Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-06-14
INVESTIGATING DAUGH-
ERTY.

ERTY.
THE proposed investigation OF
1 the connection of Attorney Gen
tral Daugherty with the pardon OF
Promoter Morse during the Taft ad-
ministration and with boodling op-
erations in the pre-convention cam
paign in the last national repub-
iican nominating campaign, and
other charges of like nature, has
been nipped in the bud, so to speak.
President Harding has expressed
his disapproval of it, and the COM
mittee to whom the matter was
referred after first voting to hold
the investigation reversed them
selves, and voted to do nothing
about it.
Please take note that the demand
for this investigation did not come
from the democrats. Two repub-
iican members Of the lower house
made the charges against the de-
partment of justice head and de-
manded the investigation. No dem
ocrat has ever objected to any in
vestigation of charges made by
republicans against their own Of
Ulcers. Naturally they do not OBJ
ject to this investigation of charges
made by republican congressman
against a republican cabinet Of
ficer.
Candidly we do not think much
of these political Investigations,
anyway. They cost a lot of money
and they seldom get anywhere. AS
soon as the republicans got control
of congress they started out a
whole flock of these Investigations,
more than three score of them, as
we remember. Amy sensational
statement made by a sensational
newspaper, or a rascal caught in his
~rascality, was sufficient excuse for
the appointment of an investigat-
ing committee to rush around the
country, examining witnesses and
spending money. They even ap-
pointed a general smelling commit
tee to search out new reuse for
more investigating committees.
Not in n instance among the
whole 60 did they find what they
sought, and that was evidence of
wrong-doing on the part of Presi-
dent Wilson or his cabinet officers
which they could use as election
thunder. No one has ever been
able to find out just what these
congressional Investigations cost
the taxpayer but it must have run
up into the millions. Their first
move was generally to hire an at
torney, a corps Of secretaries and
stenographers, call for witnesses to
come long distances at the expense
of the treasury, and tell nothing of
any Importance. In most cases the
committee never made a report at
all as far as the public knows. They
spent the taxpayers money freely
and then let the public forget about
it.
Probably the Daugherty investi-
cation would not do much good,
anyway. We are not sorry that it
is s~idetracked, but we cannot help
calling attention to the fact that
the men who baked at this investi-
cation are the same gentlemen who
were urgent in investigating every
idle rumor they heard from any
source against the former demo-
cratic administration.
Chairman Campbell of the rules
committee, who changed his vote
ana SO prevented this investigation,
is a republican member from KAN
sas, and he explained his reversal
of his vote by saying that he be-
lieved that the democrats of the
house i~nstigated the two republican
members to make these charges.
To this charge Democratic Floor
Leader Garrett of Tennessee makes
this frank and dignified reply:
Here is the democratic position
about this matter: The democrats
have not cared to initiate a con-
gressional investigation to embar-
rass the administration in any way,
but they have been and are now will
ing to acouiesce in an investigation,
and the democratic administration
never at any time resisted an in
vestigation.
81 want it to go down into the
Record that never at any time dur
ing the democratic administration