The Sentinel=record., 1911-02-28
PRESIDENT
 IS CHARGED
OREGON SENATOR MYERS HE HAS USED PRESTIGE TO IN.
 FLUENcE CONGRESS.
Brings Norton Letter Before Senate and Says Executive Should be Shorn of Power to Use Patron
 age as Power.

Washington, Feb. 27-President Taft by inference was charged to. night with using his appointive power to intimidate members of congress.
 The inferred charge was made in a speech in the senate by Senator Jona- than Bourne, of Oregon, president Of the New Progressive Republican League, and until the recent trouble over an Oregon appointment, the in. timate friend and goltimg companion of the chief executive. Mr Bourne was speaking in favor of a popular election of senators. The surprising thing was that although all of the senators in the audience construed his remarks as an attack upon the president not a word was uttered in reply.
 The Beverly letter to Secretary Nor ton said the president had withheld federal patronage from certain sena- tors and congressman, but would dis continue that practice, was brought into the limelight. On previous occa- sions insurgent senators have threat ened to read this letter in the senate, but until tonight no public reference had been made to it.
 Mir Bourne opened h's speech by discussion of the Oregon law. He said when this law is enacted by all the stltes it will destroy the power of the federal machine to renominate president or determine his successor. The "steamroler," he said, will be relegated to the political scrap heap and its operators to tAe shadow of things forgotten, while fouIth-class pcstmasters will cease to be a polit. teal asset for anybody or amy party
 Senator Bourne said the use of the presidential appointing power to .coerce members of congress would be either bribery or ntimidation-bTdb- cry if patronage was used as a reward and intimidation if withheld as pun ishment. In this connection he read section $40 of the revised statutes, making it a crime for any person to offer or give anything of value to any member of either house of congress with the intent to influence his vote or decision upon any matter pending in either house. Continuing he said:
 "The natural inference from the Norton letter is that the president of the United States used federal pat ronage to influence the action of mem bers of congress.
 "The undenied statement indicates a deplcrable and despicable subserv- fence on the part of the legislative branch and a dangerous and demoral izing usurFation on the part of the executive.
 "I would have as much respect for a common ward heeler who buys votes at the polls as for president of the United States who uses his appoint ing power as a means of forcing or members of congress to determine or change their course If action. One transaction is as dishon- est, as corrupt and as depraving as the other but the latter is more dan gercms more insidious, more pernici ous than the former because it strikes at the very foundation of free insti- tutions sets a precedent for corrupt methods in all official hfe and marks the beginning of dictatorship and de adence of the nation"
 Concluding, he said:
 Extension eff the power of the exc cutive is the beginning of dictator ship. The remedy is to make presi- dents directly accountable to party and general electorates by enacting laws for presidential primary votes, thereby destroying the power of polit- ical bosses and their packers, the contributors. The people can be trusted.