The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1905-08-20

titles to people who could i'll afford To
lose their savings.
To this day in Arcadia valley there is
pointed out to the traveller tree from
whose gaunt limbs seventeen men have
been hanged between the civil war and
( the time I entered the valley in the
/ hunt for land grafters. These tragedies
! were all the grewsOme fruit of the one
big crime. The victims were men
whose crime was knowing too much
about the operations of the land thieves
knowing too much sometimes by acci-
dent and sometimes through their own
misguided efforts. In the land of
'moonshipe'' stills knowing too much
has ever been a capital offense punish
a bic by death at the hands of self
; constituted judges and eXecUtioners. So
it was in Arcadia valley and through
out southeastern Missouri following the
civil war, the tabooed subject being
land frauds instead of the making of
white corn whisky.
From this readers must not infer that
Robert L. Lindsay ana the other princi-
pal thieves were in a conspiracy to
commit murder; but they We're in a
conspiracy that led TO murder as an in
cident. Young Lindsay was supreme IN
the district and his word was law, even
when it meant the commission of
crimes of violence to protect the land
conspiratOrs in their nefarious plans
\ large number of SupernuInerarieS
were dragged into the crime vortex for
meager pay and, once involved, We're
driven to desperate crimes to protect
themselves. Innumerable county Of
ficials and other men--prominent within
the county lines. but the merest cogs
in the big machine of fraud-were
drawn into the common cause of land
stealing. Such men composed strong
secret, oath bound rings in the counties
of Shannon, Dent, Butler Wayne, Rey-
nOlds, Iron, Carter Oregon, Madison,
Stoddard and Ripley
Do not understand me TO say that all
officials in these counties were corrupt,
for some were honest men who dared
not move against the thieves. There
were enough OF the dishonest ones,
affairs of the district and o-succeed in
fostering a general belief that no mans
life was safe who became an informer.
Thus matters stood in the fail Of
1879. Carl Schurz was secretary of the
interior and James J. Brooks was chief
Of the secret service, Elmer Wash
burn having been deposed by President
Grant because he had been so vigorous
toward some of Grants friends in the
whisky ring scandals. had been chas-
ing the ever-active but elusive counter
feiter through the central west when
my chief called my attention to a
communication from a resident of Mis-
souri, TO the Department OF the interior.
This letter pointed out the fact that
wholesale frauds We're being. perpetra-
ted I'm Missouri in land matters and
roughly indicated the method by which
the stealing was being done. Secretary
Schurz had turned the communication
over to Chief Brooks, and it soon
reached me-
The preliminary Investigations were
made by me in my capacity of secret
service operative, and in making
them it became necessary to incur what
at that time was an unusually heavy
item of expense in having abstracts of
title made. At that time the total
government appropriation for the Sc
cret service division was only $50, 900 q
year, an amount but $4,000 greater
than was recently allowed for the
search for the plate from which a 500
counterfeit b i'll was being made. Fors
this reason arrangements were made
ostenssbly severing my connection
with the secret service and MAX
ing me a special agent of the
Interior Department for the pur-
pose of the land fraud investigation
1t viii be necessary for me- at the
hazard OF lapsing into technicality to
set forth briefly the law governing The
acquisition Of the class of lands dealt
In by the thieves. This particular law
""n- 7i" @ffe~' 81 August 1854 and