Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 November 1907 — SOLD SECRET OF COURTS. [ARTICLE]

SOLD SECRET OF COURTS.

Discovery that Papers Were Stolea Opens Dp Far-Reaching; Plot. Secret service operatives are working in Chicago to determine to what extent government secrets in recent cases of national Importance have been sold by Miss Etta McLean end Alexander B. Gordee,-who were held in $5,000 bonds to the grand jury ou charges of conspiracy and the theft of papers in the John R. Walsh case. Discovery of papers relating to the Standard Oil trial in the room of Miss McLean has led to the suspicion that she and her confederate may have disclosed government plans not only in the Walsh case, but in the cases against the Standard Oil, the Chicago and Alton railway, and the school book combine. Miss McLean’s position as stenographer in District Attorney Sims’ office, which she held since April, gave her ample opportunity’to obtain copies of the most valuable papers in all these cases. The fact that Gordee, her sweetheart, was able to live in idleness, dining at expensive restaurants, for the past six has made It* apparent he had some secret source of income. While the government officials feel confident they have unearthed a farreaching conspiracy, they have yet to learn its magnitude or to what extent its operations have injured government prosecutions. In the prosecution of the Standard Oil, the Alton, and the book combine It was apparent at every turn that the defendants knew in advance the government’s moves, no matter how secretly planned. The arrest of the couple, it is believed, has solved this enigma.