INVESTIGATION OF DOCUMENTS PUBLISHED IN HEARST PAPERS PURPORTING TO SHOW PAYMENTS OF MONEY OUT OF MEXICAN TREASURY TO UNITED STATES SENATORS AS TOLD IN THE CONGRESSIONAL RECORD AND BY WITNESSES BEFORE THE SPECIAL INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE
Fauerbach, Dr. Louis
Investigation of Documents Published In Hearst Papers Purporting to Show Payments of Money Out of Mexican Treasury To United States Senators As Told in The Congressional Record and by Witnesses...
...There is some evidence that 39 of the disputed documents were written by the same typewriter operator...
...Senator Borah replied: "Of course, as I said before, this matter has never reached me in any shape or form...
...And he further stated, "I never was in communication with anyone in connection with the Mexican Government, either casually, directly, expressly, or impliedly, in any way, shape or form...
...i reply to Senator Bruce's categorical question whether "you have received this sum of money or any portion of any sums of money, or had any interviews or correspondence about it," Senator Borah replied: "I never received any money, and no one offered to give me any money...
...All who are concerned in finding the truth concede that these Senators stand uncorrupted and incorruptible...
...Malone replied: "I never heard of it before...
...In this open letter Senator Norris quoted from Mr...
...Not only does the testimony show conclusively that fact that I have just stated, but it also discloses that not one of them has ever been approached in any matter in connection with improper considerations respecting Mexican affairs...
...After Avila had testified...
...Thereupon the interpreter translated the paper handed to SenatdV La Follette by Senator Reed...
...but, upon the contrary, the proof is clear and positive that none of these Senators has even been approached directly or indirectly in any way, shape or form for an improper purpose or object...
...1 consider that you must be satisfied with the form in which this business has terminated, and that the results we expect may be all for the good of the country...
...I appreciate the opportunity afforded me by this committee to make a statement...
...The attempt to link my name with the charges before this committee is an infamous and cowardly fraud...
...Dudley Field Malone was supposed to be the intermediary between Mr...
...I have not seen Senator Borah nor had any communication with Senator Borah or Senator Heflin, of any kind, Experts Find Fraud In Signatures Handwriting experts employed by William Randolph Hearst at the request of the special senate committee investigating the Mexican documents published in his newspapers have pronounced the documents as "spurious...
...Continuing, Chairman Reed said: "And there are other papers here, Senator, on which 1 cannot lay my hand at the moment, which pretend to show the withdrawal of money to the amount of $100,('0(1 for the purpose of paying it to you...
...Hearst makes the inquiry: "If you wanted to be perfectly honest with these Senators, why did you not state when the arti-'cles were published that you had no evidence that any of these Senators were guilty and that you did not believe any of the charges against them...
...The total of which our said financial agent has duly delivered (or will deliver) without exacting the corresponding receipts, given the honorability and high personality of the recipient...
...Malone on the telephone...
...To Mr.-:, $500,000...
...Malone ever mention the subject to you...
...President, . . . There has not been produced a single word of evidence tending in the remotest degree to sustain the inferences ot charges in the articles which have been printed...
...Infamous and Cowardly Fraud SENATOR La Follette was called next...
...AFTER the reading of the Norris open letter, the Senators on the investigating committee who were present (Senator Reed of Pennsylvania, the Chairman of the Committee, was absent from the city) made statements exonerating the Senators whose names had been deleted in the Hearst documents...
...Did you consider the liabilities for the libel you might be subjected to...
...N. Y. Aug...
...I have not had any communication with Mr...
...William E. Borah is supposed to have received $500,000.'' At the suggestion of Senator Robinson, Chairman Reed corrected his statement of the qut-.-.-tion: "It purports to show that that money w: i taken out of the Mexican Treasury for the purpose of being paid to Senator Borah...
...Elias to the President of Mexico on August 18, 1926, f^hk-h, in translation, reads as follows: NEW YORK...
...That phase was the one relating to the Senators...
...Know Nothing of It SENATOR NORRIS, who was ill at his home, at the time of the hearing, made his statement to Senator Hiram Johnson, acting for the investigating committee, accompanied by the official reporter...
...Senator Norris in his open letter than calls Mr...
...After Senator La Follette had been duly sworn at his request, Senator Reed, the Chairman, said to him: "Senator La Follette, do you want to see this paper I have here...
...and on the lower lefthand corner of the page are the letters 'EL-AME.'" "What can you tell me about that...
...These men were standing as forcefully as they know how against a policy in Mexico which you were in favor of...
...President...
...I am not acquainted with Mr...
...It has nothing whatever to do with the matter just adjudicated by the Senate...
...You say in these articles that that was the object which the Mexican officials had in view when these documents were turned over to you...
...Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That a special committee of five Senators shall be forthwith appointed by the President of the Senate...
...I am not unmindful of the fact that these charges appear in newspapers published by Mr...
...asked Senator Reed, the Chairman...
...And Mr...
...if he had told you, as he has since testified, that he knew nothing about it, that he had nothing to with it, you would at once have haeT positive proof that there was something wrong with these documents and that no honest man could afford to give it publicity without at least making further investigation...
...The evidence in this case discloses conclusively that neither the Senator from Idaho (Mr...
...EFFECTIVE SUFFRAGE NO RE-ELECTION MEXICO, D. F., July 15, 1926...
...and I trust that this committee will investigate it to the bottom and report such action to the Senate as will make an example of these crooks and scoundrels for all time to come...
...Chairman, inasmuch as these initials correspond with those in my name, and inasmuch as there is no other Senator at this time or in the Senate at the time that this alleged document is purported to have been executed with similar initials...
...One of the handwriting experts, El-dridge W. Stein, of New York City, reported that: "All the disputed' signatures of P. Elias Calles, (President of Mexico) are, in my opinion, unquestionably not genuine...
...i they are true, why, then the Mexican (itvernment itself is guilty of a crime that cannot be described in words...
...Investigation of Documents Published In Hearst Papers Purporting to Show Payments of Money Out of Mexican Treasury To United States Senators As Told in The Congressional Record and by Witnesses Before the Special Investigating Committee THE RESOLUTION for Senate investigation of the extraordinary documents published in some twenty-six Hearst newspapers, involving the honor and integrity of members of the Mexican Government and members of the United States Senate, was adopted by unanimous vote, December 9, immediately after the adoption of the Norris resolution relating to the Vare case...
...Borah), nor the Senator from Nebraska (Mr...
...In fact, on December 9, 1927, when the Hearst papers first published this alleged order giving the money to four United States Senators, there was spread clear across the front page of the Washington Herald this remarkable statement: "'$1,215,000 ORDERED PAID TO FOUR SENATORS BY MEXICO.' "You have admitted before the committee, that, in your judgment, the Senators were entirely innocent...
...Senator Borah replied...
...We did not want your name to go out without at the same time having any statement that you might want to make to go with it...
...Malone, either personally or otherwise, for five or six years...
...As for Avila, Elias said he had never seen the man pievious to the time he saw him in the committee room...
...In conclusion, Senator Heflin remarked: "I think it has come to a miserable and pitiful pass that a Senator cannot take a stand in the United States Senate for the good of his country and in the interest of* peace without having a bunch of blackmailers and scalawags and scoundrels to link his name in such a scandalous purpose as this...
...SENATOR BRUCE of Maryland said: "Mr...
...Senator Heflin was called first...
...It is therefore ordered by superior authority that this expediente pass the audi-ing department without the corresponding requisites of law...
...That is in March, 1927—the second withdrawal...
...It is rather remarkable that it is only this class of Senators whose reputations are attacked...
...Continuing, Senator Norris says in his open letter: "Before you published allegations that would blacken the name of United States Senators your representative in -Washington could have called upon these Senators and gotten their version of the affair...
...You gave no such intimation to the country until you were faced with the question on the witness stand...
...Hearst should have called upon Mr...
...I have not seen Senator Norris nor had any communication with him since 1918...
...Senator Robinson of Arkansas said: "Mr...
...Senor General Plutarco Elias Calles, I resident of the Republic of Mexico, D. F. My Dear Brother: This letter serves to inform you that on the fourteenth of this month I delivered to Mr...
...I have never been approached, cither directly or indirectly, by a Mr...
...You had that liability in mind when you did not use the names...
...This would have disclosed what has already, in part, been disclosed before the committee— that no such telegrams passed between the parties, and now, since the representative of the telegraph company has testified, at least as to some of these official telegrams, it has been shown that they did not, in fact, exist and that such telegrams as published in the Hearst papers have, as a matter of fact, never been sent or received...
...Consul General Elias took the stand and denied that the Mexican Government had expended any money for propaganda in this country, or that he had ever received, or been told that he would receive, any money for any United States Senator...
...I have been satisfied all the time that there was no truth in them...
...Chairman, I do not know whether that amount was raised to be delivered to me or not, but I do know that it was not delivered nor any part of it, nor did any representative of the Mexican Government, or anybody else, ever approach me on this subject...
...I would not know film if I were to see him...
...Your admission that in taking this course you had in mind the saving of yourself from damages in a libel suit is an admission that you believe, yourself, that the alleged official documents were forgeries...
...And then there is no signature, but the line for signature...
...Friday and Saturday, December 16 and 17, the investigating committee was occupied chiefly with the testimony of various employes of the Hearst newspapers and the testimony of the officials of the telegraph and cable companies, a * * Quotes Hearst's Testimony MONDAY, December 19, Senator Howell of Nebraska asked unanimous consent that iin open letter by Senator Norris to William Randolph Hearst be read by the Clerk of the Senate...
...This is manifestly an attempt on the part of the Hearst papers to deceive the people as to what the real facts were...
...All I can say is that no one ever approached me with regard to a matter of this kind in any way, shape or form...
...I have not received any money, any things of value, or emoluments, of any kind from any person or persons, either directly or indirectly...
...Did Mr...
...Furthermore, says Senator Norris in his open letter: "Even now, after this disclosure, the Hearst papers are undertaking to deceive the people of the United States as- to what really was done before the committee...
...Hearst and his employes, is relied upon to prove the authenticity of the fraudulent nature of the documents...
...Chairman Reed asked further: "The ,ule !: correspondence and papers, Senator, appears In indicate that this money was to be transmitted to New York to Mr...
...I never was waited on by him and never was visited by him or anyone representing him...
...The person reading the heading and nothing else will get the idea that Elias, the Mexican representative, was the fellow who destroyed the telegrams, and that they cannot be produced because the Mexican officials have destroyed them...
...I guess so...
...Sanator Borah answered: "No...
...Q...
...The resolution for investigation of the documents published in the Hearst papers follows: Whereas the Washington Herald, a newspaper published in Washington, D. C., in its issue of December 9, 1927, publishes photographic copy of a letter purporting to evidence the payment of large sums of money to three Senators of the United States, by the Government of the Republic of Mexico, for the purpose of influencing their official action, and publishes also a purported translation of said letter, as follows: To the Chief Clerk of the Controller's Department : By direction of the Citizen President of the Republic you will please order the passage of expediente No...
...Never Heard of It MK...
...It is written in Spanish, but the purport of it is that $250,000 had been asked at that time by Senator Borah, but that the Mexican Treasury was in such shape that only $100,000 could be paid...
...He said the whole story of the deicument, so far as facts were concerned, was fictitious and baseless...
...Your own newspapers about two years ago exposed the fact that our own State Department had been offered and had accepted forged Mexican documents...
...Probably...
...Hearst to give this information to the public...
...If they denied, as they have already testified, that they had any connection whatever with this disgraceful business and knew nothing of it, you would again have had notice that any honest man would welcome, that there was something wrong with this document which you published.- And your excuse, given on the witness stand, that it would have given premature publicity to the transaction, is obviously false...
...Malone testified that according to his recollection he was in the south of France at the time the money was said to have been delivered and suggested that the banks with which he had dealings would supply the committee with a complete listing of all deposits and withdrawals of every nature whatsoever covering the perioel involved in the investigation...
...To Mr.-, $350,000...
...4th to the senate investigating committee by William A. Deford, counsel for Mr...
...Each Senator was told what amount the documents purported to show he had received out of the Mexican treasury and each Senator was asked categorically whether he had been approached in the matter...
...William Randolph Hearst was the first witness...
...and the said committee is hereby authorized and instructed immediately to investigate what moneys, rewards, or things of value have been given, promised, or offered to any Senator or.Senators of the United States by any government or official of any foreign power for the purpose of propaganda or the purpose of influencing the official act of such Senator or Senators...
...The committee will be glad to hear anything you have to say about it...
...Dudley Field Malone the sum of $1,200,-000, for him to deliver or place at the disposition of Senator William E. Borah, as is stipulated in the memorandum in your possession...
...14396, corresponding to authorization No...
...I never have seen him, that I know of, and, as far as I know, there isn't any truth whatever in any of the statements in the document, certainly no truth in them as far as I am concerned, t have never had anyone approach me on the subject, either directly or indirectly...
...to make whatever statement you desire to make, that it might appear with those of the other Senators," . . . Senator Norris said...
...Senator Reed, the Chairman, said to him: "Senator La Follette, the committee has just been handed a paper, apparently dated May 12, 1926, mhich purports to be an order by the President of Mexico to the Secretary of the Treasury of Mexico, directing the payment of $15,000 to his Excellency Senator R. M. L. There is no further identification of the Senator, but as the initials are yours, the committee did not want it to become public without at the same time making public anything that you might care to say about it, and we should be glad to hear anything you wish to say...
...Did you go to the Senators mentioned and ask them...
...and the dastardly attempt to link my name with the charges pending before this committee will not cause me to deviate so much as a hair's breadth from the course which I have marked out for myself with regard to the attitude of this country toward Mexico or any other power...
...I know nothing about it, except . \ . being developed here in this hearing...
...Mr...
...How easy it would have been," he says, "for you or the editor of your New York American to have called Mr...
...Without anything else of moment, with loving salutations for all, your brother who ioves you...
...DR-LMdeO...
...Senator La Follette said: "Mr...
...Fictitious and Baseless AMONG the other witnesses who appeared before the investigating committee, Thursday, December 15, was Miguel Avila, w^ho, as shown by the testimony of Mr...
...Following this citation Senator Norris in his open letter to Mr...
...In fact, I do not believe they did receive any money...
...So well has that been spoken of by the Senator from Arkansas (Mr...
...Did you investigate whether mony had been actually paid to United States Senators ? "A...
...Hearst's attention to the fact that it was rlleged in one of these documents that Dudley Field Malone was the go-between—the cashier, as it were—who received the money from the so-called Mexican traders and delivered it to the four Senators named...
...President, . . . we were asked in the first place by the resolution that was presented by the Senator from Pennsylvania to investigate a single phase of the publications that had appeared...
...The correspondence further seems to indicate that Mr...
...Have you any evidence that any Senator received any such money as mentioned here ? "A...
...Hearst's testimony before the investigating committee as follows: "Q...
...THE Vice-President, after the vote on the resolution, forthwith appointed the five members of the investigating committee: Senator Reed of Pennsylvania, Senator Robinson of Arkansas, Senator Jones of Washington, Senator Bruce of Maryland, Senator Johnson of California...
...to wait until after the holiday season has passed, and to leave under a cloud the name and fame of Senators who apparently are just as honorable as any Member of this body, would be an act of injustice to which I do not propose to be a party...
...Let me add ihi?: If anything such as is narrated in these (ic-uments had occurred, or anyone had approached me, as the documents seem to infer, I would have exposed the matter at once, and it would not have been necessary to wait for Mr...
...Malone answered: "No, sir, I have never acted as intermediary between the Government of Mexico and any individual Member of Congress, or any attache of our Government at any time throughout my public or semi-public life" . . . and added, "I would like to say, Senator Reed, that I have not Been Senator Heflin since 1913...
...Elias...
...You admitted on the stand that that was the object you had in view...
...Why, then, did you permit your papers to publish such misleading and damaging headlines and why were you silent during all the time from December 9 until you appeared on the witness stand on December 15...
...Elias and given him an opportunity to explain and gotten from him permission to examine the telegrams of which some of the documents purport to be copies...
...You intended to give it publicity...
...There is no doubt but that if you had taken this course he would have done what he did before the committee—given permission for the examination of all telegrams that had passed between him and the President of Mexico...
...President, . . . though we have not completed our investigation, we have, I believe, prosecuted it far enough to be justified in declaring that there is not the least likelihood that anything whatever will hereafter be developed in it to tarnish to the slighest extent the stainless reputation for integrity which the four Senators have enjoyed...
...On the second page of that paper, referring to testimony taken before the Reed committee, there appears a headline, in large type, as follows: " 'Where are the Elias telegrams ? We destroyed them.' "It is true, if you read the fine print below the headlines, you will be able to discover that it is a custom of the telegraph company to...
...President, I rise to a question of the highest possible privilege...
...Elias, or Calles I have never had the pleasure of meeting...
...The facts are that all the alleged telegrazns published within the year, the agent of the company has shown, were never sent...
...If they are not true, then the persons who are perpetrating them on the public and attempting to blacken the reputation and character of Mexican officials, as wvll as American officials, deserve exposure an 1 punish-ishment to the very limit of the law...
...On the 14th day of November, 1927, the Hearst papers said, '. . . There is no question of the authenticity of these documents as records of the Government of Mexico.' . . . On the 20th day of November the Hearst papers published, '. . . The revelation of the amazing facts contained in the documents, the Mexican officials hope, might result in ultimate good to Iheir country.'" Senator Norris, in his open letter, declares that instead of the documents being brought to this country by patriotic Mexican officials, they were sold for cash to Mr...
...Hearst, a considerable number of papers, including, among others, what purports to be a ledger sheet from the Auditor's Department of the Mexican Government, which shows that on August 4th an entry was made indicating the payment out of the Mexican Treasury of $1,200,000, of which Mr...
...I am not unmindful, also, of the fact that I have been one of those who, in the Senate, on the public platform, and in the magazine of which I am editor and publisher, have resisted to the utmost the policy which was pursued by this administration with regard to Mexico...
...I think there ought to be some way to prosecute these people for defamation oi character, for slander, for forgery, for perjury...
...Senator \jx Follette .-eplied, "I have not...
...To which Senator \a Follette replied, "I should like to see the translation...
...And Senator Norris goes onto say in his letter that Mr...
...Hearst having admitted to the investigating committee that he paid ?15,000 or $16,000 for them...
...There neve* was, in my opinion, the slightest justification for printing any document which, with names deleted or otherwise, might have reflected upon any Senator of the United States...
...To the categorical question asked by Senator Bruce, "whether you have ever received any part of this $15,000 mentioned in these documents...
...After he had testified and had placed the documents published in his string of newspapers in possession of the committee at their request, the Senators to whom the $1,200,000 was purported to have been paid were called as witnesses and given opportunity-- to deny the charges...
...Norris), nor the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr...
...The report of the experts was made Jan...
...Senator Reed of Pennsylvania, when he took the floor to move the adoption of the resolution for investigation of the Hearst documents, said: "Mr...
...Senator Reed of Pennsylvania, the Chairman, said to him: "Senator Heflin, the committee has just been handed certain papers which, among others, pretend to show that $350,000 was paid out of the Mexican treasury on August 4, 1926, to be delivered to you in America for the purpose of propaganda or influencing your action in some way...
...QENATOR JONES of Washington said: "Mr...
...No, sir...
...The Controller General L. Montes de Oca...
...The committee, as I take it, will proceed at once to ascertain where the documents originated and trace them to the very bottom...
...It seems to me that the committee is under obligation to prosecute this investigation to the limit, to the end that the authenticity of these documents may be established or their falsity may be proved...
...Senator Reed said: "Those papers further purport to show, or pretend to show, that Mr...
...Heflin) has received one dollar or has been tendered one cent in connection with the purposes referred to in the documents at issue...
...Dudley Field Malone was the emissary of th.' Mexican financial agent in making these alleged payments...
...Senator Heflin replied: "Mr...
...I have no knowledge of it, excepting, as I say, what I have read in the Washington Herald, one of the Hearst papers...
...SENATOR Johnson of California said: "Mr...
...Elias in New York, dated March 30, 1927...
...I am not unmindful of the further fact that these newspapers have been among the most ardent supporters of the present administration...
...Hearst's agent...
...since 1916...
...Malone ever mention the subject to you...
...He authorized the committee to investigate banking accounts of the Mexican Government in the Uniteel States, and to call for the files of cable and telegraph companies relating to the matter...
...Replying to Senator Johnson's suggestion that "I have been designated by the special investigating committee...
...I had no communication with any person or persons in connection with this matter, either personally, by tetter, or telegram, or in any other way...
...destroy telegrams after keeping them for one year, and the representative of the telegraph company has given that as a reason for not producing all of the telegrams called for by the committee...
...Robinson) that I will not dilate upon it, but by every witness, from every standpoint, it has been demonstrated beyond the peradventure of doubt that there never was the slightest justification, either directly or indirectly, expressedly, or impliedly, for suggesting the name of any one of the Senators who ultimately was named in the various documents produced...
...THE investigating committee held its first public hearings Thursday, December 15...
...I have not seen Senator I.a Follette since he came to the Senate, or had any communication with him...
...I do not believe the charge...
...3481, issued by the Presidency of the Republic in favor of the Citizen Arturo M. Elias, financial agent of Mexico in New York, for the sum of $1,200,-000, to be charged to secret expenditures for pro-Mexican propaganda, to be paid in the following form: To Mr.--, $350,000...
...It is likewise peculiar that Calles, the President of Mexico, would spend his hard cash to bribe Senators who were already advocating non-interference—a policy that he himself was anxious to carry out...
...La Follette), nor the Senator from Alabama (Mr...
...EDITOR'S NOTE: The names deleted from the foregoing text are those of United States Senators...
...Senator Heflin answered: "He never did...
...To the catagorical question of the Chairman, "Did you ever act as an intermediary between any representative of the Government of Mexico and any Senator...
...nor have I been approached, either directly or indirectly, by any other person or persons in connection with the relations between the United States and Mexico...
...Elias, the Mexican Consul and Agent...
...He wanted this done because it would be evidence ¦jf the fact that he had not received any sums of this kind or character...
...There are documents on which two typewriters were used in preparing them, which like-wise is inconsistent with the ordinary preparation of documents...
...There are changes in the typewriter ribbon writing the document on the same machine not consistent with the preparation of letters in the regular course of business...
...Chairman Reed said: "I show you a letter numbered 56, purporting to be written by President Calles of Mexico to Mr...
...No One Saw Borah SENATOR BORAH was called next...
...The evidence shows conclusively that there is no truth in them.___I felt that these Senators were entitled, not that it might be necessary, but that they were entitled to the judgment of the committee before the holidays, upon the evidence presented, that there is nothing to show them culpable in the slightest degree . . . there is not a single word in all the evidence taken to cast the slightest suspicion upon them or upon any Senator ia this body...
...Have you ever heard of any evidence to sustain suoh a charge...
...Senator Reed, the Chairman, said to him: "Senator Borah, the committee has this morning been handed, by Mr...
...The oreljnary observer will not cease to take notice that the four Senators mentioned were all prominent in the Senate in their opposition to interference by our Government in the affairs/of Mexico...
...I have not known the Consul General of Mexico, nor any official of Mexico, since I was in the Department of State...
...I have before me as I dictate, today's copy of a Hearst paper, the Washington Herald, for Sunday, December 18, 1927...
...I would like to say that it seems to me now to be the duty of this committee to go to the bottom of this matter, and, particularly, trace out the source of these documents...
...we didn't...
...William-Randolph Hearst and his numerous corporations...
...we could not without revealing the contents...
...You must have known what was common knowledge among the newspaper men of the United States that many alleged official documents from Mexico were being offered for sale to all kinds of organizations and to all sorts of publications...
...I know nothing about it...
...Elias and the Senators mentioned in these papers...
...Did Mr...
...18, 1926...
...Haberman or anyone purporting to represent him...
...DUDLEY FIELD M ALONE, when called, was told by Senator Reed, the Chairman: "The committee this morning has been handed a letter, or copy of a letter purporting to have been written by Mr...
Vol. 20 • January 1928 • No. 1
