Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 January 1909 — Libel Investigation Instigated by Roosevelt. [ARTICLE]

Libel Investigation Instigated by Roosevelt.

The charge of libel preferred by President Roosevelt against Joseph Pulitzer, editor of the New York World, and Delavan Smith, editor of the Indianapolis News, will be investigated by a federal grand jury in Washington, D. C. These papers in the last campaign accused Charles P. Taft, brother of the president elect, Douglas Robinson, brother-in-law of the president elect, and William Nelson Cromwell with having appropriated many millions of dollars for their own benefit that were supposed to have been paid the French company for its rights and property In connection with the Panama canal. The statements were utterly false and were published with the intention of injuring the success of the Republican party at the last election and to do personal injury to the persons libeled. If the editors are convicted they will be liable to a fine of not more than SI,OOO or imprisonment for not more than five years or both. This case will be a lesson to unscrupulous newspaper men who make it a business to slander anyone who may be opposed to them.