Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1924-01-29
Senator Fails Chickens Come
Home to Roost

uelS stoopeu dS Al ny weight OF the udrk QlS-
closures concerning him, recalls another
sombre scene OF some four years ago, In
which another sick man played the major
part
1t was at the White House that this other
episode befell, and the central figure was the
President Of the United States. For weeks
woodrow Wilson had been confined to bed,
convalescing from physical breakdown
brought On by the long strain Of self-forget-
and world peace. For weeks the rank and
file Of his coinutrymen had welcomed each
word of cheer from his bedside admiring his
resolute battle for new strength, all solicit
GUS, all sympathetic. But at the other end
of Pennsylvania avenue sat a Senator who
had fought the Presidents policies bitterly,
truce, not even in the shadow of this pa
thetic illness. BY all manner of innuendoes
he waged pygmy war against the stricken
giant. What was the matter with Mr.. Will
SOM" when would he be back at his
desk?' WAS he mentally, as well as phys
ically, impaired?'' WAS he receiving callers,
or signing papers?" WAS the government
functioning?" So the Senator's fusil-
lade, till at last he succeeded in having him
self designated as one of a committee to
call upon the President and as an eye witness
ascertain his condition. Into the sick room
he went, pert and prying. He found Mr..
Wilson, as others on the visiting commit
tee attested worn by illness, but bright of
eye, CHEEKY and gracious of word, as nimble-
witted as of od--an astonishing If not dis
concerting revelation to him who had come
to see If the government was functioning.
That relentlessy curious Senator was-O
Albert B. Fall, afterwards secretary of the
interior in the Harding cabinet, from which
public sentiment forced his res gnation and
now summoned to explain to an investigat-
ing committee Of his erstwhile colleagues his
one hundred thousand-dollar part in the
government oil lease scandal.
I'm sick man." said the former Senator
to the newspaper reporters who accosted him
upon his arrival at Washington in the
shrouding chill of midnight rain, and by one
of whom he is pictured in this wise: "Once
a fire-eater a determined figure who pushed
through to his detectives, tolerating in
reference, Fall is now a feeble. crushed old
man. His weary eyes showed duly through
his spectacles. He had the look of one
haunted, with little fight left in him" A
sick man, indeed, whose malady, we fear,
lies too far, too deep for physics aid. And
the Senate committee now insists upon
for which he, as secretary of the interior,
was responsible, functioned when private In
terests were seeking to gain control of inval-
liable public oil fields.
His friend, Doheny, the California oil mag
nate, testifying that he lent Secretary Fall
one hundred thousand dollars on the latter's
unsecured note, admits that subsequently the
Doheny interests obtained from the interior
department a lease on certain naval reserve
profit of one hundred million dollars. The
negotiations, it appears, were secret; and the
lands were those which three Presidents
Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson-had unswerv-
ingly refused to release, regarding them
all-important sources of fuel for the oil
burning vessels Of the navy 1t is not be-
lieved that the future stages of the investi-
CATION, which still has far to go. will tend
to improve Mr.. Falls condition.
Nor can the pity of having to probe thus
into sick mans record be gansaid Had
he been less ruthless in prosecuting his own
plans and in sating his own curiosity, the
present situation might be more siderable;
at least it would lack so sharp sting of
irony. But Mr.. Fall, poor man, must now
behold his chickens coming home to roost q
cheerless, ill-omened flock. Some are even
so nconsiderate as to remind him that in his
testimony to the Senate committee a month
ago he persstently denied having ever re-
ceived so much as a pennys loan from the
Doheny interests
Truth to tell, the committees case appears
remarkably like that of which certain Euro
pean statesmen who were studying the pre-
dicament of Turkey in 1874 are reported to
have said, I'VE have on our hands sick
man, very sick man." Howbeit, the inyesti-
gation must proceed; and so inquisitive
ind Eol