Omaha daily bee., 1909-09-17

the Interior. until the present day you have
studiouPIv declined 70 have any connection
whatever with the Cunningham claims. or
to exercise any control over the course
OF the department IN respect to those
claims. hat you have said 30 "a written
and verbal communication to your sub
~ordinates and TO the claimants themselves.
Moreover. in May last you came to me
and made a similar statement TO me OF
your course and intention In respect to
those claims.
charge Not Sustained.
The statement made by Mr.. Claws
that while you did thus formally withdraw
from any official connection with the Gun
lngham claims. you nevertheless contin-
ued to exercise your influence in regard
to them. is not sustained by any evidence
In the record produced.
The truth is that had you, or Commits
sloner bennett or Chief OF the Field Ser
vice Schwartz. during the years OF the
pendency Of these claims, been DESTROYS,
through dishonest motives and without
regard to law and the interests Of the pub
lie Of bringing them to patent, the OPP
portunities for YOU to have done so we're
many and these circumstances speak, not
more conclusively than many others, but
sim most emphstlealiy against the &C
eusatory statements OF Mr. CLAWS, is the
fact that though his conviction that the
claims we're fraudulent ar Illegal was well
known in the department he was allowed
during all the years Of the tendency of
these claims to remain in charge Of them
as an agent OF the department when 1t
would have been entirely easy for either
you or bennett, or Schwartz to remove
him TO Portland or elsewhere and thus
take the claims out of his jurisdiction.
CLAWS TO BE Discharged.
In your answer you request authority
to discharge Mr.. CLAWS from the service
Of the United States for disloyslty to his
superior officers in making a false charge
against them.
when a subordinate in a government
bureau or department has trustworthy
evidence upon which to believe that his
chief is dishonest and is d~efraudinR the
government IL is Of course his duty 10
submit that evidence to higher authority
than his chief. But when he makes q
charge against his chief founded upon
mere suspicious and in his statement he
fails to give his chief the benefit OF cir
cumstances within his knowledge that
would eXplain the chiefs action as on
proper grounds. he makes II impossible
for him TO continue In the service Of the
g~ovdrnment and his immediate separation
therefrOm becomes a necessity. You are
therefore authorized TO dismiss L. r.
CLAWS from the service OF the government
for filing a disingenious statement un-
justly impeaching the official integrity Of
his superior officers"
1T was charged on the floor Of the irrt-
natipn nnnuragq af GnAAaAn ~ $500
Governor Pardee of California. that you
had restored to the public domain for set
Element certain lands which had been
withdrawn by the last administration for
the purpose Of conserving water power
sites and that after complaint made
thereof. you had subsequently withdrawn
some OF the lands again from settlement;
but that meantime. between the one act
and the other, an opportunity had been
given to the so-called water power trust
to file entries and obtain vested rights in
valuable water power sites in the state
Of Montana.
Montana Power site Case.
AT the same time that this charge was
made by Governor Pardee, there appeared
In the public press, in a telegram which
seems to have had the widest circulation,
a statement quoted from a Montana paper
that a water power company with a cap
ital OF slO,OOo,ooo had in the interval be-
tween the order Of restoration and the
order Of Withdraw wal, located and obtained
vested rights In 5000 acres Of land in
Montana which absorbed for the COM
pany all the valuable water power sites
in that state, and the statement was ac-
companied by detailed reference to the
particular land office and the particular
agent through whom this result was ac-
complished. The inference which 1t was
sought to have drawn and which was
drawn by the newspapers hostile to you,
was that you had brought about the
restoration to settlement OF the land upon
which were the water power sites for the
purpose Of enabling private water power
companies to acquire vested interests;