr.. Per-
kins on a trip last summer to inspect
the syndicate's properties in Alaska
LawIer Very Spectacular.
Assistant Attorney General Lawler
furnished most of the sensations of
the day. In marked contrast to the
demeanor of young Kerby, Mr.. Law
Ter was spectacular, rhetorical, denun-
ciatory and altogether unable to re-
strain his intense bitterness towards
all who had any part in the fight on
Secretary Ballinger and the interior
department Kerby appeared to be
something of fanatic or zealot, fired
with the consciousness of martyrdom
to truth and justice, but he made
good witness and, despite his youth,
acquitted himself with credit under
the most severe kind of fire from such
veteran lawyers as Senators Root,
Sutherland and Nelson and Represen-
tatives DENLY and Olmsted.
Honors were easily on his side when
he left the stand after a thorough
grilling.
Lawler, on the other hand, appeared
as a man under severe fire provoked
beyond all self control He made
stump speeches to the committee,
hurled inuendoes and direct accusa-
lions right and left, INDUCED in such
an Incorporate outburst at Attorney
Brandeis that even Secretary Balm
gers friends on the committee adj
monished him that he was going be
yond the bounds of propriety