Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1914-07-16
ROOSEVELT CALLS
WHITMAN TRICKY
Agreed to Repudiate Barnes,
Declares Colonel-Attack
PueriIe, Says Prosecutor.

| OYSTER BAY, July 16.-Colonei
Theodore Roosevelt made public late
last night copies of the tentatively
drafted letter which District Attorney
Whitman is said to have approved
and sent to Colonel Roosevelt a few
weeks ago for the purpose Of obtain
ing the Progressive party's governor
ship vote.
The letter from Whitman was not
! signed by the district attorney, and
this fact was at once seized upon by
Whitmans friends The letter ended
with Whitmans initials typewriter
/ in.
| Colonel Roosevelt at the same time
issued a statement giving the whole
history of Whitman's recent secret
diplomatic flirting with the colonel
and the Progressive party. The
coloners statement was issued at 8
d. M. at Sycamore Hill, after a con-
ference with George w. Perkins and
State Chairman Theodore Douglas
Robinson on board William S.
Childs's yacht Joyance. and after a
previous conference with Charles H.
Duell, ir., head Of the Whitman Non
Partisan League who. according to
I
mans emissary in the transaction.
The colonel in the statement de-
nounces District Attorney Whitman
in unmeasured terms, calling him
tricky and insincere,' and stating
that early in the Whitman diplomatic
advances it came about that the dis
triet attorney was trying to double
cross" both Colonel Roosevelt and
Barnes. Commenting on Whitman's
Reputation of the go-between, Duell
Colonel Roosevelt says:
whitman has known from the
newspapers that Duell was dealing
with me as his representative ever
since | returned from Europe. He
has repudiated his agent only after
his agent failed"
The colonel adds that Duel pos
sesses a letter signed by Whitman
authorizing him to treat with Colonel
Roosevelt. Duell perhaps later may
give this out. the colonel says.
The copy of the alleged Whitman
letter which Colonel Roosevelt gave
out last night furnishes the colonel
with considerable ammunition. In IL
Whitman states he is against Barnes
and all he stands for" and that he
will oppose Barnes to the bitter
end
After various sarcastic comments
on the district attorneys never-pub-
Hshed anti-boss letter, Colonel Roose-
welt ends his statement by saying II is
evident the district attorney is
whitman man first, last and all the
time"
That part of Colonel Rooseveit's
statement in which he made the most
telling reference to the draft of the
letter renouncing Barnes that Whit
man was to make public above mis-
signature, read as follows:
Mr.. Duel stated to me that he had
shown this rough draft to Mr.. Whit
man, that it contained Mr.. Whitmans
ideas and that Mr.. Whitman had said
he would issue this statement If I
would thereafter in some way indi-
cate my satisfaction with it or at
least indicate that I did not intend to
attack Mr. Whitman, in view of his
making it.
II wish to emphasize that in this
as in every other action, every adj
vance was made by Mr.. Whitman,
the effort being on Mr.. Whitman's
part to get me to say that | would
support him. and promising that he
would come out against Mr. Barnes
if | would do so.
about the same time | received
from other men who
purported to come from Mr. Whit
man. and who assured me that Mr.
Whitman's attitude was exactly what
it had been represented by Mr. Duell
to be. | was, however, also informed
by one gentleman who had seen him,
that he had explained that he could
not assail Mr. Barnes before the pri-
maries for fear Mr.. Barnes might
beat him at the primaries, but that
as soon as the primaries We're over
he would denounce Mr.. Barnes.
ITO this gentleman | answered that
this represented merely an effort on
the part of Mr. Whitman either to
double cross the boss or the indie
pendents, that if he had not the
nerve to attack Mr. Barnes before
the primaries, it would be accepted
as unquestionable that he would pos
sess neither the nerve nor the incli-
nation to repudiate him after the pri-
maries.
There is just one statement of Mr..
Whitman's and only one to which the
people of New York can give i'm
plicit credence, and that is the state
ment that he issued the day before
yesterday-I am a Whitman man
from first to last. :"