Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1917-01-09

letter which he wished to question him
about.
Go as far as you like" said Mr..
Tumulty
do you know J. B. Reagan, proprie-
tor OF the Knickerbocker hotel in New
York;"
Il do not" said Tumulty.
Asked if he ever had any business
transactions with w. B. Hibbs & Co,
Washington brokers, or had ever fire.
auented their place of business, Mr..
Tumulty said he had been there once
Before Ambassador Gerard returned
to Germany recently" said Tumulty, me
wanted to buy some bonds and wanted
to know a man whom ] could recon-
mend. I introduced Mr.. Gerard to Mr.
Hibbs"
"When was that in reference to when
the peace note was sent?"
"Some time before it was sent" re-
piled Tunulty.
Questioned further by Chiperfeld, Tu-
multy said he did not know the date of
The peace note nor when it was trans
mitted to Secretary Lansing by the
president
Mr.. Tumulty was then excused.
The committee decided to subpoena AL
fred Fl. Curtis.
Secretary Lansing then took the wit
ness stand.
LANSING'S STATEMENT.
Possibly l had better start" said
Secretary Lansing "by stating that 1
assume that confidential communica-
tions between the president and myself
are not part of the inquiry. 1 can give
you physical history of the note. The
draft of the note was received by me
from the White House at o'clock Mon
day afternoon. l called Mr. Polk, coun-
sellor for the department, and Mr.. Wool
sey, law adviser, attached to my office,
and discussed the three forms in which
the note had to be prepared and sent
forth. l then handed it to Mr.. Woolsey,
enjoining the strictest secrecy that he
might take it to the three confidential
stenographers. There it was to be pre-
pared and delivered to Mr.. Salmon, chief
of the index bureau.
THE index clerk was to encipher the
note and said that il would take so long
to cipher the three notes that he would
have to have an assistant. l directed
that he engage his most confidential man
for the work. He did so, was given the
copies and the two men locked them
selves in the room. They were given
! the copies at O'Clock and at 2:30 Tues
day morning, December 10, the notes
were enciphered, delivered to tire tele-
graph room and sent.
ION Tuesday afternoon 1 discussed
with the president the time when the
| note should be made public The rea-
son for secrecy was the courtesy due to
| the nations who were to receive the note
that it should not be published here
| before they received it. We decided it
| would take at least two days for it
| to reach Austria and Rumania, and we
| decided it should be made public Thurs
| day morning. Tuesday evening about s
| o'clock a copy of the note was handed
| to Mr.. James, chief of the information
bureau. He at once took it up with the
| printing office.
"At about IL o'clock L received the
newspaper correspondents and told them
| that would have an important commun-
ication for them at o'clock, to be re-
! leased the next morning. 1 told them in
| confidence as l was afraid it's contents
might come back from Europe in garbled
| form and did not wish to make it pub
| lie on that account. Further, l thought
it courteous not to make it public until
| it had been received by the countries to
| which it was addressed.
| Il told them il did not contain any
| proposal of peace nor offer of mediation.
"That evening at my house Ambas-
| sador Willard Ito SPAIN told me he had
| been advised of the contents of the note
| by the president and we discussed the
| advisability of him addressing Spain
on the subject. The next morning the
note was made public in the press"
| Mr. Lansing said he could not recall
| the name Of any man present at his
| conference with newspaper men. Neither
| did he know who handled the note at the
! government printing office.
when was the first intimatiOn you