BALLINGER'S ASTOUNDING "DEFENSE"
Ballinger's Astounding "Defense" THE official record of the Ballinger investigation before the Congressional Committee has been published and issued some months ago. It makes a very bulky volume...
...c) it substituted for the obvious reading of letters and public documents the most remarkable technical, involved and (from the viewpoint of common sense) absurd interpretations...
...The official inquiry seems to show that the investigation was Ballinger's...
...made after an exhaustive—and somewhat exhausting—examination of the proceedings...
...The September American Magazine contains an article by Stewart Edward White which the public should welcome as it is a clear statement by this author and journalist whose special interest in forests and out-door life has allured him to study and digest every line of the many thousands of pages of testimony taken at Washington...
...It makes a very bulky volume and one whose formidableness frightens the ordinary reader...
...This is a measured statement...
...Both these gentlemen claimed that their action was based on thorough investigation...
...Ballinger has been twice white-washed...
...How do we know...
...The promised defense has dwindled to shifts and evasions...
...Ballinger's defence fell along defined lines: (a) it flatly denied the veracity of a half dozen reputable witnesses...
...By an examination of the evidence...
...White says: "Nearly a year ago, when the Glavis charges first came out, and when circumstantial and documentary evidence piled up with startling rapidity and unanimity, Ballinger announced that his defense would cause the astounded public at once to acknowledged him as an abused and vilified man...
...Against a truly formidable array of public records, private documents, personal testimony and logical deduction, it had only the above flimsy subterfuges to offer...
...b) it 'forgot,' 'failed to remember,' 'could not recall...
...One humble member of the public is willing to acknowledge himself astounded...
...once by Taft, once by Wickersham...
...Not one record, not one letter, nothing but technically legal interpretations of non-legal matters, no private testimony save denials...
...principal behind assertions of ignorance...
...That defense is now all in...
...d) it sheltered it...
Vol. 2 • September 1910 • No. 36
