New Britain herald., 1916-11-01
LODGE RETRACTS
 HIS STATEMENTS
Shifts Burden Of Postscript
 Case" Onto Breckenridge

] ] night, Senator Cabot Lodge again 1 took up the controversy regarding @ { postscript to one of the Lusitania
 notes. Senator Lodge said:
 | 'The president of the United States has denied that there was any post l script to the Lusitania note. and we gre all bound, of course, to accept tho presidents denial just as he makes it, 'I need hardly say that I would not willingly bring an unfounded charge against any one, high or low, and if misled into doing so I should Ee quick to retract it. The president makes one mistake. The statem ent which he characterizes as untrue, that there was such a postscript, was not mine, but was made by MT. Breckin- ridge, a former assistant secretary ot war, according to the evidence of two independent witnesses, both gen. tjemen of high character, responsibil- ity, and veracity, and MT. Breckin1 ridge was in a position to know, if, as he is reported to have said, he had seen the postscript.
 Bearing in mind the public and hitherto uncontroverted fact that Mr. Bryan had informed the Austro- Hun garian ambassador that the strict ac- countability' note of May 15 meant nothing, which fact was at once cabed by the ambassador to Berlin, it seemed to me that MT. Breckin. ridges statement as testified to by two independent witnesses ought properly to be laid before the public
 The Arbitration Proposal.
 'The president, it will also be ob- served, says that, the cause propos- ing arbitration was suggested and after consideration he rejected it.
 This suggestion rejected by the president covered the exact proposi- tion said by M1. .Breckinridge to have been embodied in the postscript, and nay have been what MT. Breckin- ridge had in mind when taking to Dr. Bailey and MT. Jeffries about the postscript which was rejected without having been referred to the cabinet, and 1t may also have been the reason for MT. Bryan: statement to the Aus troHungarian ambassador that the note meant nothing
 "I would also call your attention to q statement by MT. Charles Warren, a republican presidential elector of New Jersey, who states that he was told by a member of President Will sons official family that the proposi- tion to arbitrate the loss of life on the Lusitania was to be embodied in 2 note to Ambassador Gerard and vas not to be a postscript to the strict accounts bility note' .
 "He states further what Mr. Tumul- tH did to prevent such action, and nm he Wor 's statement was brought to his atten- ton, said that he appraised the pres ident that there was a proposition for arbitration from a member of the cabinet. I mention this only because the president and MT. Tumulty both agree that there was a proposition for arbitrating the loss of American lives on the Lusitania to accompany the strict accountability note which was suggested by some one, consider ed by the president and by him re- jected .#
 Assails Foreign Policy.
 "As I have previously pointed out, the suggestion for proposition of arbitration to accompany the strict accountability note. whether as a postscript or as a separate note. and the methods of it's suggestion. con- s,ideration and rejection are only of interest as throwing light on the man. Ter in which our foreign relations have been dealt with by this adminis- tration.
 "This question of the arbitration proposition does not in the least al- ter the essential fact that the 'srict accountability note meant nothing, as MT. Bryan declared to the Austro- Hungarian ambassador, and as events since that time have painfully dem- onstrated. The utter emptiness of the note of May IS, with it's threat of strict accountability and omit no word or act, has been strilxingly shown once more within forty eight hours, if press reports are to be be- lieved, by the destruction of the lives Of Americans rightfully on board the steamship Marina. which was blown up by submarlne.'
 Wilcox Makes Statement.
 Chairman William R. Wilcox of republican national committee, last night issued a statement on the con- troversy regarding a postscript to the I.usitania note.
 Tt is time for frankness and hon. esty," MT. Wilcox said, mot for technical denials and concealment. It must be evident to every one now that something of a seriously important nature was written or done or ap- proved by the president in that con- | rection. One of Senator Lodges in formants describes the additional writing as a postscript The presi- dent declares that no postscript was
 written. The presidents sticking for the exact use of words makes it ne-
 cessary for me to ask What was | written?' If not a postscript, what
 was it-part of the original draft, an amendment suggested afterward, a | supplemental instruction to the am- | bassador, or what? There surely was 1 something.