ROOSEVELT'S MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3070, 15 December 1908, Page 5

ROOSEVELT'S MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.

LIVELY TIMES AHEAD.

Received December 14, 9 a.m

NEW YORK, December 13

The House of Representatives at Washington unanimously referred to a committee the passage in President Eoosevelt's Message to Congress relating to secret service men, with a view to considering the question of expunging it. It i§ expected 1 that the Senate will act similarly. It is stated that if a storm bursts, Mr Roosevelt has a mass of material as ammunition for the bombardment of Congress.

Mr Hearst's publication ot letters from the Standard Oil Trust to prominent Americans has heavily charged the atmosphere with suspicion. The New York correspondent of the "Sydney Morning Herald" says:—"Not a littl s plain speaking has been poured out on the Standard Oil people for preserving mischievous, tell-tale evidence. Men of weak virtue but much caution will henceforth ref ase to do business with such careless or unsafe partners. Photography, however, has introduced an altogether new feature into , all this class of transactions, for a photograph as evidence has the selfsame pewuasive weight to a jury as the original; and no man, therefore, can assure himself that what he has written, even if he gets it back and sees it burned, has not been thus copied. The legion of men who have special relations with the Oil people —politicians, legislators, judges, and railroad managers—realise now that the collar round their neck can never J?e shaken off, for rebellion might be followed by yet another timely theft from the corporation letter files. In short, the air is everywhere rife with whispered suspicions and alarms; thousands of men are wondering when their turn to 'fall by lottery' shall come,"