Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1911-03-15
THE RETIREMENT OF BALLINGER.

in President Taft's cabinet, was asst
week rendered to the president who
accepted it and accompanied the &C.
ceptance with letter testifylng 70
his confidence in and respect for the
retiring official that shows the pure
gold of the presidents heart. his un-
swerving and honest loyalty for his
friends and the whitening contempt
he entertains for :, the despicabIe
methods of the secretary's hypocriti-
cal and pharisaical traducers.
The INSCRIPTIONS and devious me-
thods of the bunch of disgruntled
politicians whose methods are we'll
known to be the result of disappoint-
ed ambition, have let no opportunity
slip to cast suspicion upon the secre-
tary TO satisfy their spite, though
ssmirkingly admitting that they "do
not accuse him of corruption yet
by inuendo and covert inference imp.
ly that he was unfit for the position
he held. The secretary demanded an
investigation, and majority of the
committee after spending months in
the receiving Of testimony, acquitted
him of the charges made yet before
the majority offered it's report, the
minority members of the committee,
who had decided in advance of the
Investigation to find him guilty of
something, rushed into print with
minority report in bitter denuncia-
ton.
Mr.. Ballinger accepted the position
of secretary very much against his
will, at the earnest insistence of the
president sacrificing the income from
a large legal practice to accept a
salary not quarter SO large, as
cabinet officer. He has been bounded
and traduced for many months in
way calculated to try the soul and
break the spirit OF any man. He has
been compelled at great expense to
himself to employ eminent counsel
to defend his character against pack
of remorseless calumniators who like
cormorants fattened upon the notoriety
they thus obtained He could not with
propriety or self respect resign while
under fire, and now, crippled in
fortune and health, discredited before
the world by the suspicion cast upon
his actions and his motives, in spite
of vindication by the investigating
committee, he again retires to private
life, while the ghouIs who have
brought about this situation gloat |
over it and pose as patriots who have
been acting Tin the interests of the
pee-pul. "
Following is the presidents splen-
did letter:
accept your resignation with
great reluctance. I have had the
fullest opportunity to know you, to
know your standards of service to the
government and the public, to know
your motives to know how you have
your office and to know
the motives of those who have assaulted
you I do not hesitate to say that you
have been the object of one of the
most Inscriptions conspiracies for the
Of character that history
can show
"a deemed it my duty not only to
5he government, bur to society in
general, to fight out this battle to the
end. Tt was the result of a malicious !
and unprinclpled plan for the use of
the press to misrepresent you and
your actions and to torture every
circumstance, however free from de-
significance, into proof of
corrupt motives
"With the hypocritical pretense
that they did not accuse you Of cor
ruption, they showered you with
suspicion, and by the most pettifogg
ing methods exploited the public
matters which had no relevancy to an
ssue of either corruption or efficiency |
in Office, but which paraded before an
1ysterical body of hea 1line readers.
served to blacken your character and
to obscure the proper issue Of your
honesty and effectiveness as a public
servant.
The result has been cruel
tragedy. You and yours have lost
health and have been burdened |
financially. The conspirators who
have not hesitated in their pursuit of
you to resort to the meanest Of
methods, including the corruption of
your most confidential assistant,
plume themselves like the Pharisees
of old, as the Only pure members of
society, actuated by the spirit of self.
sacrifice for their fellow men.
every fiber Of my nature rebels
against such hypocrisy and nerves me
to fight such a combination and such
methods to the bitter end, lest sue
cess in this instance NAV form a de-