SWIFT DEFENCE

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 87, 11 April 1924, Page 7

SWIFT DEFENCE

CHARGE AGAINST SENATOR WHEELER

." DAMNABLE CONSPIRACY."

(UNHID PRBSS ASSOCIATION.—COPYRIGHT,) (AUSTRAUAN-NBIV ZSALAXP CAELB ASSOCIATION.} WASHINGTON, 9th April. The Demoorats moved swiftly to vindicate Senator -Wheeler of the charge of accepting a retainer while in the Senate, brought against him as.a counter-attack liy the oil interests now under investigation by his committee. " The Senate adopted a resolution to investigate Senator Wheeler's counter-charge- that' the indictment was a, Republican conspiracy to ruin-, his refutation and abort the Senate's pa'ugherty inquiry. Senator Walsh, who introduced the resolution, .defended Senator Wheeler, and branded the indictment as a political trick to divert attention from the committee's serious disclosures. Senator Wheeler, in a bitterly indignant speech, declared that! the" indictment was one *of the most damnable conspiracies ever hatched in the ,United States. He said: "My client was an independent operator, who was being robbed by the big oil interests.holding Government leases, but I never appeared on his behalf in any Federal Department. T am not asking for sympathy, but I want the Senate to know the truth." • The. chairman (Senator Bropkhart) meanwhile stated that the Daugherty Committee's investigations would proceed with ' a force, and", .determination it had never known, before..