The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-01-09
CHIPERFIELD INTERRUPTS

tative Harrison of Mississippi, Mir. Tumulty said
 T know that MT. Wood wanted the matter brought out in private, and for that I thank him. Representative Lenroot asked how the President sent the peace note to the Secretary of State MT Tumulty said it was transmitted in sealed envelope by private mes senger
 Do you know that Alfred H Cur tis of 1S5 West Seventy ninth street, New York was in fact the author of the letter written to Representative Wood?" asked Representative Chiper- field.
 q do not"
 "Do qou know that Alfred II. Cur tis was formerly president of the Ma tional Bank of North America with | which Charles A. Morse and others were associa ed?" q do not"
 You are well acquainted with Ber- | nard Baruch?" Yes. sir When did you last see him? ?n SAW BARUCH DECEMBER 9 At the Gridiroh dinner in Wash I irgton, December g." MT Tumulty re- piled
 , Did you come closely in contact with him there?" 1 q sat about five seats away from him and exchanged greetings with 1 him.
 Did you have any private conver- 1 sation with him?" None at all" 1 MT. Chiperfield then said there were 1 things not mentioned in MT. Tumulty's letter which he wished to question I him about.
 "Go as far as you like,'' said Mr | Tumulty
 ! tor of the Knickerbocker hotel in l New York;" KNOWS HIBBs T do,' said Tumulty. | Asked if he ever had any business | transactions with w. B. Hibbs & Co.,, Washington brokers, or ever had fre- quented their place of business, MT. Yum ulty said he had been there once Before Ambassador Gerard returned to Germany recently" said Tumulty, he wanted to buy some bonds and wanted to know a man whom I could recommend. I introduced Mr. Gerard to Mr. Hibbs'
 When was that in reference to when l the peace note was sent?' Sometime before it was sent" re- piled Humility.
  erfield, MT. Humility said that he did not know the date of the peace note or when it was transmitted to Secretary Lansing by the President. MT Tumulty was then excused The committee decided to subpoena AL fred H. Curtis LANSING ON STAND Secretary Lansing then took the wit ness stand.
 Possibly I had better start' said Sec- retary Lansing, 'by stating that I as- sume confidential communications be- tween the President and myself are a part of the inquiry. I can give you a physical history of the note. The draft of the note was received by me from the White House at o'clock Monday after noon. I called MT. Polk, counsellor for the department and MT. Woolsey, law ad- visor attached to my office, and dis cussed the three forms in which the note had to be prepared and sent forth. then handed 1t to MT. woolsey enJoining the strictest secret that he might take
 it to the three confidential stenographers There it was to be prepared and delivered to MT. Salmon, chief of the index bu- reau.
 CLERKS LOCKED IN
 'The index clerk was to encipher the note, and said that it would take so long to encipher the three notes that he would have to have an assistant. I di- rected that he engage his most confiden- tial man for the work. He did so; was given the copies, and the two men locked themselves in the room. They were given the copies at 8 o'clock and at 2:3O Tues day morning, December 19, the notes were enciphered, delivered to the telegraph room and sent.
 "On Tuesday afternoon I discussed with the President the time when the note should be made public. The reason for secrecy was the courtesy due to the nations who were to receive the note, that it should not be published here be- fore they received it. We decided it would take at least two days for it to reach Austria and Rumania, and we de- cided it should be made public on Thurs day morning. Tuesday evening about 6 o'clock a copy of the note was handed to Mir. James, chief of the information bureau. He at once took the matter up with the printing office
 SENT TO PRINTING OFFICE
 Tt was read by one man and then sent to the printing office.
 'At about Il o'clock I received the newspaper correspondents, and told them that I would have an important commu- nication for them at 5 o'clock to be re- leased the next morning. I told them in confidence, as I was afraid it's contents might come back from Europe in garbled form, and I did not wish to make it pub lie on that account Further, I thought 1t courteous not to make it public un- til 1t had been received by the countries to which it was addressed.
 T told them it did not contain any proposal of peace nor offer of mediation.
 That evening at my house Ambas- sador Willard (to Spain) told me he had been advised of the contents of the note by the President, and we discussed the advisabilty of him addressing Spain on the subject. The next morning the note was made public in the press"
 MT. Lansing said he could not recall the name of any man present at his con-