Both were examined about these letters, which had in some way become the subject of inquiry by the sub-committee. Mr. Archbold fully confirmed all I had said.

Mr. Hearst told what use he had made of the letters, but did not repeat in his testimony the charge made in his magazine articles that I had at any time made any false statement about anything, but practically admitted that he himself had made false statements, by admitting that at the time when, in his St. Louis speech, he read the letter to me from Mr. Archbold inclosing the $50,000, he had other letters in his pocket showing the money was not sent to me on account of the Jones bill, or any other bill, as he had tried to make his St. Louis audience and the whole country believe, but that it had been sent to be used as the letter stated on its face, in a business transaction; and that these letters he had in his pocket also showed that this contemplated business transaction failed and that on that account I had returned the money to Mr. Archbold a few days after it was received.

Mr. Hearst testified December 17, 1912. I appeared before the committee at my own request the following day, December 18th. In the testimony I then gave I fully reviewed the whole matter.

I regret that this testimony is so voluminous that it is impossible for me to reproduce it here, for I am sure I hazard nothing in saying that it exonerates me from every charge Mr. Hearst or anybody else has ever made on account of that matter, including the last charge that I had made false statements, and showed that I had not made any false statement about anything connected with it from the beginning to the end. It shows that I answered fully, frankly and truthfully in every instance.

There was no reason why I should not have done so, for at no time had I regarded my employment as improper or thought of concealing it from anybody.

The first thing I did after I was employed was to visit Columbus and call upon Chief Justice Spear of the Supreme Court in Chambers, the Court having a day or two before adjourned for the holidays, and inform him about it, and

request that we might have an extension of time in which to thoroughly investigate the voluminous records before determining our line of action.

Later I had a conference with the Attorney General, who was in charge of all the proceedings against the company, in which, according to his own statement, he and I went fully over all the records and questions of not only the main case, but all the subordinate cases.

The sub-committee before which I testified, having been appointed for another purpose, never made any formal report upon this subject, or, if they did, I have never heard of it, but every member of that sub-committee, Democrat and Republican alike, as well as every spectator who was present when I testified, without exception, I think, whether known or unknown to me, openly and enthusiastically congratulated me when I quit the witness stand upon what they termed my thorough and complete refutation of every charge that had been made or even suggested.

MR.

CHAPTER XLV.

THE ROGERS LAW.

R. HEARST'S attack on me had a companion piece in an attack made first in 1907, and then renewed in 1908, on account of the enactment, April 22, 1896, by the Ohio Legislature, of what is known in Cincinnati as the Rogers Law, by which provision was made for the consolidation and merger of the street railways of Cincinnati, then five in number, into one company, to which the Board of Administration of Cincinnati was authorized, subject to certain limitations and restrictions, to grant a franchise to maintain its tracks in the streets of Cincinnati for a period of fifty years upon certain terms and conditions to be prescribed, which terms and conditions, including rates of fare to be charged, were subject to revision at the end of twenty years and at the end of each fifteen years thereafter so long as the franchise might continue.

This statute was enacted after I had been elected to the Senate, but almost a year before I had taken my seat.

It was charged that the Legislature had been corruptly induced to pass the law, and that I had appeared before the Legislature as a lobbyist; that I had kept open rooms at the hotel where refreshments were dispensed, to which legislators were invited and where I had solicited and importuned their support for the bill. It was also charged that for the services so rendered I had been paid enormously large fees, ranging according to the reports so circulated from a few thousand to a million dollars.

The whole story from beginning to end was an extravagant tissue of lies, for which there was no excuse whatever, but it naturally caused much talk that was prejudicial to my candidacy. When it commenced I thought it would easily answer

itself, and that it would not be necessary for me to dignify it with any attention whatever.

Before I had learned otherwise, my good friend, Judge West, who in the way already recited in the preceding chapter came to my rescue in the Hearst matter, made an investigation of these charges. I do not know how I can better refute the malicious lies and slanders and libels that were started than by inserting here a pamphlet published by Judge West, showing how he came to make his investigation, the nature of it and the results of it.

FIAT JUSTITIA.

"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor."

The story is current that while the fifty years' street franchise or so-called "Rogers Law" was pending before the Legislature in 1896, Senator Foraker opened and kept open lobby headquarters at Columbus, to which the Members were invited and labored with to support it, and that for these services he was paid by the Cincinnati Street Railway Company an enormous fee, in amount never disclosed, but variously reckoned at tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, sometimes a million dollars.

It is a singular fact that no one, living or dead, has ever been named as authority for this story. It is either true or it is false. Whether it is the one or the other I have no personal knowledge, but there are living witnesses who have, Members of that Legislature and officers of the railway company, from whom the truth, whatever it is, can be ascertained by making inquiry. Because others believe the story without making such inquiry, or profess to, must I also, and without inquiry join in their hue and cry against an eminent citizen and public servant who has rendered distinguished services to the country, both in field and forum, and whom the State in times past has delighted to honor? This I can not, will not do. Believing it the duty of good citizenship, if that civic virtue is not “a barren ideality” and academic pretense, to do for my neighbor and fellow citizen what I might justly wish to have him do for me, our relations being reversed, to make inquiry and ascertain what the facts are before pronouncing judgment, I have on my own motion taken it upon myself to make that inquiry and the truth has been found to be as follows:

ORDER OF EVENTS.

Ex-Governor Foraker became Senator-elect January 14, 1896, but did not become Senator in fact until March 4, 1897. The "Rogers Law" was introduced in the Legislature February 21, 1896, and passed the House April 2, 1896, by a vote of 75 to 24, eleven of the twenty-five Democratic members voting for it. House J. 605 and 926. It passed the Senate April 22d by a vote of 22 to 18, four of the seven Democratic Senators voting for it. Senate J. 819. It was in no sense a party measure

On retiring from office in 1890, ex-Governor Foraker resumed the practice of law in his home city of Cincinnati, where later he became associate counsel with those eminent attorneys, John W. Warrington and E. W. Kittredge, for one or more of the street railway companies, of which John Kilgour was President, each at a fixed annual salary, payable in any event whether the service he rendered was much or little. Did either of the said attorneys receive compensation from any source, in addition to his fixed annual salary, for any services rendered in connection with the "Rogers Law"?

President Kilgour writes: "The impression prevailing that a large sum of money was paid Senator Foraker for services connected with the passage of the 'Rogers Law' is without foundation in fact. At that time E. W. Kittredge, John W. Warrington and Senator Foraker were and for some years had been the regular attorneys of the street railway company with which I was connected, under contracts of employment for the payment to each of a fixed annual salary for what legal services he might perform. Not one cent in addition to his regular fixed salary was ever directly or indirectly paid by the street railway company to Senator Foraker or either of the other attorneys for any services performed by either of them in connection with the 'Rogers Law,' either before or after its passage, nor was the salary of either of them thereafter increased." E. W. Kittredge writes: “As one of the attorneys of the Cincinnati Street Railway Company I assisted John W. Warrington and Senator Foraker, its other attorneys, in drafting what is known as the 'Rogers law. Neither Senator Foraker, Mr. Warrington nor myself received any compensation from the Cincinnati Street Railway Company, or from any other source, for our services before the standing committees of the Legislature or elsewhere, outside of our fixed annual salaries. When the resolutions of the Board of Administration of the city of Cincinnati were prepared by us, as attorneys for the Cincinnati Street Railway Company, granting the extension of time for the various lines of road, the work was done in like manner by all three of us as such attorneys; and we never received any compensation from the Cincinnati Street Railway Company, or otherwise, for these services, outside of our fixed annual salaries."

John W. Warrington writes: "As attorneys of the Cincinnati Street Railway Company, Senator Foraker, Mr. Kittredge and myself each received a fixed and the same salary, and none of us received any extra compensation for any services rendered by us or either of us in connection with the 'Rogers Law.' The whole story that either of us did is an untruth."

Senator Foraker writes: "I was never paid by the Street Railroad Company of Cincinnati, nor by any other person or corporation, for any service rendered in connection with or under the 'Rogers Law,' either before or after its passage, any compensation in money or otherwise, beyond the regular fixed annual salary which was payable by said company and would have been paid to me if that law had never passed, been drafted or thought of."

This is the concurring evidence of the only persons who have or could have had personal knowledge respecting the fact of which they speak. No one of his own knowledge has ever asserted in print or otherwise or