The San Francisco call., 1896-03-19
DEPARTMENT
C|RCUMLOCUT|ON,
Secretary Hoke Smith Is
Scored by Western
Senators.
VESTS BITTER ATTACK.
How Laws Are Rendered Inop.
erative in the Interest of
Monopolies.
THAT MISSIONARY SPEECH.
THAT MISSIONARY SPEECH.
The Gentleman From Missouri Drops
Into Poetry and Roasts the
President.

tlement some 100000 acres of land in the
eastern part of Utah, which had been part
OF the Uncompahgre Indian reservation.
Severe structures upon the Secretary of
the Interior for attempting to nullify the
act of Congress were made by Senators
Cannon of Utah, Wolcott of Colorado and
Vest of Missouri. The latter inveighed
with much vehemence against the Secre-
tary, declaring that the time had been
when the head of department would have
to answer at the bar of the Senate for such
an attempt to trample upon the legislative
branch of the Government.
Vest caused much amusement by his
witty and caustic criticism of President
CleveIand's recent speech before the Home
Missionary Society of New York.
The Dupont election case was taken up
after the morning hour and Thurston of
Nebraska made three hours speech in
advocacy of Dupont's right to the seat.
After passing numerosu bills, unobiected
to, the Senate at 5:55 o'clock adjourned
until tomorrow.
The joint resolution introduced yester-
day by Cannon CRY Of Utah directing the
Secretary of the Interior to open to public
entry the Uncompahgre Indian reserva-
ton in Utah, excepting the agricultural
lands allotted or selected for allotment to
the Uncompahgre Indians, was taken up
and Cannon asked about its present condi-
ton. The Secretary of the Interior, he de-
clared, had not complied with the law and
this joint resolution was to require him to
do so. He said that the existence of as
phalt in the reservation was as well known
when the act opening it to settlement was
passed as it was known now. The Secre-
tary of the Interior, Cannon declared, had
never intended to have The reservation
opened to public entry and could not have
acted more in the interest of rich and
wealthy men and less in the interest of the
common people. The care of the Interior
Department was not how to do, but how
not to do it.
Wolcott argued that the effect of the
passage of the joint resolution would be
not to give away the lands in question,
but to let them 60 where they belonged
to the settlers.
Vest (D.) of Missouri made a passionate
speech on the subject. lie began with the
remark that there was time when Cab
met officer who deliberately failed to exc
cute an act of Congress would be brought
before the bar of the Senate because he
had trampled upon the Legislative De-
partment of the Government and had
violated his oath of Office. He happened
to know the facts in regard to the matter.
Some years ago a company had been or
ganized in st. Louis for the purpose of
opening up certain asphalt deposits in the
Uncompahgre reservation, In the eastern
part of Utah, and invested large
amount of money. Recent discoveries
had been made in Utah of the largest de-
posits of asphalt in the world. The st.
Louis company had not gone into the
reservation; it had bought land outside,
and wagoned the product down to the
Union Pacific Railway, by which it was
sent to the different cities. The company
did not want the lands, because the
asphalt existed In such enormous quanti-
ties that there could be no monopoly in it.
There was also. Vest said, New York
asphalt corporption which came on the
scene last summer and which made some
adjustment with the st. Louis company.
The question was whether Congress knew
what it was doing when it passed the act
to open up those lands. Congress did
know it and knew very well that there
were great asphalt deposits there. He
knew personally that in 1898 the Interior
Department was told as to the extent of
these deposits. He had gone himself with
the president of the st. Louis company to
the Secretary Office with specimens of the
asphalt and had heard the statements made
to the Secretary in regard to those veins.
What sort of right, Vest demanded
angrily, had the Secretary of the Interior
to nullify that act of Congress? That
practice had grown up under it and de-
manded the attention of Congress and at
once. The action of the Secretary Of
Agriculture on the seed question was an
other instance OF the same kind, and now,
said he, comes the Secretary of the In
terror and says that Congress did not
know anything about these enormous de-
posits, and he takes the responsibility of
saving to the President of the United
States that the proclamation opening these
lands to settlement shall not be issued
Here is positive statute nullihed by the
head of department with no other excuse
except the paltry one that he assumed that
Congress had not the information which it
mas nau IOr tue ldSI ScVcl years.
"There seems" Vest continued, ito be a
disposition on the part of the administra-
ton to treat the Western people as if they
were in condition of pupilage, as if they
do not know their own rights or their own
interests, and as ii they must be informed
ex-cathedra from the East in reference as
to what is best for them. and what should
be done for them. Even the President of
the United States lately, on a missionary
occasion [laughterl spoke of the West as
land of immortality and crime. He stood
with the light-the CHASTITY Iight-of the
hellholes and rum-cellars of New York
blazing upon him, and cantingly said that
home missions must be used to ciyilize, to
Christianize the men who have left their
homes in the civilized East and gone out
among the mountains and valleys OF the
wild and woolly West. Loud and general
laughter
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