The representative., 1894-01-03

w UuoU uIm, UuC OOO0 AOooOA "e-S
written, and stated on affidavit OF
Leonard Pratt, that the section was
being sold $4,000 too low. Does it
look as though Mr.. Bierman had the
"public interest" in view with this
letter on file in his Office? In his ef-
fort to give Mr.. Goss a dab, he has
laid bare enough to establish prima
facia case of collusion, such as always
has been charged against state audi
tors. Goss may have been thief
enough to have wanted "divy," but
he was no fool.
II sold the timber at private sale
because according to my best judg-
ment and information / had no other
method of protecting the state from
possible loSS."
Mr. Bierman is unfortunate in this
plea as we'll. There is not pine tree
in the state that is not subject to
''possible loss", and under this inter-
pretat tion of the law, he should rush
it all off at private sale. A fair in
depreciation of Sec. would be, pro-
bable loss, and from Mr.. Bierman's
own showing, the section had gone
through the season of 1892 unharmed
by fre,-the very year he said sit
would be likely to burn" Everyone
knows that the chances of fire are
greatly lessened, if it escapes the
first year, and the time the sale was
actually made on January %, 1893,
when there was no possibility of any
loss, until the next season. The
branches had become matted down
in among the roots of years growth
of rank vegetation, which held the
SHOWS a month later than the prev
ious year, thus removing all doubt of
probable loss.
Another fatal admission is the
statement that 'the fire had been
through the section once but did no
particular damage"
1t shows that but little combusti-
BILE material was in among the tim
Der to burn, and also that whatever
there was burnable was already con-
Sumed when he cOnsummated the
deal. This shows that only such pos
sible loss as all timber is liable to, ex-
listed at the time Auditor Bierman
was so frantic to cOnscientiously save
the states interest. Such a cOnsci-
entious discharge of official duty nev-
er was exceeded, nor do [ recall one
equally sensitive except, perhaps,
that of Huckleberry Finn, whose
conscience took up nine-tenths of his
insides. and kept prompting him to
return runaway negro slave into
whose company he had been thrown
after running away from drunken
and brutal father, just because Miss
Watson, the owner, would lose $500
and she never did him any harm.
The public has right to believe,
and so has the court, that 81, 400 is all
it sold for, and from the evasion, and
apparently illegal way of sale,-fo1
Attorney General Childs does not say
private sales are legal, and it does
not take much of lawyer to infer
that he believed the contrary to be the
law. 1t looks as though, were it not
for the persistent racket of Bob Dunn
over this sale, the above sum would
have been all the state would have
got. The auditor has cited no other
instance where an erroneous estimate
varies in any material manner from
the surveyor generals scale bill.
Mr.. Bierman is very careful to keep
shady the fact that the actual sale of
this section was not made until Jan.
%, 1898, although dated back to Dec.
7, 1891, ,-over year. He says that
this has always been the practice,
and that "no one knows why" It
does not take very bright chump to
tell him why when he reads the law.
Itconvicts every auditor of fraud, for
he says "they all did it, back to $780,"
because when so entered it appears
as public sale, and makes a record
that conforms with the law. This is
the reason.
One other fact brought out by this
long circular is that we have second
growth pine yielding 100000 feet to
the section, and it looks almost GRIM
inal for Braden, OF any other auditor,
to throw such timber into the mar
ket, as it will more than double the
number of it's merchantable feet ev-
cry ten years for thirty years, and
will increase in value for at least
half century. Braden deserves the
severest censure for making such
sale, and to cite this as precedent
shows Bierman as lacking in knowl-
edge OF botany as in good sense in
bringing this grievance for adjudica-
tion by an injured public.
This state has 1900 sections of
school lands, besides university, salt,
internal improvement and swamp