Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1924-01-29
OPINIONS OF
OTHER EDITORS
SENATOR FALLS, CHICKENS
COME HOME TO ROOST

The melancholy picture of Al
bert B. Fall, "a sick man," ar
irving at Washington in the rain
of wintry midnight, his sloueh
hat pulled far down and his shout
ders stopped as if by weight of
the dark disclosures concerning
him, recalls another sombre
scene of some 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 con-
fined to bed, convalescing from
physical breakdown brought on by
the long strain of self-forgetting
labors in the cause of national
honor and world peace. For weeks
the rank and file of his country
man had welcomed each word OF
cheer from his bedside, admiring
his resolute battle for new
strength, all solicitous, all SYM
pathetic. But at the other end of
Pennsylvania avenue sat a Sena-
tor who had fought the Presi-
dents policies bitterly, and who
could not abide the thought of a
truce, not even in the shadow of
shis pathetic illness. BY all man
ner of innuendoes he waged pyg-
my war against the stricken giant.
What was the matter with Mr..
Wilson," when would he be
back at his desk?" WAS he men
tally as we'll as physically inn.
paired?" Was he receiving callers
or signing papers?" WAS the
government functioning?" So ran
the Senator's fusillade, till at
last he succeeded in having him
self designated as one of a COM
mittee to call upon the president
and as an eye witness acertain
his condition, Into the sick room
he went, pert and prying. He
found Mr. Wilson, as others on
the visiting committee attested,
worn by illness, bat bright Of
eye, cherry and gracious of word,
as nimble-witted as Of old-hn
astonishing if not disconcerting
revelation to him who had come
to see If the government was func
tioning.
That relentlessly curious Sen
ator was - o esis!-none
other than the Honorable AL
bert B. Fall, afterwards secre-
tary of the interior in the Hard
ing cabinet, from which public
sentiment forced his resignation.
and now summoned to explain to
an investigating committee of his
ertswhile colleagues his one
hundred thousand-dollar part in
the government oil lease scandal.
I'm sick man," said the for
n1er 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, toler-
ating no interference, Fall is
now a feeble, crushed old man.
His weary eyes showed duly
through his spectacles. He had
the look of one haunted, with lit
tie 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 as
ertaining how that part Of the
government for which he, as sec
rotary of the interior was re-
sponsible, functioned when pri-
vate interests were seeking to
gain control of invaluable public
oil fields.
His friend, Doheny, the Coli
fornia oil magnate, testifying
that he lent Secretary Fall one
hundred thousand dollars on the
latter's unsecured note, admits
that subsequently the Doheny in
terests obtained from the interior
department a lease on certain
naval reserve oil lands from