ROOSEVELT AND CONGRESS

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2396, 11 January 1909, Page 5

ROOSEVELT AND CONGRESS

PRESIDENT FIGHTING PARLIAMENT. | A SENSATIONAL ACCUSATION. United Press Association. Copyright (Received Jan. 10, 4.30 p.m.) NEW YORK, Jan. 9.

A bitter struggle is ensuing between President Roosevelt and Congress. President Roosevelt intimated that the Senate was not entitled to direct members of the Cabinet to furnish information, inasmuch as the Cabinet was solely under his control. President Roosevelt assumed entire responsibility of the question of allowing the Steel Trust to purchase the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company’s stock a year ago to prevent a panic. His opponents emphasised that the trust’s only competitor had thus been absorbed. Yesterday the Senate resolved, largely on Senator Culberson’s instance, to instruct the Judiciary Committee to report whether President Roosevelt was authorised to permit the absorption.

r * LONDON, Jan. 9. The “Times’ ” New York correspondent states that the resolution is interpreted as a sop to the Democrats rather than a® desire on the part of the leaders of the Senate to press matters.

The House of Representatives, by 212 to 34,. resolved to ignore any disrespectful communication from any source, and declared President Roosevelt’s language in regard to secret services was unjustified, without a basis of fact, and constituted a breach of the privileges of the House, . and therefore laid on the table the obnoxious portion of the December message and also the message in which the President denied that his former message was intended to reflect on Congress, and justifying his statements by a reference to members’ speeches, which message was considered as no answer to the inquiry made by the House. Many Republican speakers condemned the President’s language as a libel on the House. The Democrats demand a withdrawal and an apology. The sensation of the day culminated by President Roosevelt publishing tails of investigation by post office inspectors and secret service agents of Senator Tillman’s connection with alleged land-grabs in Oregon. Preside! Roosevelt declares that Mr. Tillnian used his influence as a Senator in an effort to “force the Government to compel the railroad corporations to relinquish control of land grants from the United States to enable him anti his family and secretary to profit by the purchase of the land, and had also frequently used his granting privilege in the conduct of his private business. ■Senator Tillman. will reply in open Senate on Monday.