Statement Denying a "Split" with the Secretary of State on Neutrality.

The reading public is entitled to a statement from the President—a statement of warning which has been made necessary by a news story issued through the United Press today and already printed in one or more papers and on the United Press Ticker Service.

The headline of the local Washington Times-Herald states that the President and the Secretary of State have "split" on some form of note on neutrality.

The story states that they "were reported in Administration quarters today to have disagreed on the language of a neutrality message." The headline is, of course, wholly false. So is the story.

The subterfuge of saying in the lead of the story that they were "reported" to have disagreed is obvious because it is a practice too often engaged in to invent such "reports" out of a clear blue sky, failing wholly to check up with any responsible source in Washington.

The United Press has been guilty of a falsification of the actual facts. If called upon to give the source of the information it will decline to give it—another usual subterfuge.

The fact remains that the story is contrary to every fact.

I am calling this to the attention of the public because it represents a culmination of other false news stories to which the attention of the United Press has been called by me and by my office on previous occasions.

It is, of course, impossible for the White House to deny every false story. This latest episode, however, represents the limit of any decent person's patience, and I am giving this in the form of a statement relating specifically to the United Press because I do not wish it to be considered as an indictment of the newspapers of the United States or other Press Associations.

The fact of this particular case is that the Press has been informed continuously for the past thirty-six hours that the President and the Secretary of State have not decided, up to the present time, whether he will address any Message to the Congress or what the next step of the Administration on neutrality will be. That is the truth, and it is a great pity that this simple truth, of which the Press has been informed, has been disregarded by a Press Association.