The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-01-11
SYNDICATED FRAUD
INTERIOR DEPARTMENT SAID TO BE IN POSSESSION OF AFFIDAVITS
Enough to Make the Public Wonder How Many Honest Men Climb High in Official Wash
 inRtOm Life.

Washington Special to Brooklyn Eagle. If publicity were to be given to ev- erything that is heard at the Interior Department concerning the conspira-
 cies to defraud the Government in pub lie land transactions d sensation would be furnished beside which the postal ! scandals would appear as mere trifes.
 A story is told there of a former United States Senator who is paying a man $6, 900 a year to stay in Europe in or der that his testimony of frauds com
 mitted by the distinguished Senator
 may not be secured by the Government. | This ex-Senator's name has lately been mentioned as d likely candidate for an | other term in the Senate.
 Agents Of the Interior Department have evidence of over 100 cases of frauds by q certain Western corpora | ton under the weakly constructed | timber and stone act" Prosecution is blocked through the influence of the hold of this corporation on one of the
 richest members of the United States Senate.
 The name of another member of this distinguished body Is coupled with
 charges of rank steals, affidavits cov- ering which were last week filed with President Roosevelt. Another story | that is, told at the Department concerns l the desperate efforts of a former high Government official at Washington to secure the notebooks of his old steno- grapher in order to destroy traces of alleged corrupt practices while in the service. After hearing these tales and | others of a similar character one is forced to wonder how many strictly honest men there can be in the National Assembly.
 The rapid decrease in the area of
 public lands and the increasing value of the timber tracts, together with the loosely drawn Federal laws governing
 their disposal, are generally held to be responsible for the gigantic combi-
 nations that have been organized to
 steal. The prospect of getting hold of thousands of acres of land at q net cost
 of about $1.50 an acre and selling at
 $20 an acre has excited the cupidity of
 grafters, big and little. The frauds
 have ranged in magnitude from the op-
 erations of the petty thief, who is sat-
 isfled to get off with a single patent,
 covering d steal of lGO acres, to the
 intricate workings of a syndicate with
 ramitcations extending from executive
 departments at Washington into the
 State Houses of California, Oregon and other States, and whose swag Is meas
 ured by hundreds of thousands of acres.
 The profits of the business are sufH- ciently large to tempt even the most cautious. Thousands and thousands of
 acres of land, secured under fraudu- lent methods at an average cost of not
 more than $1.50 m acre. have been dis
 posed of at prices ten and fifteen times greater. In exchanging their scrip" for new lands, the holders usually seek land the price of which has gone up enormously in recent years. The best
 tracts are in Washington, Oregon, Mon
 tana Idaho and California. Sometimes
 the grafters locate down in Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico, on lands val
 uable for grazing purposes. In these cases they always select areas enbrac- Ing springs. Cattlemen will pay hum dreds and even thousands of dollars