Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 259, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 October 1916 — Secretary Baker Refuses to Disclose Reason For Charges. [ARTICLE]

Secretary Baker Refuses to Disclose Reason For Charges.

Washington, Oct. 27.— Secretary Baker left for Wilmington, Ohio, tonight to continue his campaign speaking without revealing either the sources or the exact nature of the information which impelled the war department yesterday to issue a statement saying it had knowledge ‘that an attack on the border or on American troops in Mexico wfc* being planned by enemies of the administration’s policy toward Mexico. was learned, however, that the suspicion was aroused here some days ago reports of an alleged raid cosnpiracy appearing in certain American newspapers were transmitted to the border for investigation. Agents of the treasury are supposed to have made the inquiry, although there are intimations that General Funston was advised as a matter of information. Reports reaching Washington yesterday less than an hour, before Mr. Baker left for West Virginia to'deliver a campaign address led the war secretary to confer with Secretary Lansing at the state department and issufe the statement. * Suggestions that the statement was so worded as to virtually charge American political opponents of the administration of conspiring with the bandits caused both Secretary Bqker and Secretary Lansing today to re-, iterate the latter’s statement of last night that there was no intention to do such a thing. - Both said it was impossible to conceive that any American could be Involved in such an enterprise and that Mexicans now in the United States were responsible for the plot, wishing to embroil the United States and Mexico to the end that the defacto government might be overthrown.