Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 246, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 October 1912 — RELATIONS OF HARRIMAN AND ROOSEVELT. [ARTICLE]

RELATIONS OF HARRIMAN AND ROOSEVELT.

Little new concerning the Roose-velt-Harriman relatione is disclosed by the private Correspondence that Tegethoff, Harriman’s secretary, laid before the Clapp committee. The two men were friendly, but from the beginning one can detect in the letters that each was careful of what he said and that there was no genuine intimacy or confidence. Finally, Harriman asked Roosevelt not to recommend any extension of the powers of. the Interstate Commerce Commission, and Roosevelt promptly replied that his mind was made up so to recommend. After this there is merely politeness in the corresondence. One can imagine that Harriman was irritated because his apdvice had been rejected and that perhaps Roosevelt had heard ■that Harriman was circulating the story that he had been double-crossed —that at Roosevelt’s instance he had raised $250,000 for him and then had been treated as other men. Harriman was a masterful man accustomed to give orders. It inflamed him to discover in Roosevelt a will as inflexible as his own, and in a way easy to understand Harriman was able to convince himself that he had been misused.

No new light is thrown on the campaign contribution of 1904 that Odell has admitted was turned over to him. There is nothing in a documentary way corroborative of Harriman’s contention that he raised the money at the request of Roosevelt. There is nothing in a documentary way contradictory of Roosevelt’s contention that he asked Harriman to raise no money and that the money he did raise was on his own initiative to help out his friend, Odell, who, as chairman of the state committee, had created more obligations than he had funds to meet. That the money, or practically all of it, reached Odell does not seem open to doubt, and thus the Roosevelt contention, on the main point, is supported. On the other hand, it is clear that Harriman, at the time he was passing the hat, represented that he was doing so at the request of Roosevelt. It is a way that Harriman would naturally put the case to those he approached.; Ts he had said that he was raising the money for Odell, whose relations to Harriman were well understood, an embarassing question might have been put to him. One can imagine Twombly saying to him: “Harriman, if this money is for Odell why don’t you pay it all yourself? Odell is trying to beat our man Depew for the Senate and to install in his place Black, who may turn out to be your man. Why should we pay to have the swap?” There was a definite reason why. Harriman wished the New York Central crowd to think that the money he was asking was for the national committee. There is nothing to indicate

that he hinted to any one that the money, after being nominally paid to Bliss, was to be hurried into the hands of Odell, although it is evident from Harriman’s own words that he knew this when ringing various men up on the telephone. It is not strange, when a row was made over the matter and it became known that the money went to Odell, that Harriman felt compelled to stick to the part of the story concerning Roosevelt’s request The only way he could justify himself was to say in effect: “I may have worked you, but I was worked myself. I’ll give orders to Odell to pull Frank Black out of the senatorial race as an evidence of' my good faith.” , For several years an effort has been made to smirch Roosevelt by playing up the alleged Harriman scandal, but so far nothing has been brought out that shows that Roosevelt had any corrupt dealings with Harriman or that the Roosevelt narrative in any material way is inaccurate.—New York Globe.