Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 January 1917 — LEAK PROBE SITUATION IS MORE COMPLEX [ARTICLE]

LEAK PROBE SITUATION IS MORE COMPLEX

Lawson Defies Probers and Refuses to Tell What He Knows—Wood Scored For Charges. _ \ The house rules committee wrestled for several hours Monday with Thomas W. Lawson, of Boston, without obtaining any definite information to substantiate the stories of the “leak” to Wall iStreet in advance of the president’s peace note. Before the hearing was closed it was turned# into dn uproar. Before the meeting adjourned for the day, With Lawson’s examination uncompleted, a motion to cite him before the bar of the house for contempt had been considered in executive session and taken under advisement* * _ - Earlier in the day Joseph P. Tumulty, secretary to President Wilson, whose name was mentioned by Representative Wood in the rumors he, laid before the committee last week, appeared to give an emphatic statement, endorsed by Hie president, that he had no knowledge of the peace note before it had been given to the press. He also denied the report repeated by Representative Wood, that Mr. Tumulty and Bernard Baruch had conferred in a New York hotel a few days before the note was made public. Mr. Tumulty denounced the acHon of Representative. Wood n making public charges based on a letter from an unidentified man, and declared from thd Witness stand, looking Representative Wood in the eye, that he was still awaiting the congressman's apology. ‘ Secretary Lansing of the state department, also took the stand to assert that he had no knowledge whatever of advance information having been circulated regarding the peace note.