Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 64, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 January 1909 — HOT SHOT FOR THE PRESIDENT [ARTICLE]

HOT SHOT FOR THE PRESIDENT

Senator Tillman Answers Charges Against Him. CALLS ROOSEVELT UNFAIR South Carolina Statesman Declare* He Did Nothing Wrong in the Land Deal —He Accuses the President of Pereenal Malice, Misrepresentation and Contempt of the Senate. Washington, Jan. 12. —After being greeted by applause from the crowded galleries when he entered the senate chamber to reply to President Roosevelt’s strictures in respect to Ms connection with Oregon timber land transactions, Senator Tillman of South Carolina proceeded to read his prepared remarks with little attempt at oratorical effect. “It has been expected and desired,” he said, “that having made my own defense, I should turn my batteries or my assailant. I do not feel that my strength is sufficient for the double task for my physicians have warned me against overtaxing myself. One of the truest and best sentiments in Eng- - lish literature is that from Tennyson: “ ‘Soiling anothor will never made one’s self clean.’ “The president lives in a glass house with even a glass floor in it and should remember the old adage. He has exerted all the power of the government to destroy me, but I feel that I stand unscathed because, if all other arguments fail to convince, the character for rectitude, truthfulness and honesty which I have builded in the sixty-one years of my life would at last be my bulwark. Men who have always been clean Aid honorable do not suddenly liars and hypocrites at sixty|phe without any necessity. 1 "Later on in this session It Is my (mrpose to devote some time to bring»fnfe Theodore Roosevelt face to face with his true self and let people of the United States see what character of man they have been so bowed down to. For the present I content myself with

applying to him this quotation from Spencer’s Fairy Queen: "Rends and Tears.’’ “ ‘He ranges throughout the whole world, neither is there any that can restrain him. Of late he has grown especially presumptious and pestilent,barking at and biting all alike Whether they be blameworthy or innocent. None are free from his attacks. He sparee neither the learned wit nor the gentle poet, but rends and tears without regard of person, reason or time.’ ” When Mr. Tillman concluded his remarks there was no further outbreak of applause, the vice president having admonished the occupants of the galleries against making such demonstrations. Not long after he bad concluded -is speech Senator Tillman received a cablegram from a London newspaper asking him to express In fifty words hie opinion of the president. The senator declined to comply. Mr. Tillman accused the president of personal malice, misrepresentation, falsification, contempt of the and violation of the law in the use of the secret service. Incidentally, he gave official utterance to the charge he made informally Saturday that important papers bearing on the case had been stolen trom his desk in his room at the capitofc “probably by some of the secret service sleuths.”

Darts Quiver In Executive Hid*. Mr. Tillman said In part: “In my public work here I have not hesitated to criticise and comment on the official actions and utterance of President Roosevelt and I have doubtless given him good cause to seek revenge. “I was not aware that these darts of mine had quivered in the executive hide and stung him so, but the eagerness and intensity with which he tiny presented his case against me, his making a precedent, when none has existed before, his taking from the con* mittee to which he has forwarded them the papers and giving them to tb» press before that committee had considered them. Indicate that Theodore Roosevelt enjoys to the limit the feeling of getting even with Ben Tillman and lays on the ‘big stick’ with the keenest relish, doubtless believing that the ‘pitchfork’ has gone out of business.” Mr. Tillman said that in giving publication to the charges before being considered by the committee of the senate to which they were referred the president treated the senate with "that contempttlphich has bsen his wont.” He demared that jtae president was an adept ht advertising and had used the press with more skill than any man In American politics. Mads Ananias Club Member. "An examination of the president’s letter to Mr. Hale which might juat ns well have been a special message of the type with which we are so familiar,” said Mr. Tillman. “wiU shorn that the president’s charges boiled down amount to tVo in number. ■/• “First, he promotes roe to membership in the Ananias club and charges In effoct that I have deliberately lied to the senate. “Second, he charges that I have exerted my official influence and work as a senator for my persofisl benefit alone ter secure the passage of a resolution to bring suit against the corporation I which holds so much of the publie 1 domain and will not sell it”