Imperial Valley press., 1907-08-03
HOLT'S STATEMENT
Takes up the Assertions Made by the Imperial
 Push and Proves Them False

tonight and state few facts, and l do not propose to make whole lot of as- sertions without any proof. want to give you some facts and give you the proof of what have to state. have always made it rule not to pay any attention to personal attacks, no matter where they came from, but the last six or eight weeks this has gone to such an extent that have felt it duty owe to my friends that make some state ments, because 1 appreciate the fact that have great many friends who have stood by me and refuse to believe these attacks, though they have not heard any statements from me. simply want to put up some of these things to you and let you judge for yourselves.
 have not a written speech, but there were so many things l could not trust my memory to remem Der, so l made notes as to what they are. l have simply made few notes of lot of things that have been published and talked about. l wish to state that MT. Howe of the Imperial Standard and Mir. Farr and MT. Wentworth have all been saying about the same things so this will apply to all of them.
 The first thing they are claiming and trying to make point of is that came to this Valley as clerk at salary Of $50 a month. There are good many people in this valley that came here as clerks, but as to myself it IS not correct; it is absolutely false. They have simply made the statement; they have never produced any proofs of it. I had been interested in the Valley here for nearly year at the time that MT. Chaffy and MT. Ferguson had con- trol of matters. They had camp where the present townsite of Imperial is. They had lot of teams and more or less property there. They had no one to look after it and l was in the Valley nearly all the time. They came to me and wanted me to look after that for them they paid me $50 in water stock at $lI.25 share, which amount ed to about $75 per month for that water stock was sold after that for $500 a scare; they did pay me $50 in water stock for simply looking after that business for them, but not to sell town lots I defy anybody to produce proof that ever sold any town lots for the c. D. Go. or anyone else. have never sold any property but my own property. do not see where there would have been anything wrong if l had; it would have been perfectly legitimate,
 The next thing is that they have tried to make something of the fact that built telephone line in herein to the Valley; that the money, they claim, was furnished to build this line and start a newspaper by the Imperial Land Go. Now, the people in this Val ley who know the Imperial Land Go. and their operations, know that they must have been great deal more liber- al in those days than now. The asser- ton that they have given me so many thsngs, must make the people of the Valley think there has been a great deal of change. They wanted tele- phone line built into the valley. There was nothing here but one little bit of a supply store at Imperial and one at Calexico, no business whatever in sight for it. The proposition was that was to build a telephone line and put in telephone from Imperial to Calexico and they agreed to pay a bonus of 32O hares of water stock. built the line, which cost $60O0.00.
 They gave me 320 shares of water stock. made profit out of the deal. I do not deny that at all. do not see anything wrong about that. l don't think any of you are here in this valley for your health. Lots of people came along here and told me was fool to put my money, in here simply for some water stock which they were peddling around and which had an indefinite value. got 320 shares of water stock, that included both the telephone line