Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-12-21
ASSA|LS M'REyNOlDS
AS FRIEND Of TRUSTS
0usted District Attorney in Iowa
Says He Unearthed Plumb
ers' Combine.
Refused Cooperation in Inquiry, He
Declares-says Cabinet Officer
Lacks Comprehension of Law.
Special Dispatch to The Star.

Special Dispatch to The Star.
SIOUX CITY. Iowa, December IA
bitter attack on Attorney General Nc
Reynolds is made in a statement which
Judge A. Van Wagenen gave out for
publication today after he had been sum
marily dismissed from the Office OF dis
trict attorney. Van Wagenen Friday
received from the Attorney General a
request for his resignation. 1t was
stated that President Wilson indorscd
the request.
Van Wagenen telegraphed the Presi-
dent, demanding Il hearing and an
nouncing that he would refuse to resign
and fight the case TO the last ditch. Now
| he says he will appeal from McReynolds
action if there be any way OF making
appeal.
Van Wagenen claims credit for having
unearthed in Sioux City evidence that
| there is plumbers trust of nationwide
proportions, and that McReynolds refused
! to cooperate with him in pushing the
| investigation. He alleges il was because
| he broke into the plumbers rooms 10
get records and went ahead with investi-
cations in spite of McReynolds that he
/ has been discharged from the service.
Attacks of Van Wagenen.
l
ments in an article to the press are as
follows:
Absolutely every turn the Attorney
General makes looked to me like he is
| interested in the corporations and the
| trusts. The Attorney General does not
| seem to have am comprehension of the
real problem involved in the Sherman
antitrust law. 1t is perfectly plain that
the Bell Telephone Company is lodging
McReynolds is aiding il. There is a sort
of air about the judicial department OF
the federal government that is repulsive
to me. Everybody appears to want the
business run on the basis of a newly
formed fraternal order, and / am told that
it is the attorneys first duty to become
chummy with the judge; second. with
the marshal. and then on down the line
Il "McReynoldS wants, it seems, to make
a dead letter of the Mann law. l pro-
test against his not saying where he
stands on it, while the people of this
whole country suspect him of infidelity
to the great moral object to be obtained
by a manly law enforcement
Charges of Petty Graft.
Another charge involves federal Of
fee holders under the republican party.
Van Wagenen claims that for years
there was petty graft in the way of
free trips in court business and that
efforts on his part to end it played a
part in the situation which ended in his
dismissal. He accuses Marshal Ed Knott
in this connection,
Those who are unfriendly to the dis
tricty attorney say he was dismissed
for incompetency and for indscreet
criticisms of his superiors. He lost one
white slave case and another was dis
missed because Of the faultiness of an
indictment which had been drawn by
Van Wagenen.
| Van Wagenen has been a democratic
leader in northwest Iowa since 1850
Three times he was the party nominee
for Congress. He was one Of the origi-
nal Wilson men in Iowa, and that he
stood high in the favor of President
Wilson was proved by the fact that he
got his appointment shortly after the
Presidents inauguration, while nearly
all other Iowa appointments are still
being held up.
/ Van Wagenen is said to be one OF the
first men in public life to urge the gov
eminent ownership of railroads, indoors
ing that proposition before Bryan took
it up He has written a book on the