The Bozeman courier. (Bozeman, Mont.) 1919-1954, 1924-03-26

Without doubt the most disgusting show of extreme Demo-
cratic partBanship that has so far reared its cobra head in this
community was the recent yelled editorial attack on President
Calvin Coolidge, in which a weak and self-contradictory attempt
was made to draw the forver vice president into the Tea Pot Dome
oil scandal.
While no sensible person for one moment entertain even the
suggestion that the public acts of the high executive of this nation
are at all sacrOsanct or immune from exposures of acts of NAL
feasance, even the yelled suggestion, arrived at by hint and in.
nuendo and applied in the spirit of "the faint praise that damns,"
cannot put react strongly against the perpetrator, and serve as a
boomerang which, failing to reach the object of the attack, re-
bounds and strikes and stains the mud-thrOwer with his own faith.
Intelligent people know that Calvin Coolidge was no more re-
sponsible for the personal appointments made by the late President
Harding, than the officers of a bank could be morally held re-
sponsible for the personal acts of an absconding cashier. The
recent effort to besmirch the reputation of President Coolidge is,
therefore, not only one of the weakest, most pueriIe and dastardly
acts of character assassination so far attempted in a presidential.
election year, but, regardless of the fact that it came dangerously
near the brink of malicious libel, will be branded by all intelligent
and clear-thnking voters as an un-American piece of Democratic
paruSanshlp that Will not be forgotten at the polls this year.
The only reason or excuse for the recent depraved and men
daciOus attack on the president was the reading into the record
of the public hearings of the oil investigation of two kilograms
signed in the name of President Coolidge and addressed to E. B.
Mclean in Florida.
There was nothing in the text of the kilograms to give the
slightest warrant for any suspicion that they had anything at all
to do with the oil leases. Immediately upon the messages being
read into the record of the hearings, the White House issued state
ments showing their utter irrelevance to the work of the COM
mittee.
Had the committee been in the habit of making public all
kilograms, correspondence and documents which came into its
RODNCNOt 'NSNCNN NJ ASAhiAAANAS dhDhoGO a. " LuCI IClCN-
ancy or significance, then there might have been some justhica-
ton for dragging in the two messages from the White House. But
the public has been Informed on no less authority than the COM
mittee itself that this has not been it's practice.
1t has been stated by the chairman of the committee and by
Senator Walsh that data coming into its hands is carefully sorted
in order that matter which has no connection or bearing upon the
OF. leases or the manner of their making may not clutter up the
records. True, these statements have not been borne out in many
cases where witnesses have been called and examind without any
Othr apparent 'asOn than to give SANDER, scandal and gossip the
dignity of being embodied in an official transcript.
But the advertised practice of the committee to scrutnize
documents in its possession for the purpose of keeping out of the
record irrelevant matter has been scrupulOusy followed where
ever members of the committed were implicated. There has been
very tender solcltude upon ne part OF the committee for the repu-
tatiOn and the feeling of Senator Walsh. Every effort has been
made to keep out of the record any letters or kilograms which
might create even the slightest impression IL he is not so disin-
terested and so free from partisanship in this whole matter as he
has insisted.
Only two days before the Coolidge messages were read into
the record, the committee and Senator Walsh became greatly per-
newspaper reporters that the committee was in possession of tee-
grams passing between Senator Walsh and Mr.. Doheny so recently
as the latter part of last December, which the committee had care
fully suppressed.
The committee then tx great pains to let Senator Walsh, in
opening the session, explain away these kilograms. In his ex
PLANTATION ne clearly exhibited his p~eevishness that the kilograms
had been sent to the committee by the telegraph company and as
serted his great Indignation in the following language:
"This telegram Dohenys telegram to him) as will be noted is
from Los Angeles. The committee asked for no kilograms from
Los Angeles at all. 1t asked for kilograms in and out of Palm
Beach and New Orleans. Somebody busted himself by going out
side of the request of the committee to lug in this telegram from
Los Angeles"
Chairman Lanroot of the committee mac ne following state
ment:
etelegram) had no relevancy whatever to the subject under con