Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1911-04-26

found his phone call waiting me at
my home when l returned from the
theatre
Wiehe asked to question Cook and
was allowed to do so. He charged
Cook with trying to blackmail Hines
and the Weyerhaeuser lumber inter-
estg
Cook admitted that he had sent a
letter to f. e. Weyerhaeuser and also
to Wiehe in which he threatened to
tell what he knew Of the Lorimer mat
ter. unless they agreed to settle fight
among the stockholders of the virginia
and Rainy Lake Lumber Co. These
letters We're produced by Cook, who
also admitted that the Edward Hines
Lumber Co. held $4,000 of his notes
and mortgages.
Cook also testified that he and Hen
~ furnish of Duluth, met Hines going
through the hotel lobby shortly before
the election Of Lorimer.
Mr.. furnish asked him. said Cook
how he was getting on down in
Washington. oh he said, I am hav-
ing q hell OF a time. Now there is for
instance old Stephenson. He has gone
down to Washington and started sork-
ing there for free lumber. / had a
terrible time getting him lined up.
Then he went on and told about what
a time he had with the Southern
Democrats. He said he would have
them all fixed up today and tomorrow
they would flop and he would have to
go and fix them all over again.
Mr.. furnish asked him how they were
getting along with the senatorial dead
lock Well he said, 1T is all fixed. [
will tell you confidentially Lormer will
be the next senator. We had Botell fixed
for the senatorship. He had promised TO
work to keep the two-dollar tariff on lum-
her, but when the lumber schedule came
up before the House ways and means
committee he was working for freei UNI
Der. l Immediately took 1t up with SEN
ator Aldrich and so decided that we had
to have another man, a man whom we
could depend on. 1t was decided that |
should have a talk with Lorimer. I did.
Lorimer has agreed to stand pat. He will
listen to reason. ! have got it all fixed
he will be the next senator from Illinois.
That was the substance of the CONVERSE
ton. Cook said he inferred 1t was
Stephenson from Wisconsin TO whom
Hines alluded"
Cook concluded his testimony by relat-
ing meeting with Hines in Chicago
Office building in 1910.
He said: Hines spoke to me about a
story that was going around to the effect
or purporting to be something similar to
the conversation which he carried on over
the long-distanee telephone from my
room in the hotel about year previous
y. He says: Now this story comes from
some telephone OPERATOR some girl, and
they have got it all mixed up. The way
they have got il was that l was talking
at your office in Duluth with Ex-Governor
Yates at Springfield. wherein / told him
would be down on the next train, pre-
pared to furnish million dollars to elect
Lormer. Now you know that was not
Yates at all 1 was talking with. 1t was
Deneen.'
Then lie vent on to caution me
about keeping very quiet about such a
story and about the conversation he
held there. He said if it ever came out,
that il would be betraYing the conf
dence that President Taft and Senator
AIdfieh put in him, that he never could
go back to Washington, he never
could look either of those gentlemen in
the face again. and that it would COM
promise some of the best people in the
city of Chicago and the state of Min
nesota."
Asked If there was any difference in
his version of these several CONVERSE
tons and Mr.. OBriens version, Cook
said:
THE only difference that I can re-
call is that my impression was that
Hines was talking over the telephone
to Governor Dcneen; OBrien always
claimed il was Yates"