Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-07-16
BARRY BITTERLY
SCORES MULHALL
Agent in Sale of Letters
Promised $4,000, He
Declares.s
LOBBY WITNESS NEEDED
MONEY, 1T is CHARGED
Long Had Tried to Dispose of Cor
respondence by Various
Methods.

letters MulhaI obtained as a renre-
sentative of the National Association
OF manufacturers and who is now suing
Muihall i'm New York to recover half
the sum for his services. made a state
ment last night in which he branded
as false Mulhalrs testimony before the
senate lobby investigating commi tee
Monday that Mulhall sought to give
the letters away al one time. but could
not get them published.
Mr.. Barry hopes to be called before
;he committee to refute MulhalPs tes-
timony, and said that because of the
untrue statements made concerning
him on the witness stand the Senate
committee SHOULD give him an oppor-
tunity 10 defend himself
Purpose of Letter.
ten by Mulhall to Perriton Maxwell.
edltor OF Hearsts Magazine, May 16
last, in which Mulhall said he was mot
seeking monetary consideration" for
his letters, was written to make a rec
ord and with the idea that it might
come in handy for the very purpose
Cor which it was used
MI Barrys statement is as follows
The mistake I made with Mulhall
Was III treating nm IKE a gentleman
/ dealt with him fairly and suuarely.
and he has repaid me by trying to
beat me out of the 50, 900 / earned in
disposing of his material and by try
ing to bedaub my name before the Sem
ate committee.
1T was his propositions, repeatedly
made, that I receive half the proceeds
from the sale of his letters. He made
three special trips to New York to i'm
p1ore me to take up his case with tne
nov rs no
country, and, all told. ! spent three
months in sitting his chaotic and I'M
belieyable story into the semblance OF
connected narrative such as it
now is.
His protestations about making his
revelations for the good of humanity
are laughable. He could have gone to
the Overman committee direct without
ever appearing in a. newspaper, but he
insisted on having the money before
he would part with any of his docu
ments
He started a year ago, so he told
me, TO try to sell his letters. At first
he wanted only $1,000 or so from the
Baltimore papers, which he first APP
preached. Some one directed him to
Mr.. Hearst, and his price was then
$50, 600. That is where ! got in toucn
with him. being requested to examine
his material for the editor Of HearstS
Magazine.
..after Mr.. Hearst turned him down
he beSouSnt me to find another outlet
for his story. 1 thought it worth. pub
LEGATION and tried to dispose of il to
several magazines, but his price was
TOO high. He had then dropped to
$4,000.
Pushed for Money.
zone day he cana to me and implored
me to get him any kind of price,
however small, and offered me half.
He said that he was about to lose his
home by the foreclosure of a mortgage.
and that he had spent all his money
in caring for his wife, who was in an
insane asylum, where she had been
driven by frenZied remorse over his
double dealings with and for the Ma
tional Association of Manufacturers. L
lent him enough money to pay his
hotel bill and keep him afioat while 1
abandoned the magazines, my natural
field. and tried to dispose of his ma
terial to the newspapers.
when President Wilson made his
celebrated utterances about the in
sidious lobby ! was able to induce
tho World to buy his letters for SO 900.
Their contract with him provides that
he shall pay me and 1 have contract
with him requiring that he pay me
half.
When the contract was signed he
was overjoyed, said that l had render
ed him the greatest service of his life,
and asserted that he would gladly pay
me my half and think that l had earn
ed it..
Says Head Was Turned.
But in two weeks his head was
turned. As the day for payment ap-
preached he grew cool, and finally I
asked him If he would have the World
make out two checks, one to me. He
flew into rage, said that my contract
was no good, and that l would have to
rely on his sense of honor to see me
through.
81 concluded that the sense Of honor
OF man whose chief function in life
is the demonstration that he has none
Accordingly, I filed an attachment
against his purchase price. and am su-
ing him now to recover the $4,000
which he is striving to withhold from
me.
THE altruistic Mulhan. who declared
under oath, that he had no Interior
motive in disposing of his letters, has
drawn down his share of the purcha Sc
price and has refused to let me have
mine.
Alleged Suggestions.
'"rhree times Mulhan suggested that
l try to sell his letters to the Ameri-
can FedefaIlOn OF LABOR. l replied that
/ had no interest in them except as
they would form the basis for a reve-
lation of inside politics.
"Once Mulhall suggested that we
could make a huge fortune by selling
the letters to their writer's. He may
have been joking in this proposition.
l do not know. At any rate, 1 treated
it with the silence it deserved.
cat that time he asked me what
thought the N. A. M. would pay if it
could obtain these letters. I replied
that | had no idea. He asked me if
thought they would pay $4,000. re-
piled that that was as good a figure to
guess at as any other, my sense of
humor being reached by that time.
1T may have been that little CONVEX
sation, which was purely jocular, /
naturally assumed, which Munchausen
MulhalI referred to as my proposal to
blackmail the officers of the N. A. NJ.
Wrote Half of Story.
''Mulhall's other aspersion is that +
am a tipster. never sold tip in my
life In this instance l wrote half the
Mulhall story 1t appeared In the
World and was paid by that paper to
initiate its staff into the intricacies of
the letters and to instruct it's man, Sci
bold, in their handling. If / were a
tipster the World would have paid me a
tip"
Mr.. Barry said he had to go over ST.
COO letters and documents collected and
preserved by Col. Mulhall during many
years in order to select such as were
available for the purposes for which
Mulhall sold the documents. Finally the