The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1893-05-31

ployed as one of his deputies certain
party, whose duty it was to scale on
the river bank, in 1891, the amount
of pine cut by one j. T. Welsh, on the
Willow river, to sell to the Ackley
lumber company. A very small
amount of the whole of the logs
hauled was reported to him as being
hauled from a school section to wit:
Section sixteen (16), township one
hundred and forty-two Q42), range
twenty-five (25), and the rest from
land owned by private parties; but
the witness learned from the teams
tiers who hauled the logs that the
whole of them were being taken
from the said school section.
When the surveyor general visited
the place, the witness told him that
he had learned that the state was be-
ing robbed of it's timber, whereupon,
as the witness testifes, the surveyor
general, who is the paid agent of the
state to protect it's interests, told him
that cit was none of our business
you attend to your scaling and let
those fellows go. Don't pay any at
tentiOn to that. You take what they
give you; we have nothing to do with
it," 1t appears from the testimony
Of the deputy that he kept record
of the amount of timber so taken;
and that while but 359,23O feet were
ostensibly taken from the school land
the amount really taken therefrom
was 3,306,96 feet. The witness noti-
| fed the state auditor of the facts,
and the clerk of the land department
afterward sent for him and said to
him that he had rescaled the land
and found his statements correct,
and that he had collected $4,000 from
the lumber company for the pine so
taken; and he paid said witness 500
as present from the state for his
valuable information.
Your committee have examined the
books in the auditors Office and they
find the said section 16, township 142,
range Is, inextricably mixed up with
another section (36, township 142,
range 25) although the two sections
were miles apart, and the total
amount received from both sections
of timber cut during the winter of
1S90-'91, was but $4,000 of which, as
far as your committee can ascertain,
from the letters of the state auditor,
appended to the evidence, and mark
ed Exhibits III" and ".I," only 49,
622 was received from section H.
leaving balance of $4,73S, which, if
the witness is to be believed, was
paid into the land commissioner and
not accounted for to the state. 1t is
of course to be remembered that we
have only the testimony of one wit
ness as to what the clerk of the land
office said to him, as the amount paid
him, and we pass no judgment upon
the correctness of such testimony.
But it is fair to say that the testi-
mOny of the witness is corroborated
as to the fact that 800 was paid to
him by the land clerk in the state
auditors office by draft drawn on
the man who cut the logs.
Your committee is constrained to
say that when it became necessary
to ascertain facts from the state
auditor, they found the books and
accounts in such state that the in
formation could not be obtained I'M
til certain clerk was brought in to
explain matters. 1t seems to them
that the books and account should be
rescued from their present condition
of confusion. In saying this we do
not desire to reflect upon the present
state auditor. The confusion began
long before he assumed the duties of
his office.
The evidence taken, forces your
committee to the conclusion that
the school fund of the state has been
robbed by these and similar arts of
millions of dollars of it's property.
We have only been able to find COM
paratively few isolated cases, but if
we apply the same ratio of fraud to
all the school lands in the pine re-
giOn, the loss to the state must have
been enormous. We will not 90 so
far as to say that the state officers
were direct party to these frauds
and shared in the plumber, although
some of the witnesses have so testi-
fed, but we can certainly hold them
responsible for great neglect of duty;
nor do these wrongs seem to have
been confined to any one year or any
one state officer; they range back as
far as our investigation has pene-
trated. The lumbermen seem to
have banded themselves together.
The evidence shows that no assist
ance has been given to facilitate the
state in any researches that were at
tempted to be made, and in fact i'm
pedimentS were thrown in the way of
an investigation. One witness testi-