Now, these stories as a matter of fact need no investigation whatever.

As a matter of fact, there is nothing whatever, in which this Government is interested, to investigate about this transaction.

The inventor of the story about Mr. Charles P. Taft, for instance, evidently supposed that at some period of the Panama purchase Mr. W. H. Taft was Secretary of War, whereas in reality Mr. W. H. Taft never became Secretary of War until…

All our transactions were carried on openly, and were published in detail.

These stories were scurrilous and libelous in character and false in every essential particular.

It is therefore a high national duty to bring to justice this vilifier of the American people, this man who wantonly and wickedly and without one shadow of justification seeks to blacken the character of reputable private citizens and to…

While the criminal offense of which Mr. Pulitzer has been guilty is in form a libel upon individuals, the great injury done is in blackening the good name of the American people.

I directed or approved every action, and am responsible for all that was done in carrying out the will of the Congress; and the provisions of the law, enacted by Congress after exhaustive examination and discussion, were scrupulously…

They consist simply of a string of infamous libels.

It establishes clearly the fact that the colored soldiers did the shooting; but upon this point further record was unnecessary, as the fact that the colored soldiers did the shooting has already been established beyond all possibility of…

This report enables us to fix with tolerable definiteness at least some of the criminals who took the lead in the murderous shooting of private citizens at Brownsville.

Nevertheless, it is to be said in partial extenuation that they were probably cowed by threats, made by the more desperate of the men who had actually been engaged in the shooting, as to what would happen to any man who failed to protect…

I believe we can afford to reinstate any of these men who now truthfully tell what has happened, give all the aid they can to fix the responsibility upon those who are really guilty, and show that they themselves had no guilty knowledge…

The results have made it obvious that only by carrying on the investigation as the War Department has actually carried it on is there the slightest chance of bringing the offenders to justice or of separating not the innocent, for there…

I recommend that a law be passed allowing the Secretary of War, within a fixed period of time, say a year, to reinstate any of these soldiers whom he, after careful examination, finds to have been innocent and whom he finds to have done…

Our people in the Philippines have achieved what may legitimately be called a marvelous success in giving to them a government which marks on the part of those in authority both the necessary understanding of the people and the necessary…

It is a curious and by no means creditable fact that there should be so often a failure on the part of the public and its representatives to understand the great need, from the standpoint of the service and the Nation, of refusing to…

With broad charity, with kindliness and good-will toward all men, but with unflinching determination to smite down wrong.