Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

ouster •certain papers and books of the oil company, announcing that if they were not so produced the state would offer secondary evidence. Some of the books called for were records of vouchers purporting to show that H. C. Pierce had drawn from the treas ury of the Waters-Pierce Oil Company sums of money which he represented he had paid to J. W. Bailey. The first of these alleged vouchers purported to show that Pierce had received from the oil company $3,300 to reimburse him for a loan of that amount claimed to have been made by Pierce to J. W. Bailey on April 25, 1900. This was the very day of Bailey's first meeting with Pierce. Vouchers for other simi lar loans at later dates were called for. Mr. Bailey sent out a statement from Washington denying that he had ever received a cent from the Waters- Pierce Company, and declaring that if any one claimed to have vouchers of that company signed by him he would prosecute him for forgery. • ♦ • Attorney General Davidson replied In an open letter, asking Senator Bai ley if he had received these amounts from H. C. Pierce. Senator Bailey came back to Texas and issued a signed statement, admit ting that he had received the alleged loans, but declared that he had receiv ed them from Pierce personally, and not from the oil company. In this letter he for the first time disclosed that he had not fully and fairly report ed the first meeting between himself and Pierce. He went over that story as he did upon the witness stand six years ago, and so many, many times since then, telling how he (believing that the Waters-Pierce Oil Company was an independent and legitimate cor poration) had offered to speak to the Attorney General of Texas in its be half; how Pierce offered him a fee; how he declined; how Pierce had ask ed him if he were not a lawyer, and how he had answered, “Yes, but I am one of those lawyers who practice law, not influence.” That was the absolute limit that Senator Bailey had gone before. But in this letter he ac knowledged that after he had told Pierce that he “Practiced law, not influence,” he added that he had in tended to go to Kentucky to SELL some horses to raise money that he urgently needed, but he feared on ac count of the necessity of returning to Texas on a political mission, which he had already mentioned, he would not have time to sell the horses, and if Pierce would loan him $3,300, tak ing his note with Interest, he would consider it a favor, and that Pierce loaned him the money. Now, Senator Bailey is not meeting the issue here presented. He is not relating these matters in sequence. The published accounts of the speeches show that he is relating the story of his connection with the readmission of the Waters-Pierce Company just as he did six years ago, and asserting that he ought not to be blamed because at that time he believed the company to be legitimate. Afterward, in a wholly different connection, he says that he borrowed money from Pierce, but fails to mention that this first loan was obtained upon his first meeting with Pierce, nor does he tell any of the cir cumstances. Instead, he makes it ap pear that his critics are asserting that a United States senator has no right to borrow money at all, and he asks: “In God’s name, is it a crime to borrow money? If so, it would be Impossible to get a quorum of the senate.” Then, still carefully avoiding mention of the date of the $3,300 loan, he asserts that he did not conceal the fact that he had borrowed money from Pierce, be cause he had told the people in many speeches during his recent fall cam paign he had had many transaction# with and for Pierce. He does not ac count for the fact that he failed to say even that much when he testi fied under oath before the legislative committee. Mr. Bailey well knows that no one has asserted that a United States sen ator has no right to borrow money. It is to the character of the banker (?) and the circumstances surround ing the loans that objection is made. Mr. Bailey’s own testimony shows that, when he met Pierce for the first time on April 25, 1900, he, with the rest of the people of Texas, believed that the Waters-Pierce Oil Company was a Standard Oil concern. But upon the strength of a law report which Pierce showed him, and upon Pierce’s representations, he agreed to inter cede with the Attorney General of Texas. According to his testimony and his many speeches, however, there was a saving clause. He told Pierce that if the matter stood as he had stated it there should be no trouble in getting the case compromised. Nev ertheless, his own testimony further shows that when he spoke to the At torney General he found the case quite different from what Pierce had repre sented it to be, so much so that he concurred in the opinion of Attorney General Smith that a compromise was out of the question. • • • But in the meantime, as we know from Senator Bailey’s admissions, forced out of him by Attorney General Daviding, he had, with only that ex parte hearing in St. Louis, dropped the Texas belief that the Waters- Pierce Oil Company was connected with the Standard Oil, and, without waiting to hear what the Attorney General of Texas thought as concern ed that company’s claim to legitima cy, had borrowed $3,300 from the pres ident of that outlawed company, said president himself then being under in dictment in Texas! The News believes, in the first place, that Senator Bailey, as a public serv ant of Texas, had no right to butt into a matter which was in the hands of men chosen by the people of Texas to look after It. If, as he told Mr. Pierce, the Texas authorities were fair and honorable men, what occasion was there for him to Interfere? The com pany had its attorneys. It believes, in the second place, that he could not, in good conscience, as an influential public servant, accept a loan from a fugitive from the justice of Texas, from a man whom he believed when he entered his presence was a trust master, but whom he acquitted of that suspicion to the point that he, a high public servant, would accept such fa vors of him before he left that room and without hearing one word from the side of his constituency. Accord ing to his own statement he entered ..the room knowing very little about the case against the company, but with an opinion unfavorable to it; he left the room with a favorable opinion, his promise given to help the company, and with $3,300 of Pierce’s money in his pockets. The News considers that Senator Bailey’s belief tn the legiti macy of a corporation which had been raiding his state for years was too eas ily acquired to justify his acceptance of the loan or his subsequent action. He might not have known that the Wa ters-Pierce OU Company was a tenta cle of the Standard Oil, but he thought so when he entered the room, and he knew when he went out that the com pany was an outlaw and its president under indictment in Texas. He failed in his duty to shun the appearance of evil. Senator Bailey suggests that If he had concealed the fact of these pay ments from Pierce to him it would simply be a question of veracity. Not so. The fact of concealment may be Indicative ot tb* motive ot the »ot It- THE WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN. self. Senator Bailey has never shown any good reason why he should have concealed the fact that he borrowed money from Pierce. If he regarded this borrowing as an innocent and legiti mate transaction, it is past believing that he could have told the story of his first meeting with Pierce scores and scores of times, verbatim et literatim, never once breaking over the line, never even hinting that in that same meeting he declined a fee, but accept ed a loan. When in his speeches last fall he attempted to account for the week’s lost time that Mr. Thomas asked about, his words skimmed the very top of the rest of the story, and yet he did not tell it. In these speech es he said that if he did not return to Texas “it must have been because I went to Kentucky to SEE those horses that you’ve heard so much about.” Nearly two months later, when an swering the Attorney General’s ques tion about the $3,300 loan, he disclos es the fact that in that first meeting with Pierce he declined a fee, but told Pierce that had intended to go to Kentucky to SELL some horses to raise money, but feared he would not have time to do so, and would consider a loan a favor. Why, when mentioning horses in his speech and In connection with that first interview with Pierce, did he say “SEE” instead of “SELL”? Why, when he got so near the reason for borrowing the money, as he now re lates it, did he fail to mention the loan? Why did he fail to mention it, unless with formed design to conceal that most Important fact? It Is not contended by anybody that Senator Bailey had no right to borrow money. It is contended that he bor rowed it in the wrong place and un der wrong conditions; that this initial loan was but the starter of a long string of such suspicious transactions, and that, by reason ot pursuits and associations, his views have become perverted. Senator Bailey points to his record In congress. Suppose it were conced ed that it is above reproach—what then of the duties of congressmen which are not of record? But suppose it were conceded that all of these were performed with perfection? What would all this amount to if within his own state he had used his high posi tion and its great influence to nullify a victory gained by this state, to fas ten upon his own constituents a mer ciless trust, which, notwithstanding the fact that Texas now produces great quantities of oil, extorts unconsciona ble prices from the people? What would all this amount to when he of fers an outraged people no word of apology, when he expresses no regret, when he makes no promise to amend? This is the mildest presentation of his case. It has none of his wild threats to destroy his accusers, none of the incriminating documents which prove his guilt, not even all of his confession, not a word of his desper ate damnation of the alleged unfaith ful employe who is said to have “stol en” from the files and presented to the Attorney General the evidences of incriminating wrongs which he had never mentioned and which had been so long and so cautiously concealed. How even the best of Senator Bai ley’s friends can possibly excuse him on this most generous presentation of the case, The News, with all due respect, is wholly unable to conceive. —Dallas (Texas) News. The dockyard employes at Toulon have decided that if the French Cham ber can afford to raise the pay of its members the country can afford to pay its workers more. Hence a dele gation to the Minister of Marine and a big strike impending. WE WILL KEEP UP THE PACE. P. O. Dept. 13, R. M. S. January 11, 1907. Mr. Thos. E. Watson. Dear Sir: I have just finished a review of No. 1, Vol. 1, of the Monthly Jeffersonian. Personally, I’m glad Col. Mann “skunt” you a plenty since it forced you to strike out on your own hook, might have had to drag that heavy load for a long while to come. If you can keep up the pace (I be lieve you can) already shown your success is assured. The new maga zine Is better than the old in every* way that I can judge. The paper, type, get-up, illustrations, the me chanical part, I mean, compares fa vorably with the best in magazine dom. I note you carry much adver tising for a new-comer. 1 ‘The Times,” of New York, in its initial number, did not half so well. So I take it that business men believe in you as does the average man who has read the original Watson’s. Anyhow I mean to try you for a year, and hope you will not need to repeat the Spartan act with a “Mann” instead of a “Fox” trying to gnaw out your vitals. My name will come via an agency operated by a personal friend. lon will note my “stationery.” Hope your voice and pen will continue in the crusade for better protection for the man in the mail car behind (right close behind) the engine. Yours for success, H. M. Messenger ' 55 Orchard Grove Ave., Lake wood, Ohio. I RIGHT SORT OF DEMOCRAT. Mobley, Ark., Jan. 4, 1907. Hon. Thos. E. Watson, Thomson, Ga. My dear Sir: I have just received the first issue of your new magazine and think it better than the old one. lam only a boy—a poor boy strug gling against adversity and poverty. Politics is a study and a passion with me, and no other magazine appeals to me like Watson’s. It may hurt your feelings to tell you I am a Democrat, but I have nev er caught you preaching anything but democratic doctrine. I would like to know what your opinion is of the greatest man in my state—Jeff Davis. Have you ever read a copy of our Anti-Trust law? I would like to have you say something of that law, either through the Magazine or pri vately. I read every issue of the magazine Mann and De France stole from you. Your fiery eloquence and sound logic made me a believer in you, as I have always believed, in that estimable gentleman, W. J. Bryan. I read your Life and Times of Jef ferson and will read your Jackson book with interest. I want your oth er book Bethany, but am too poor to buy it now. Yours truly, J. 0. Wasson. Editor’s Note.—You shall have the book. Will have the Publishers send it to you with my compliments. You didn’t hurt my feelings by saying you are a Democrat for I see that you are the right sort—Jeflfer tonUn—ju»t u I un, T, E, VT. 7