The weekly soliphone., 1917-02-08
DEMOCRATS THINK
 LEAK ESTABLISHED
Understood They Favor Report tc The House-Mrs. Visconti
 Will Testify.

Washington, Feb. 7.-Activities of the congressional Teak" inquiry committee yesterday consisted chief ly of arguing in executive session about closing the hearings and try ing to extract from witnesses in public the true story of the circumt stances surrounding the sending of a forecast on President Wilson's peace note from the Washington brokerage house of F. A. Connolly & Go. to E. F. Hutton & Co. of New York. Little progress was made neither direction. '-.'gs; :
 Democrats of the committee are understood to think that report should be made to the house soon that a "leak" has been established through admissions of two Washing ton newspaper men, J. Fred Essary and w. W. Price, that they supplied forecasts of the note to New York and Chicago brokers. Other mem- bers, however, are said to be con- tending for a continuance of the investigation and thorough exami- nation of Mrs. Ruth Thomson, Wis., conti. {tB
 Mrs. Visconti, it is stated, will be called. Anything she can testify to in direct connection with her alleg- son that MT. Price acted as a, ''go- between" for Secretary Tumulty "and others in Wall street deals will be welcomed by the whole com mittee. But many members are averse to permitting her to go into a recital of capitol gossip and scan ldal generally, as it has been report ed she would do if allowed to take the stahd,, She has refused to make an affidavit in regard to her testf- mony for the committee. 1a The question of returning to New York for further hearings also is causing discussion. After an execu- tive meeting yesterday to talk over this point among others, it was said the committee probably would re- main here the rest of the week.
 Search for an explanation of the dual claims of Essary and F.. A, Connolly to the authorship of the Connolly house forecast of the peace note yesterday brought the asser- ton from H. w. Robertson, one of Connolly's partners, that he believed Connolly must have copied Essary's forecast and duplicated it in mes- sage to K. F. Hutton &- Company. Connolly has testified that he com posed the message from gossip and rumor." Both Robertson and R. w. Boil ling, brother .in-law of President Wilson and also partner of Con molly, who preceded Robertson on the witness stand, declared they did not know of the forecast having been sent from their office, when on last Wednesday Connolly testi- fled in New. York that he wrote it.
 Boiling insisted, as Edwin A. Ro- per, the Connolly firms telegraph operator previously had testified, that as soon as he learned of the Essary message he insisted Roper go before the committee and tell the whole truth. 9
 Walter P. Ramsey, local inves- tor, told the committee that he was the real cause of Roper testifying Upon reading Connolly's New York testimony, Ramsey said. he decided it was untrue, so he took Boiling into a room, locked the door, told him that he was being made the goat" and that if he, Boiling, did not get the truth before the com mittee, he would. 4
 Essary, recalled, pointed out sev- eral inconsistencies in his forecast of the note, and the note itself.
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