The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-05-09
ACCEPTED CHALLENGE

| Declaring that he had been challengec ! by John r. Lucey, president of the Hoover Club, to make good on charges
 that the Hoover campaign was backed by an immense slush fund.- Mr. Lissner said:
 l "I immediately acctped his challenge. | demonstrating with facts and figures l that the day after election at your head quarters was like pay day at an im- sense industrial plant, jammed all day by
 a horde of hired workers, clamoring for i their pay I showed that within one
 hour over 600 such had been paid in
 amounts ranging from s4 to s4250; that | toward evening there were still 123 per
 sons in line waiting for pay, and they | were still being paid off the next morn 1 ing; that this item involved in itself an
 expenditure of at least S20,0O0, while the Johnson organization had hired no paid
 workers at all for election day
 /! 'I challenged your organization to state
 exactly how many hire,t workers they ! had and the amounts of their pay roll. I stated that about another S20,O00 had been consumed by you in sending litera- | ture by mail with 2-cent stamp to every | one of the 100000 voters in Los Angeles county that you had several hundred
 men and women employed in headquar- ters for some time in various capacities
 with a pay roll running up into tens ot l agement to tell how many were so em- 1 ployed and how much was involved ! ! showed that they paid about s2,500 for 1 advertising in one newspaper in Los An geles alone, in which the Johnson or ganization expended s16S.
 GREAT EXTRAVAGANCE I 'I challenged them to tell how many lautomobiles they hired at $25 per day on election day and finally generally 1 ac- cepted their challenge to submit the rec ords of the Johnson campaign in Los
 Angeles county along with theirs to a
 public audit and asserted that if they ! had the courage of their bluff the record | would show on your behalf in Los An geles county the worst saturnalia of po- 1 ltical extravaganza that was ever eX- posed or conducted in southern Califor- | nit. In the same statement | gave in l full the receipts and expenditures of the Johnson organization up to the day of the election. l asserted and challenged your people to deny that their expenditures ln
 Los Angeles county amounted to many times our own.
 l Tt may interest you to know that
 neither your MT. Lucey nor anyone else
 connected with your Los Angeles organi-
 zation has peeped about campaign ex- penses since my challenge was published. 1 I trust this statement is sufficiently con- vincing, so that you will not again be
 led into the error of asserting that you
 had either an amateur organization or an | inexpensive one in this state.''
 HOOVER'S REJOINDER l New York, May S.-Herbert Hoover to- night issued the following statement in response to Senator Johnsons statement today, answering his query in regard to | the senator's stand on the League of Na- | tions covenant.
 Senator Johnson has not answered my questions. Instead he has emitted a
 smoke screen of personal abuse and quo tations which he attributed to me, As a matter of fact, those questions have come from someone else. I have never made or approved any of them. Perhaps the senator will correct this misimpression.
 The senator apparently does not wish to say yes or no as to whether the Eng fish League as he calls it. is the cove nant with the Lodge reservations. Does the senator wish to leave an imputation
 on the patriotism of the majority Of the republican senators or myself?
 "The league is not, however. matter of trivial personalities. It is an issue
 upon which there hangs the moral and
 economic well being of the whole world, from which the United States, even if we
 would, cannot be separated.
 "The senator asks the American peo- pie to make nm preSluent. lie SldteS
 that he has consistently opposed the pact as presented with the reservations | attached that he would welcome any real attempt to promote peace,' and that | he has never opposed a league to pre- vent war and reduce armament Win | the senator change his expression from T have never opposed a league to T will
 support league for this purpose and will he state what the construction of | that league is to be. and where it will differ from the league with the reserva-
 tions as agreed to by the majority of the | Senate?
 "The presidency is an office of con structive leadership. The affairs of the nation cannot be conducted by destruc- | tive criticism without alternative pro- | posals. The voters have right to know what the senator's constructive alterna- I tives are before pledging their votes.
 ''The world is drifting further and fur | ther into increasing antagonisms, in- creasing armament. We are faced with crushing taxation for increased military | establishment. Our economic relations ! with the world are becoming more and more demoralized because of the delay | in settlement of these questions. This de-
 H. oralization is already manfesting itself | in the prices of raw materials from our farms and will soon manifest itself in the employment of our workers.
 I "Is the senator prepared to give us a constructive solution of those prcblemsT l If so, what?"