RELEASE DATE, APRIL 24, 1912.
Tins article is free for newspaper use on and after April 24tli, 1912.
A REVIEW OF SOME INCIDENTS SHOWING HOW A JUDICIAL
MIND WORKS IN POLITICS
My dear Mr. Little:
I have sent Mr. Thompson a magazine article entitled "President Taft, Candidate
for Re-election." Mr. Thompson has asked me to write my views about its publication.
It is only fair to say that it has been refused by a large number of magazines on
the general ground that it reflects upon the integrity of the President.
fc^/'This article of yours," writes the editor of a prominent progressive monthly,
powerful summing-up of a very extraordinary episode. * * * I do not believe
^our article, strong and straightforward as it is, would at this moment be wisely
^BBFed to use in a magazine or periodical of high standing. * * *"
__Ariu-ither editor assures me that the article will arouse sympathy for Mr. Taft.
And still another fears that the article will be considered a retaliation on account
of the dismissal of my brother from the office of Forester.
As an attorney acting in an advisory capacity during the different phases of the
Alaska controversy, I feel myself qualified to write what is practically a brief founded
upon the established facts. My principal interest in these matters has been that of
a lawyer who is following a case in which he happens to have a deep personal inter¬
est, which he believes should be called to the attention of the public at this particular
time.
As far as authorship may be concerned, the story is mine, but the text has been
QWING to the economical mechanical form of production—or dress—of this
Magazine, PEARSON'S is enabled to depend, for its support, solely upon the
revenue obtained from its readers by the sale of copies*
Revenue from the publishing of high class advertisements is welcome—as a
by-product of profit—but it is not essential to the solvency of our company.
By the adoption of this unique policy, for a popular-priced Magazine of serious
purpose, even the temptation to become subservient in matters of editorial control
or influence is eliminated; and PEARSON'S MAGAZINE remains in fact, as well as
in theory, A FREE PRESS.
It is the purpose of this Magazine, in addition to offering to its readers whole¬
some entertainment, to disseminate the truth, in its fullest sense, in matters of
importance pertaining to the government, the health, and the welfare, peace and
comfort of the people of the United States.
< Copyright,, IQT2, by the Pearson Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
533
534
PEARSONS MAGAZINE
carefully passed upon by other persons competent to testify to its accuracy. More¬
over, every statement of fact in the article is a matter of record, and can be checked
up by anyone who cares to consult the documents in the case.
While I have every reason to believe that the publication of this article will call
down upon you the wrath of the administration, I do not know whether or not it is
likely that some subtle attack upon you through the agency of government machinery
will be its result. Judging from the stand which you have taken on public questions
in the past, I do not believe that such a risk will prevent you from publishing the
facts, if you think they ought to be published.
Sincerely yours,
Amos Pinchot.
The Review of the Incidents
THERE are incidents in the lives of
most public men which their friends
would like to forget. All men are
prone to error, and the perplexities of the
President of ninety million people are
greater than those of other men. It is
right, therefore, that we should recall his
shortcomings with especial kindliness and
forbearance. Nevertheless, the influence
of the President, both on the material wel¬
fare of the people and on their ideals of
public service and private integrity, is so
vast that both patriotism and common
sense clearly demand that we should make
an honest examination of the record and
character of every man who applies for the
presidential nomination, irrespective of
whether he has already held the position of
Chief Magistrate or not.
■A few weeks from to-day Republican
delegates will attend the National Con¬
vention and nominate a candidate for the
Presidency. As Mr. Taft is now a promi¬
nent applicant for the Republican nomina¬
tion, it is advisable that his record should
be fully discussed by every member of his
party.
The object of this article, however, is not
to make any general examination of Mr.
Taft's record, but merely to review one sin¬
gle and comparatively unfamiliar chain of
incidents in it—incidents which I believe
until to-day have never been placed before
the public in connected form.
In order to do so it will be necessary to
touch upon the so-called Ballinger case.
But neither the merits of the controversy
nor the Alaska situation will be dealt with.
Mr. Ballinger was never an issue, but
merely a symptom of unfortunate admin¬
istrative tendencies. The controversy is
dead, and this article does not seek to re¬
vive it. But the country is still in practical
ignorance of the President's part in the
short but vital administrative drama which
kept pace with the Ballinger investigation,
and which furnished the keynote of the
President's course during that trying epi¬
sode, and to no small degree since that time
as well.
Owing to the writer's connection with the
Alaska controversy he had an unusual op¬
portunity of observing the matters in
question at short range. They are now
presented to the public with a full sense
of responsibility, in the belief that they have
value in throwing light on the President's
character and in explaining other passages
in his executive career which have surprised
his friends and disappointed a large pro¬
portion of the public.
QUICK WORK
TT is now a matter of history thalM
summer and fall of 1909, less tfl
months after taking office, Mr. TaAt ioun<y
himself in a position of extremd^qjtftitical
embarrassment. On the iSth of August,
Louis R. Glavis, a division chief in the
United States Land Office, went to Beverly
and made a report to the President. The
report charged that the Secretary of the
Interior, and some of his subordinates, were
in league with a group of Western capital¬
ists, then supposed, and since proved, to
represent the Morgan-Guggenheim Syn¬
dicate, in an attempt to acquire a coal
monopoly in Alaska. Mr. Ballinger, who
was at this time in Seattle, at once returned
to Washington, where, after consultation
with Oscar Lawler, Assistant Attorney-
General, assigned to the Interior Depart¬
ment, he drew up his defense. This hap¬
pened during the last part of August, and
the first week of September, 1909.
On the evening of the 6th of September,
the Secretary of the Interior and Mr. Law¬
ler arrived at Mr. Taft's summer head¬
quarters in Beverly, and laid before the
PRESIDENT TAFT, CANDIDATE FOR RE-ELECTION 535
President a bundle of documents large
enough to fill an ordinary suitcase. The
bundle contained a copy of the Glavis
charges, copies of the files of the Interior
Department relative to the Cunningham
claims, and the written answers made by
Mr. Ballinger and his subordinates.
On September 7th (or less than twenty-
four hours after this immense and compli¬
cated record was laid before him) Mr. Taft
sent for Lawler, who was the subordinate,
counsel and warm personal friend of the
Secretary of the Interior, placed the case in
his hands, and, in Ballinger's presence, au¬
thorized Lawler to write an opinion (in the
form of a letter to Ballinger for the Presi¬
dent's signature) disposing of the matter.
Mr. Taft's account of this transaction, in
his subsequent open letter of explanation,
is as follows:
"Mr. Ballinger sent to my house on that day the
answers of the various persons concerned, together
with a voluminous record of exhibits. I had a con¬
ference with him the evening of the day he came,
September 6th, and then on the following evening,
September 7th. I talked over the charges with Mr.
Ballinger the first evening, and asked such questions
as suggested themselves, without intimating any
conclusions, and said that I would examine the an¬
swers and the record and would see him the next
day. I sat up until 3 o'clock that night reading
the answers and the exhibits; so that at my next
conference I was advised of the contents of the en¬
tire record and had made up my mind that there
was nothing in the charges upon which Mr. Ballin¬
ger or the others accused could be found guilty of
either incompetency, inefficiency, disloyalty to the
interests of the Government, or dishonesty.
In the discussions of the second evening, Mr.
Lawler, who was present at my suggestion, dis¬
cussed the evidence at some length. I said to Mr.
Lawler that I was very anxious to write a full state¬
ment of the case and set out the reasons for my
decision, but that the time for my departure on a
long Western trip, occupying two months, was just
one week from that day; that" I had some six or
seven set speeches to deliver at the beginning of
that journey, and that I could not give the time
to the preparation of such a detailed statement
and opinion as I would like to render in the matter.
I, therefore, requested Mr. Lawler to prepare an
opinion as if he were President."
Mr. Taft's statement that be became ad¬
vised of the entire contents of the record
between the time when Mr. Ballinger left
him on the night of the 6th of September
and 3 o'clock next morning can hardly be
taken seriously, especially as Mr. Ballin¬
ger testified before the investigating com¬
mittee that he and the President sat up
half the night talking over the case. The
Glavis charges dealt with an alleged con¬
spiracy covering more than two years, and
extending from Alaska into Oregon, Wash¬
ington, Idaho, and several other States,
and the documentary evidence in the case
was necessarily of enormous length and of
unusual complexity. Exclusive of a Geo¬
logical Survey report on the coal fields, the
Land Office files relative to water power
and all matters not essential to the Glavis
charges, the documents laid before the
President covered more than a thousand
typewritten pages, consisting largely of the
flimsy tissue paper copy sheets from the
files of the Land Office and Interior De¬
partment. The whole bundle contained
about double this amount of material. It
was not indexed or arranged in logical or
chronological order. Neither in the time
stated, nor in twice or three times the time
stated, would it have been possible for any
human being to have gained the slightest
idea of the contents of the enormous mass
of documents to which the President refers.
Mr. Louis D. Brandeis, counsel for
Glavis, informs me that it took him more
than ten days of exclusive application to
arrange and read the papers which Mr.
Taft says he mastered in a few hours.
This was Mr. Taft's first official connec¬
tion with the Alaska coal situation. It
must be admitted, even by his strongest de¬
fenders, that to commission Lawler to re¬
view and decide on the evidence against
Ballinger and the coal claimants was a mis¬
take, for it was the practical equivalent of
putting the decision in the hands of Bal¬
linger himself.* Nevertheless, however un¬
wise or unusual Mr. Taft's disposition of
the case may seem, the writer does not wish
to dwell on this portion of the President's
executive record, and mentions it merely as
one of the steps which led up to a situation
of a more serious nature.
A "WHITEWASH" LETTER
A T the conclusion of the conference with
the President, Messrs. Lawler and
Ballinger returned to Washington, where
Lawler, in accordance with Mr. Taft's in¬
structions, and under Ballinger's supervi¬
sion, at once drafted a letter for the Presi¬
dent's signature. This letter was addressed
to Ballinger. It was some thirty pages in
length. It contained an elaborate though
_* In addition to the circumstance that Lawler was Ballinger's
friend as well as his official subordinate who had been assigned
to the Interior Department at Ballinger's request, the verdict
of Lawler was the more sure to be in favor of Ballinger and
against Glavis in view of the fact (a fact of which we sincerely
trust the President was then in ignorance) that Glavis and Law¬
ler were old enemies owing to a dispute in a California land
fraud case, which had resulted in the former filing charges
against the latter.
536
PEARSONS MAGAZINE
utterly partisan analysis of the evidence in
the case, and terminated with a warm vin¬
dication of Ballinger and a recommendation
that Glavis should be removed from office.
In the preparation of the Lawler letter
the greatest secrecy was observed. The
stenographers to whom it was dictated were
given to understand that it was a confiden¬
tial matter, and preliminary and super¬
fluous drafts were burned in the presence of
Lawler.*
The movement now becomes more rapid.
Having drafted the letter "as if he were
President" Lawler took it to New York on
Saturday, September nth, where he gave
it, with a copy of the defense of the Interior
Department, to Attorney-General Wicker-
sham, who had been absent from Washing¬
ton, and who had had no opportunity to see
these documents, or the huge mass of
evidence in the case. Messrs. Wickersham
and Lawler immediately left for Beverly,
arriving there during the evening. On
Sunday morning, the 12th, the Attorney-
General met the President and placed the
Lawler letter in his hands. On the same
day Mr. Taft cut it down and redrafted it,
and on the following day, the 13th, signed
it and gave it to the press as his own.
This letter is the document which has
been commonly referred to as the "white¬
wash letter."! In it the President assured
the public in the strongest terms that he
had made a careful and personal examina¬
tion of the whole record and that he found
no ground for anything but the highest
praise for Mr. Ballinger's acts and policies
relative to the Alaska coal claims. In it
also he directed the dismissal of Glavis
from the service of the Government, on the
ground that, in his charges against the Sec¬
retary of the Interior, he had been guilty of
suppression and misrepresentation of docu¬
mentary evidence.
When, some months later, the Interior
Department stenographer Kerby, who had
taken Lawler's dictation, made public the
fact that Lawler had prepared the original
draft of the letter acquitting Ballinger and
* During Lawler's cross-examination before the Investigating
Committee, he said:
" I took the original of all copies of those documents with me
and was very careful to do so for the same reason for which the
draft was burned. I did not want the responsibility for the
escape of any part of this document to be traceable to me or
to any failure upon my part to take every precaution that the
confidence of the President should not be abused."
t By way of explanation it must be said that only the first
half of Mr. Taft's so-called "whitewash letter" dealt with the
Alaska situation. The other half related to criticisms made by
Mr. Garfield and Mr. Pinchot in regard to the Interior Depart¬
ment's handling of water-power sites and reclamation projects
in the United States. The authorship of this part of the letter
has never been questioned.
condemning Glavis, the White House at
once publicly denied that this was so.
Within less than an hour after Kerby's
statement was published Mr. Carpenter,
the President's secretary, gave out the fol¬
lowing bulletin:
"With reference to the published affidavit of Mr.
F. M. Kerby, a stenographer in the office of the
Secretary of the Interior, to the effect that the
President's letter of September 13, 1909, exoner¬
ating Secretary Ballinger, was substantially pre¬
pared for the President's signature by Assistant
Attorney-General Lawler, it was said at the White
House to-day that there is absolutely no foundation
for any such statement. The President dictated
his letter personally as the result of his own inves¬
tigation of the record and consideration of the docu¬
ments and papers in his possession at the time, and
upon the report to him of the Attorney-General."
And in an open letter published by the
President next day Mr. Taft again insisted
that his conclusions were not based on the
Lawler draft, although he had "used a few
paragraphs from it containing merely gen¬
eral statements."
"AS IF HE WERE PRESIDENT"
ITH reference to the above state¬
ments of Mr. Taft and his secre¬
tary, it has already been pointed out
that Mr. Wickersham's first access to
the record was on the day before Mr.
Taft made his decision, and that he,
therefore, could not have read the evi¬
dence and reported on it until long after
Glavis had been dismissed. And as to the
assertion that the President's decision, in
his letter of September 13 th, was not based
on the Lawler letter, a comparison of the
two letters shows that, with but few ex¬
ceptions, every paragraph of the so-called
"whitewash letter" which related to the
Glavis charges was either copied verbatim
or paraphrased from Lawler's production.
Both letters contained the clear and cate¬
gorical statement that the President had
only reached his decision after a careful per¬
sonal examination of the record. In both
is found the following eulogy of Secretary
Ballinger, written by Lawler under Ballin¬
ger's supervision, but now addressed to Bal¬
linger by the President:
"The great responsibility of Cabinet positions de¬
mands the selection therefor of men of the highest
character and integrity. Possession of these quali¬
ties, as well as an ability and experience which
especially fitted you to direct the affairs of the
Department of the Interior, warranted your ap¬
pointment as Secretary. Duty to the country, to
you and to myself requires that any aspersion upon
PRESIDENT TAFT, CANDIDATE FOR RE-ELECTION 537
the propriety of your acts or those of your subor¬
dinates be promptly met and carefully considered,
to the end that, if justified, proper remedy may be
applied, and if not, that it be publicly refuted."
In the open letter referred to above, Mr.
Taft also seeks to justify his statement that
his decision was not based on Lawler's by
explaining that after he had commissioned
Lawler to write an opinion "as if he were
President," he himself, on the 8th, 9th and
10th of September, gave such consideration
to the record "as was consistent with pre¬
vious engagements," and that, therefore,
Lawler's analysis and recommendations
were merely confirmatory of his own.
If indeed the President had spent not a
part but all of these three days in the unin¬
terrupted study of the record, the fact re¬
mains unchanged that he could not have
read it through or have accomplished more
than a general assorting and arrangement
of the documents preparatory to serious in¬
vestigation. But if the local newspaper ac¬
counts which were put in evidence during
the Congressional inquiry are even approxi¬
mately correct, these three days were fully
occupied by Mr. Taft in a multitude of
official and social duties as well as in golfing
and seeing the boat races for the Taft Cup.
On the whole, his explanation has only
served to make more apparent the fact that
the digest of evidence contained in the
thirty pages of Lawler's letter was the main,
if not the exclusive, documentary basis upon
which he acted in removing Glavis from
office.
The selection of Lawler to decide the con¬
troversy between Glavis on the one hand
and Ballinger and the coal claimants on the
other, was Mr. Taft's first unfortunate
blunder in handling the Alaska coal situa¬
tion. His adoption of Lawler's exoneration
of Ballinger and condemnation of Glavis
* Some idea of the temperament and state of mind of the man
whom Mr. Taft appointed as a referee to decide upon the guilt
or innocence of Glavis and Ballinger may be gained from Law¬
ler's testimony before the Investigating Committee:
"Mr. Lawler: . . For some months previous thereto I had
been confident that gum-shoe men had been on my own trail;
that parties had been following me hither and thither in the
city of Washington and elsewhere. I knew there was abso¬
lutely no depth of degradation to which these despicable scoun¬
drels who were on my trail would not stoop. The record has
demonstrated absolutely that my suspicions were more than
well founded.
" Mr. James: Would you mind telling us there just who they
were?
"Mr. Lawler: There is one (indicating Mr. Brandeis).
The man Hapgood who has been sitting next to him for weeks,
is another one. A man named Connelly, who stood on the deck
of a steamer and trampled down women and children in an at¬
tempt to get to a lifeboat, is another.
"Mr. James: Well, now, was that before the memorandum
was prepared by you?
"Mr. Lawler: Some of these things were. The following
of me was before.
"Mr. James: And Mr. Brandeis
"Mr. Lawler: He (referring to Mr. Brandeis) is a subse-
was the second. Like the first, it is men¬
tioned here not because it has any conclu¬
sive bearing on Mr. Taft's character, but
merely because it tends to throw light on it,
and leads up to other and more significant
executive acts.*
A REMARKABLE STATEMENT
HEN President Taft gave his letter of
September 13th to the press, it was
read breathlessly throughout the country
and, on the whole, was well received. Great
publicity had been given to the Alaska con¬
troversy by the newspapers in all parts of
the United States. Involving as it did a
member of the President's official family, a
group of powerful capitalists, and public
coal fields of great value, the case was of
most unusual public importance as well
as of extraordinary political interest. Not
since the days of the unfortunate scandal in
President Grant's Cabinet had a Republi¬
can administration faced so serious a situa¬
tion as had now developed through the
Glavis charges. Although the country had
generally and quite naturally been inclined
to take the part of the President and his
Cabinet Officer, nevertheless the incident
had in certain sections aroused great hos¬
tility to Mr. Taft and had unquestionably
placed a severe strain on public confidence.
Therefore, in both East and West the Presi¬
dent's strong and circumstantial letter of
September 13th, vindicating the Secretary
of the Interior and directing the removal
from office of his accuser Glavis, was re¬
ceived with a feeling of genuine relief.
"I have examined the whole record most
carefully," said the President, "and have
reached a very definite conclusion." This
assurance by Mr. Taft that he had taken
time to read the evidence himself and make
quent development and is simply the flower of this foul
flock.
*********
''Mr. Graham: Would you tell the Committee whom you
know to be the corruptor?
"Mr. Lawler: I do not know, but I believe that James R.
Garfield and Mr. Gifiord Pinchot and Mr. Brandeis are the
parties.
(Hisses from the audience.) _
"Mr. Lawler: Geese and snakes make noises like that."
Lawler's allegation that he was being shadowed was purely
the result of his imagination. At the time when he says the
shadowing took place no controversy had arisen and Lawler was
absolutely unconnected with the case.
His charge against Mr. Connelly, a correspondent of Collier's
Weekly was based on the following facts: After the wreck of the
Republic, a steward made charges against a passenger named
Connolly (not Connelly). Investigation proved that these
charges were malicious and absolutely groundless. Mr. Lawler
no doubt read of the Connolly case in the newspapers. On
such evidence as this and from the fortuitous resemblance be¬
tween the names Connolly and Connelly, Lawler was willing
to state in his sworn testimony that Mr. Connelly trampled
women and children, etc.
538
PEARSONS MAGAZINE
his own findings upon it, was a source of
peculiar gratification to the country.
The public realized that there was no rea¬
son, other than the unusual character of the
charges and the extraordinary value of the
coal claims in question, why the President
should have read the record at all. The
public saw that it would have been entirely
proper and in accordance with custom and
with every consideration of justice and
sound executive policy for the President to
have delegated the investigation and de¬
cision of the charges made by Glavis to
some competent and impartial judge. In¬
deed, in the event that the President could
not give the time required to make a thor¬
ough-going investigation of the case, it was
obviously his duty to delegate the matter
to some other proper and impartial au¬
thority. But the President's assertion that,
even during the busy period prior to his
departure for his Western trip, he had
taken personal cognizance of the case, gave
the public an added feeling of confidence.
It revealed- Mr. Taft in the light of a just
and upright judge who had refused to con¬
vict Glavis either through haste or par¬
tiality, but who, on the contrary, had left
no stone unturned to insure justice and pro¬
tect the public interest. For the time be¬
ing it seemed as if the incident was closed
with decided credit to the President.
But gradually there occurred a change in
public opinion. A few men of prominence
knew Glavis and believed in him. It was
learned that Francis J. Heney, of San Fran¬
cisco, Walter L. Fisher, of Chicago, Henry
M. Hoyt, late Attorney-General of Porto
Rico, Henry L. Stimson, of New York, and
other lawyers of standing, had seen Glavis's
report and found it convincing. It was
rumored that these men had expressed sur¬
prise at the President's decision. It also
became known that Glavis had had no op¬
portunity of defending himself against the
charges of suppression and misrepresenta¬
tion made in the President's letter, but had
been dismissed without a hearing of any
kind. Intense and universal interest took
possession of the people of the whole coun¬
try. There was a dramatic element in this
attack by a young and obscure subordinate
upon the chief of a great Federal Depart¬
ment, and at the same time upon men ru¬
mored to represent one of the most powerful
capitalistic combinations in the United
States. Was there a possibility that Presi¬
dent Taft had blundered or been deceived?
Had the true evidence been presented to
him? There was certainly something about
the case that was altogether mystifying to
the public mind.
From day to day the desire for enlighten¬
ment grew, and the people made it increas¬
ingly plain that they felt entitled to have
the facts surrounding Mr. Taft's decision
fully explained. Finally, the atmosphere
became surcharged and out of all this wide
area of high pressure emerged a definite de¬
mand by the country that the President
should make public the basis of his findings.
The result was that on the 21st of Decem¬
ber, 1909, the Senate of the United States
took the unusual step of passing a resolu¬
tion which embodied a direct demand upon
the President to make public the grounds
of his decision by transmitting to the Sen¬
ate the documents upon which he had acted
in dismissing Glavis and vindicating the
Secretary of the Interior. The last two
paragraphs of this resolution were as fol¬
lows:
"Whereas, the President thereafter directed the
dismissal from the service of the said L. R. Glavis,
upon the ground that the charges made by him were
not sustained, and that he had been guilty of mis¬
representation and suppression of material facts in
formulating said charges; Therefore be it
Resolved, that the President be, and is hereby, re¬
quested, if in his opinion not incompatible with the
public interests, to transmit to Congress any re¬
ports, statements, papers, or documents upon
which he acted in reaching his conclusions with
reference to the said charges."
MR. TAFT'S DEFENSE
T TP to this time Mr. Taft in his defense
^ of himself and his administration had
done nothing which in the opinion of most
fair-minded men reflected seriously upon his
character or questioned his fitness to fill
the great office to which he had been elected.
It is true that in his letter of September
13th, in which he upheld the Secretary of
the Interior and dismissed Glavis, he offi¬
cially stated what was not in accordance
with fact, to wit, that his findings were the
result of his own personal study. But, in
spite of the emphasis which the President,
in his letter of September 13th, placed upon
the allegation that his findings were the re¬
sult of his own researches, it may fairly be
argued that Mr. Taft was technically within
his rights in saying that "he" had made an
investigation of the immense mass of evi¬
dence in the case, when as a matter of fact
the investigation had been made by one to
whom he had delegated the task. As the
Executive head of the Government, it is evi-
PRESIDENT TAFT, CANDIDATE FOR RE-ELECTION 539
dent that the President must delegate to
others much, if not all, work of protracted
investigation or examination of evidence,
and that being himself responsible to the
people for the result of such work, he should
also be free to consider it his own and speak
of it as such. On the other hand, however,
we cannot fail to realize that if the Presi¬
dent had admitted, in the text of his de¬
cision, that he had not himself read the evi¬
dence against Ballinger but had delegated
Ballinger and Lawler to do so, and to make
findings upon the same, his letter would not
have received the same favorable considera¬
tion at the hands of the reading public.
As to the circumstance that the President
removed Glavis from office upon the ground
that he was guilty of suppression and mis¬
representation, without giving him an op¬
portunity to be heard, it may be said in the
President's behalf, that, in spite of the ap¬
parent injustice of this course, it was quite
within his power and discretion to do this,
and that minor subordinates in the Federal
Departments are frequently dismissed with¬
out a hearing. Mr. Taft's friends have
offered more or less plausible explanations
for his course, and it is not the intention of
the writer to propose objections to the ex¬
planations thus advanced. Haste, weak¬
ness of judgment, and too slight regard for
accuracy of statement, may explain and to
some extent excuse such a course in even a
man of Mr. Taft's long judicial experience.
But in the events which succeeded the de¬
mand made by Congress upon the Presi¬
dent to show his hand by producing the
documents which were the basis of the ac¬
tion which had aroused the hostility of the
country, a new element enters into Mr.
Taft's Presidential record.
Since President Taft had decided the case
and removed Glavis before he had himself
read the record, and before Attorney-Gen¬
eral Wickersham had either read or reported
on it, and since he had not only been guided
by the Lawler letter, but had copied a large
part of it in the so-called whitewash letter,
it is clear that the Lawler letter was the
main document upon which he had acted
in reaching his conclusions. Thus, when
the Senate of the United States in its short
and clear resolution of December 21st, re¬
quested the President to transmit to Con¬
gress the "reports, statements, papers or
documents upon which he had acted in
reaching his conclusions with reference to
said charges," Mr. Taft found himself in a
dangerous and humiliating dilemma, such
as few Presidents have ever had the mis¬
fortune to be confronted with.
HIS DANGEROUS DILEMMA
r 1 'WO courses were open to the Presi-
dent—either to admit the facts and
brave the storm of public criticism which
would inevitably gather when it became
known that he had commissioned Bal-
linger's friend and subordinate to dispose
of the charges brought against Ballinger
and the coal claimants, or openly to refuse
to comply with the Senate's extraordinary
resolution on the ground that the request
was without constitutional authority and
against public policy. Either course was
extremely hazardous, either course would,
in all probability, result in grave embarrass¬
ment to Mr. Taft's administration. Mr.
Taft chose neither of these two courses.
Day after day went by and the public
interest in the Alaska case hourly increased.
The cause of Glavis had meantime been
taken up by Collier's Weekly, the Philadel¬
phia North American, the United Press
newspapers of the West and Middle West,
and the strength and logic of the facts
cited by Glavis and now published for
the first time were beginning to have a pow¬
erful effect upon the country. Yet the
President's good faith was not seriously
questioned. The people were fond of Mr.
Taft. They had confidence in his char¬
acter and in his judicial ability. They be¬
lieved that whatever wrong had been done
would be righted at once when Mr. Taft saw
his mistake and cast off the unfortunate in¬
fluences under which he seemed to labor.
Mr. Taft was himself possessed of great per¬
sonal popularity, and was particularly es¬
teemed and respected for the reason that
he was looked upon as the legacy of his
predecessor, who, upon retiring from pub¬
lic life, had presented Mr. Taft to the
American people as his personal representa¬
tive, pledged to carry on the progressive
policies which were initiated during Roose¬
velt's administration. The country held
Roosevelt in grateful and affectionate re¬
membrance, and, as a Western politician
then remarked, it did not like to look
Roosevelt's gift horse in the mouth.
Nevertheless, in spite of Mr. Roosevelt
and in spite of Mr. Taft's popularity, his
legal experience, and his much-heralded ju¬
dicial temperament, the country felt a deep
concern and began to fear that the new
President had committed a serious blunder.
540
PEARSON'S MAGAZINE
In addition to this the people of the North¬
west, who were more or less familiar with
the operations of the Guggenheims in
Alaska, were taking an active part in the
discussions, and such newspapers as were
not owned or controlled by the capitalistic
interests were vigorously decrying the Pres¬
ident's decision and demanding that the
Administration should give the public a
full and frank explanation of its course.
The country was thoroughly aroused and
the charge was heard on all sides that the
President had made a hasty and partial
judgment based upon insufficient considera¬
tion of the evidence. But, worst of all, an
unfortunate rumor became prevalent in
Washington to the effect that the case had
been investigated and the letter of Septem¬
ber 13th drafted, not by the President him¬
self, but by Oscar Lawler, the friend and
subordinate of the accused Cabinet officer.
HIS ANSWER TO THE SENATE
A S has been said, it was on the 21st of
December that the Senate's resolution
was passed—a resolution both impressive
and extraordinary from the fact that
through it the legislative branch of the
Government presumed to demand an ex¬
planation from the Executive for an act
which was iexclusively within the Execu¬
tive's power. On the 6th of January, or
after fifteen days in which to consider the
resolution and the perilous position in which
it placed him, Mr. Taft made his answer to
the country.
No statesman ever made a more complete
and apparently conclusive reply. At 2
o'clock in the afternoon of January 6th, the
President's messenger brought to the Sen¬
ate Chamber a bundle from the White
House. The note from the President which
accompanied the package was read by a
Senate reader. It stated that its contents
were transmitted in answer to the resolution
requesting the President to produce the
documents on which he had acted in re¬
moving Glavis. This package contained a
copy of the Glavis charges, the answer to it
of Mr. Ballinger and his subordinates, and
the immense mass of evidence submitted to
the President on the 6th of September.
But it did not contain the Lawler letter.
The Lawler letter was not transmitted to
the Senate. Nor in any document sent to
the Senate was the Lawler letter mentioned
or was its existence in any way referred to.
The Lawler letter was suppressed. But in
its place and as the actual basis of the Presi¬
dent's decision was transmitted an entirely
different document—a brief and summary
of the evidence forty thousand words in
length, dated September nth, or two days
prior to the publication of the President's
decision and bearing the signature of
George W. Wickersham, the Attorney-Gen¬
eral of the United States. This brief con¬
tained a detailed analysis of the record in
twenty-four chapters or subheads and ended
with a strong endorsement of the Secretary
of the Interior and the recommendation
that Louis R. Glavis should be removed
from the service of the Government.
The effect upon public opinion of Mr.
Taft's answer to the resolution of the Senate
was immediate and most favorable. At a
time when the people were beginning to lose
faith in the judicial and administrative
qualities of the President, and at a time
when they had become keenly apprehen¬
sive that a great injustice had been done,
the production of this impressive and volu¬
minous document from the pen of the At¬
torney-General—a document containing an
elaborate analysis of the evidence which
must have taken several weeks to pre¬
pare—wrought an immediate reversal of
public opinion in favor of the President.
Mr. Taft's position had become exceedingly
strong, for it was now impossible for any
fair-minded man to doubt that he had acted
justly, on proper grounds, and with due
deliberation—a deliberation which was the
more creditable to the President from the
fact that the Glavis charges were directed
against a member of the President's own
official family.
The representations contained in the
President's reply to the Senate resolution
were accepted by the people at their face
value. In every section of the country Ad¬
ministration papers triumphantly heralded
the conclusive refutation of the lying report
that Ballinger's henchman Lawler had writ¬
ten or influenced the President's decision.
Lawler's letter was safe in forgotten depart¬
mental files. The production of the Wick¬
ersham brief had quieted suspicion and re¬
stored confidence in the President. Once
more the Administration was in smooth
waters. Mr. Taft had met the crisis.
It was only during the Congressional in¬
quiry which followed, and after two months
spent in fencing with Mr. Taft's adminis¬
tration, that Louis D. Brandeis, counsel for
Glavis, uncovered the existence of the Law¬
ler letter and developed the fact that it was
PRESIDENT TAFT, CANDIDATE FOR RE-ELECTION 541
the real basis of the President's decision;
that the Wickersham brief was not before
the President at the time when he rendered
his decision; that at this time Mr. Wicker¬
sham had never read the evidence; that the
date upon the brief was a false one; and
finally, that the brief was not written until
long after Glavis had been retired to private
life.*
HIS DEFENSE OF THE ANSWER
HpHE facts surrounding the President's
action in the Glavis case are not open
to question. They are matters of record and
can easily be verified by reference to official
documents.! In a letter to the Chairman
of the Committee on Judiciary, Mr. Wick¬
ersham admits that the brief was prepared
after the decision. In an open letter to
Senator Nelson the President confesses that
his decision preceded the brief.
What then is the President's defense?
It is contained in his open letter of ex¬
planation written to Senator Nelson on the
day following the disclosures of Frederick
Kerby.
The President contends that he was justi¬
fied in sending the brief to Congress as the
basis of his decision, because, before finish¬
ing his letter on September 12 th, he had re-
* In his efforts to conceal the Lawler letter Mr. Taft was
seconded by members of his Cabinet. During the Congressional
Inquiry Louis D. Brandeis, counsel for Glavis, learned of the
existence of the Lawler letter. He immediately called upon the
Attorney-General and the Secretary of the Interior for all docu¬
ments in their possession which related to the Glavis charges.
Mr Rrandeis's first call upon the Attorney-General was on the
iStu of March. On the_ 16th Mr. Wickersham transmitted a
number of documents with a letter, which was in part as fol¬
lows: "In reply I beg to transmit herewith the only papers
which seem to be on the files of this department falling within
the above description."
The Lawler letter was not transmitted.
Shortly after the President left Beverly, on the 13th of Sep¬
tember, his copy of the Lawler letter was sent to Mr. Wicker¬
sham. It was still in Mr. Wickersham's files.
On the 21st day of March, and the 7th of April, the Attorney-
General was again requested to produce any documents relating
to the Glavis charges which remained in his possession. His
written replies stated that the only papers he could find in the
Department of Justice which came within this description had
already been transmitted to the _ Committee. _ At these times
the Lawler memorandum was still in Mr. Wickersham's pos¬
session.
As a penalty was provided by a special law passed by both
Houses of_ Congress for disobedience, on the part of any citizen
of the United States, to the Committee's calls for information,
Mr. Wickersham's action was not only unfrank, but in direct
hostility to existing law. In the meantime similar calls were
made upon the Secretary of the Interior. The result was the
same.
It was not until he had seen the President of the United
States, and the Attorney-General deliberately suppress informa¬
tion which was in their possession and which was demanded by
the authority of a Committee of the Senate and the House of
Representatives, that the stenographer Kerby came forward
and made public the facts.
Kerby was promptly dismissed from the service of the Gov¬
ernment on the ground that he was "unworthy and unsafe"
and "for the good of the service."
t A number of people who have read this article have ex¬
pressed doubt as to its accuracy on the following grounds: They
urge that if an incident similar to Mr. Taft's offering in evidence
the Wickersham brief as the basis of his action against Glavis
ceived from Mr. Wickersham the brief's
equivalent in written notes and oral state¬
ments. Unfortunately, we have seen that
this explanation is open to insurmountable
objections. We have seen that Mr. Wick¬
ersham could not have read the evidence
until after September 12 th, and, therefore,
could not have reported upon it. We have
seen that at this time Mr. Wickersham's
ignorance of the record was only modified
by a few hours' reading and by his talk with
Oscar Lawler on the train. And we find by
referring to Mr. Taft's letter of explanation
that the President was well aware that this
was the case-t
And finally we have seen that if Presi¬
dent Taft looked at the record at all prior
to his decision of the case (and we cannot
doubt that he did so) there is one fact that
he could not have failed to learn in regard
to it, the fact that neither Attorney-Gen¬
eral Wickersham nor any living man could
either read such a record or gain the slight¬
est idea of its meaning in a single day.
But whether or not Mr. Wickersham dis¬
cussed the evidence in the case with Mr.
Ballinger's assistant Lawler on the way to
Beverly on September nth, and whether or
not he talked over the Alaska case with Mr.
Taft at Beverly on September 12th, while
the latter was embodying Lawler's conclu-
had happened during the course of an ordinary lawsuit in a
court of justice, it would probably have resulted in either the
indictment or disbarment of the party responsible forit. They
say that it is therefore inconceivable that, with a Congres¬
sional investigation in sight, a man of Mr. Taft's experience
should have taken so hazardous a course.
As a matter of fact the administration had little reason to
fear an investigation by a Congressional Committee. The
Senate members of such a Committee would be chosen by the
Vice-President, and the House members by Speaker Cannon.
Moreover, in the past, there was hardly an instance where such
proceedings had resulted in embarrassment to the party in
power.
That the investigation in this particular case gave the admin¬
istration trouble was due to three things: (i) The House made
its first successful revolt against Cannon and insisted on electing
its members of the Investigating Committee, among whom
were the late Judge Madison, an insurgent from Kansas, and
two able Democratic lawyers, Messrs. Graham and James.
(2) Glavis had powerful backing from such men as Attorney-
General Henry W. Hoyt, Norman Hapgood, James R. Gar¬
field, and Gifford Pinchot. (3) Glavis had a lawyer of high
character and extraordinary ability. Had it not been for these
unusual elements in the case, Mr. Taft would have been en¬
tirely safe, and the Committee would have quickly discredited
and destroyed Glavis. As it was, the majority of the Com¬
mittee stood with the administration and took effective precau¬
tions to keep the investigation on safe ground. For instance,
the proceedings actually began under a rule, passed by the
majority, to the effect that counsel for Glavis and the other
parties interested should ask no questions directly of any wit¬
nesses, but that all questions must be submitted to the chair¬
man of the Committee, who would then ask them or not as he
saw fit. This rule was soon broken down by the protests of
Mr. Brandeis and the minority members.
J Mr. Taft states in this letter that when Mr. Wickersham
met him in Beverly on the morning of the 12th, he told him
that he had had an opportunity on the way from New York
to read the written answers to the Glavis charges made by Mr.
Ballinger and his subordinates. Mr. Taft states that he there¬
upon requested the Attorney-General to examine the full record
and report to him in the afternoon—and that the Attorney-
General did so.
542
PEARSON'S MAGAZINE
sions in his decision, are matters of little
importance. Neither the Senate resolu¬
tion, nor the popular demand for informa¬
tion which this resolution represented, dealt
with conversations, with rough notes made
without knowledge of the record, or with
information imparted by Lawler on the
train; nor did Mr. Taft refer to any in his
answer. With the utmost clearness and
with the peculiar solemnity of a resolution
embodying a popular appeal from the judg¬
ment of the Chief Magistrate, Mr. Taft was
called upon to make public the documen¬
tary grounds of his decision—to transmit to
Congress the "reports, statements, papers
or documents upon which he acted in reach¬
ing his conclusions." And it was in answer
to such a demand that the President kept
secret the Lawler letter and substituted the
Wickersham brief in its place. By doing so
he not only suppressed the real ground of
his decision and put in evidence a false one
—he also rebuked the public for its sus¬
picions, and gave the country his solemn
assurance that he had neither vindicated
the Secretary of the Interior nor removed
the young subordinate, until no less an au¬
thority than the Attorney-General of the
United States had laid before him, in the
form of a detailed and voluminous analysis
and summary of the case, the written result
of his protracted and painstaking investiga¬
tion.
After Louis D. Brandeis had succeeded in
dragging from the Administration the cir¬
cumstances of the removal from office of his
client Glavis, after Kerby had been removed
for telling what the Administration had de¬
sired to keep secret; after public opinion
had forced the resignation of the Secretary
of the Interior, and when the Cunningham
claims were upon the eve of cancellation on
the ground of fraud, Mr. Taft summarized
his opinion of these events in a letter which
is in part as follows:
"The White House,
March 7, 1911.
"Dear Mr. Secretary:
"I accept your resignation with great reluctance.
I have had the fullest opportunity to know you, to
know your standards of service to the Government
and the public, to know your motives, to know how
you have administered your office, and to know
the motives of those who have assailed you. I do
not hesitate to say that you have been the object of
one of the most unscrupulous conspiracies for the
defamation of character that history can show.
"I have deemed it my duty not only to the Gov¬
ernment, but to society in general, to fight out this
battle to the end, confident that in the end your
fellow-citizens would see that the impression of you
as a man and as the administrator of a high public
office were false and were the result of a malicious
and unprincipled plan for the use of the press to
misrepresent you and your actions and to torture
every circumstance, however free from detrimental
significance, into proof of corrupt motives.
"With the hypocritical pretense that they did
not accuse you of corruption in order to avoid the
necessity, that even the worst criminal is entitled
to, to wit, that of a definitely formulated charge of
some misconduct, they showered you with suspi¬
cion, and by the most pettifogging methods ex¬
ploited to the public matters which had no rele¬
vance to an issue of either corruption or efficiency
in office, but which paraded before an hysterical
body of headline-readers served to blacken your
character and to obscure the proper issue of your
honesty and effectiveness as a public servant.
* * * * * *
"The conspirators who have not hesitated in
their pursuit of you to resort to the meanest of
methods, including the corruption of your most
confidential assistant,* plume themselves, like the
Pharisees of old, as the only pure members of
society actuated by the spirit of self-sacrifice for
their fellow-men.
"Every fibre of my nature rebels against such
hypocrisy and nerves me to fight such a combina¬
tion and such methods to the bitter end, lest suc¬
cess in this instance may form a demoralizing prec¬
edent. But personal consideration for you and
yours makes me feel that I have no right to ask
you for further sacrifice. Of course, it has been
made evident that I was and am the ultimate
object of the attack."
MR. TAFT NOW SEEKS RENOMINATION
TN 1836, when Lincoln was candidate for
the legislature, Col. Robert Allen stated
that he was in possession of facts which
bore unfavorably on Mr. Lincoln's fitness to
hold office. In reply to this Mr. Lincoln
wrote: "That I once had the confidence of
the people of Sangamon, is sufficiently
evident; and if I have since done any¬
thing, either by design or misadventure,
which if known would subject me to a
forfeiture of that confidence, he that knows
of that thing, and conceals it. is a traitor
to his country's interests."
While William Howard Taft stood before
the country merely as President of the
United States I believe it would have been
unnecessary, if not unwarranted, to recall
certain passages of his career which might
seem to question his future usefulness as a
public servant. But now, inasmuch as he
has announced his intention to seek renom-
* Kerby, to whom the President refers, was not in any sense
the "confidential assistant" of Secretary Ballinger. He was
merely an Interior Department stenographer rated in the civil
service as a clerk in Class 4. Together with two other clerks he
had been assigned to do stenographic work for the Secretary
and his assistants. Kerby was neither employed nor paid by
Mr. Ballinger, but by the people of the United States. He had
already been a department stenographer for more than two
years when Mr. Ballinger was appointed Secretary of the In¬
terior. Mr. Ballinger's assistant or secretary was a young man
named D. M. Carr.
PRESIDENT TAFT, CANDIDATE FOR RE-ELECTION 543
ination at the hands of the Republican
party, he has himself opened his record for
inspection and invited the honest comment
of every citizen.
The American people do not like to look
back into the past, but when it comes to the
question of endowing a man with the enor¬
mous power and influence of the Presi¬
dency, it is well that they should do so.
Few men have ever had a more thorough
judicial and executive experience than Mr.
Taft. He practiced law for many years in
Ohio. He served as judge of the Superior
Court of Cincinnati for seven years. He
was Federal judge in the Sixth Judicial Cir¬
cuit from 1892 to 1900; Dean of the law de¬
partment in the University of Cincinnati
for four years. He has served as President
of the United States Philippine Commis¬
sion, as Governor of the Philippine Islands,
and as Secretary of War.
In a recent speech at Pocatello, Idaho,
Mr. Taft is reported as saying: "I love
judges and I love courts, they are my ideals
on earth that typify what we shall meet
afterward in Heaven under a just God."
On September 12,1909, Mr. Taft accepted
Lawler's report on the Glavis charges, sus¬
tained Ballinger and removed Glavis on the
ground of suppression and misrepresenta¬
tion. On December 21st, the bitter public
protest against the President's action cul¬
minated in an extraordinary resolution by
the Senate of the United States, which
called upon the President to make public
the documentary grounds of his decision.
Fifteen days later, or on the sixth of Janu¬
ary, Mr. Taft made his answer to the Sen¬
ate. He withheld the Lawler letter, which
which was the real basis of his decision. In
its place and as the moving cause of his
action he offered in evidence the Wicker-
sham brief—a document which was not
in existence until long after the case was
closed, and which Mr. Taft knew was
neither the basis of his action against
Glavis nor the basis of anything at all,
but a piece of evidence, created afterward,
dated back, and now put forward in an
effort to sustain and give a judicial ap¬
pearance to an unjust course.
Bearing in mind Mr. Taft's administra¬
tive experience, intellectual capacity and his
years of training both at bar and bench, it
can hardly be argued that he was not aware
of the exact nature and quality of the things
he was doing. When we consider that he
took this course, in what was practically an
appeal before the Senate of a great case in¬
volving the official lives of Government ser¬
vants and public property of large value, his
action becomes the more remarkable and
rises to peculiar importance as commentary
upon his character.
But above and beyond any consideration
as to Mr. Taft's character, his course during
the incidents described above has a direct
bearing on the public which should be
clearly borne in mind. Now, as never be¬
fore in our history, investigations into every
branch of politics and public service have
disclosed corruption and incompetence, and
demonstrated the absolute necessity of pub¬
licity and above-board government. To¬
day for the first time in years, we have an
aroused and enlightened public sentiment
demanding that the old methods of mystery
and deception shall be cast on the political
scrap-heap.
CAN MR. TAFT MAKE GOOD?
TT is evident that the country is at last
A forming a national purpose to improve the
tone of public service and make the govern¬
ment a real instrument of justice and help
to the whole people. No thoughtful man
can doubt that the first step in accomplish¬
ing this purpose is to make it plain to every
man in public office, whether high or low,
that he must refrain from deceiving the
community, and that his first and great
duty to the people who placed him in office
is to speak and act the truth.
The rank and file of our people are hon¬
est, and the rank and file of our public ser¬
vants are honest. But one man, in an
office of great power and influence, who
stoops to questionable methods, can do
more to degrade the public service and dis¬
courage honorable dealing in and out of poli¬
tics than an army of humble but honest citi¬
zens can do to hold up the standards.*
The Republican party is upon the eve of a
great national campaign. It is about to
select a candidate for the Presidency.
Whatever differences of opinion Republi¬
cans may have as to the tariff, conservation,
the initiative, the referendum and the re¬
call, and finally as to the right and ability
* In another and more narrow sense, however, Mr. Taft's
course during the incidents dealt with in this article can hardly
have faijed to have had a strong effect on public service. By
his conviction of Glavis, and by the means which he took to sus¬
tain and justify this conviction, Mr. Taft announced a policy
which was exceedingly unfortunate. He practically gave notice
to the federal departments that if any subordinate attempted to
protect the property of the government by disclosing the activi¬
ties of a superior officer who was unfaithful to his trust, he
would do so at his peril; that the men higher up would stand
together, and that the power of the administration would be
used against the subordinate even through the most extraor¬
dinary channels.
544
PEARSON S MAGAZINE
of the people to govern themselves, we can
at least agree on one thing. The good of
both country and party demands that no
candidate should be nominated whose
record does not give assurance that he will
lead the people in the fight to cleanse our
Augean political stables; and to rededicate
the government to the frank and simple ser¬
vice of the majority
To allow the reactionaries in the Republi¬
can party to force upon the people as a can¬
didate for the Presidency a man who has
given the sanction of his great office to those
outworn and devious methods which we
are trying to banish from our national life,
would be a backward step which neither the
country nor the party can afford.
The preceding pages may be of value in
appraising Mr. Taft's qualifications for the
Presidency. They may also serve to ex¬
plain in some measure why the men who
have been familiar with the incidents re¬
ferred to have felt that there were reasons
against Mr. Taft's renomination other than
his failures and mistakes in policy or ad¬
ministration.
IF I WERE A SUFFRAGETTE
by
LAVINIA HARTWELL EGAN
If I were a suffragette—which, heaven he praised. I'm not—
I wouldn't smash up windows.
Nor the " Bohhies" heat to flinders,
Nor spend my time m plugging at such hally, blooming rot—
If I were a suffragette.
If I were a suffragette—the impeachment I forswear—
I wouldn't go to pris'n.
Nor he so hot and sistin'
For the crown that only martyrs ought to wear—
If I were a suffragette.
If I were a suffragette—and the thought is most remote—
I'd try to mind my Ps and Qs,
Nor he so prone to air my views:
Then folks might think Ida right to vote—
If I were a suffragette.