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Show ADMITS LA FDLLETTE WflSJWISQUOTED Associated Press Calls Attention At-tention of Senate to Inaccurate In-accurate Report. NEW YORK, May 23. The Associated Press today sent to Senator Atlee Ponie-rene, Ponie-rene, chairman of the committee on privileges priv-ileges and elections, which has under investigation in-vestigation the charge that the speech of Senator La, Follette in St. Paul last September was seditious and disloyal, the following telegram: "The Associated Press learned for the first time on May 21 that the accuracy ac-curacy of its account of Senator La Follfe tie's speech In St. Paul on September Septem-ber 30 last was challenged. Thorough Investigation was made Immediately, convincing us thai we distributed Inacr ruratety one important phrase, to which attention has beon directed by the senator's sena-tor's counsel. "The Associated Press did not have a staff reporter at the convention addressed ad-dressed by the senator and depended upon the report received by the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Our St. Paul editor obtained ob-tained a duplicate copy of the account written hy a. reporter for that paper, ami because of the lateness of the hour transmitted trans-mitted It to our members without waiting wait-ing for it to he edited or revised by tho writer. Our report on September 21 carried car-ried quotations attributed to Senator I at, Follette as follows: " 'I wasn't in favor of beginning this wn p. We had no grievance. The Ger-man Ger-man government had interfered with our rights to travel on the high seas as passengers on the munition ships of Groat Britain. " 'On these grievances, which were insignificant in-significant considering tho rights and consequences involved, we went to war. We had a right to ship munitions, but I was not in favor of the riding.' "The foregoing quotations preceded by other quoted paragraphs were taken from the reporter's account in the manner stated. They were not written by our editor and were not available to him until un-til nearly 2 a, m., very late for morning papers, It is improbable that the reporter re-porter made a stenographic report. The quoted matter was not read as carefully as it should have been, for otherwise the conflicting word 'no' would have been seen. The Pioneer Press, from which our story was taken, quoted Senator La Follette as saying: 'We have grievances." griev-ances." "We cannot account for the disparity in any other way than stated. It is the recollection of the editor who filed the story that Senator La Follette in effect said: 'We had a grievance, hut it was not sufficient to justify a declaration of war.' "The error was regrettable and the Associated Press seizes the first oppor-tunitv oppor-tunitv to do justice to Senator La Follette. Fol-lette. (Signed) "FREDERICK ROY MARTIN, "Assistant General Manager the Associated As-sociated Press. '"v |