Daily Arizona silver belt., 1907-10-26

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 the Phelps Dodge company, in an inter view relative to the indictments re-
 gently returned by the federal grand
 jury at Santa Fe, said, aomng other | things:
 Tn the first place, every citizen of
 the United States is entitled to locate | l6O acres of coal land It must be | located for his own benefit and at the
 time of location he must make proof l that he is not acting for the interests
 of any other person in seeking to ex-
 ercise his right. It is well known
 fact that the coal deposits of New
 Mexico, and generally wherever found
 in the mountain regions, are remote from railroad connections, and it is
 impossible to in any way develop the
 same or handle the output until a rail
 road is built to such fields. It is a
 fact that hundreds of thousands of
 acres of well known coal lands exist
 in solid bodies in various parts of New
 Mexico, and that nobody will enter
 them because no capital can be gotten
 together to build railroad to them.
 The government requires that $lO per
 acre shall be paid for these lands when
 ever entered, if the same are more than
 fifteen miles from a railroad, and $20
 per acre if within fifteen miles.
 Whenever a railroad is promoted to build into hitherto unoccupied coal fields, for the purpose of bringing out the coal, the same becomes of some value.
 "The friends of the promoters i'm mediately see a prospect ahead of be- ing able to profit in the event of loca- tion of such coal fields, and it is not an unusual thing, but quite the regular order, for those who have inside in- formation as to the probability of the construction of such railroads to imme- diately make filings on such coal lands. Some persons may be acting more -or less in unison and with an idea and plan of disposing of their entries to the best advantage after such railroad is constructed, and they frequently club together, employ an attorney, in fact, who thereafter furnishes all proof the government requires in the interests of each of the entrymen. Every man who makes his coal entry in this manner undoubtedly has the belief that he will profit by it. No individual can work a coal mine, and no individual in enter ing such lands has any idea of himself working his coal field.
 His hope and idea invariably is to sell and dispose of the same to some company that he may know which has been organized, or hopes will be organ ized, for the purpose of supplying coal from such lands to the market. The mere fact that a lot of men of kindred association work in unison with each other, thus taking up rights to be held by each thereof, is by no means any evidence that there was any agreement or contract or secret arrangement that they were acting in making such entry for anyone else. But under precisely i such statement of facts, the special l agents of the United States charge that | the men who made entries in the Du- | rango coal fields, just at the time it was thought the Phelps Dodge people were working to build railroad into that field had a secret understanding with the Phelps Dodge company; that they would devote such entries for the benefits of that company, and not for their own individual beneft.'
 Judge A. B. Fall, attorney general for the territory of New Mexico and | who is in Fl Paso on his return from where he went for a con- ference with the secretary of the inter- for and Attorney General Bonaparte, was asked yesterday if there were any new developments in the New Mexico alleged land frauds.
 ''The matter" said Judge Fall, "has been settled and the public will hear no more about it. There was no fraud so far as the lumber company was con cerned, or so far as Dr. Ricketts is in the coal land business. The secretary of the interior and At torney General Bonaparte and myself went over the whole case in the tim Der land question and if there was any mistake made it was mado as to the territory's jurisdiction or power to sell the lands, and that is matter for congress to adjust when it meets. The charges of fraud were all based on tech. nicalities and you have no doubt ob- served from your own papers tele- graphic news that the assistant federal attorney who has created all the sen sation has been recalled to Washington.
 "As to the indictments over the coal lands, that is something that took place while was in Washington. I am not as to the details, but from what have learned since returning to Ell Paso, am inclined to the belief that it is another mare s nest
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