The San Francisco call., 1909-09-16

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troll over the course of the department
in respect to those claims; that you
have said so in written and verbal
communications to your subordinates
and to the claimants themselves. More
over in May last, you came to me and
made similar statement of your
course and intention in respect to those
claims.
Mr.. Claws statement that while
you did thus formally withdraw from
any official connection with the Cum
nlngham claims YOU continued to ex-
ercise your influence in regard to
them is not sustained by any evidence.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR FRAUD
The truth is that had you or Com
missioner bennett or Chief Schwartz,
during the pendency of these claims,
been desirous, through dishonest mo-
tfves and without regard to law and
the interests of the public, of bringing
them to patent, the opportunities for
you to have done SO were many, and
the circumstance that speaks not more
conclusively than others, but still
most emphatically, against Mr.. Claws
charges, is the fact that, though his
conviction that the claims were fraud
ulent or illegal was well known in the
the years of the pendency of these
claims to remain in charge of them
as an agent of the department when it
would have been entirely easy for
you or bennett or Schwartz to remove
him to Portland or Seattle and take
the claims out of his jurisdiction.
Instead of this. with the consent of
the very officer whose corrupt motives
in respect to these claims he row as
ously in control of the taking nf evil
dence with respect to the cla'ms. and
only when the claims were about to be
submitted to hearing before a tribunal
was it thought necessary (Mr. CLAWS
not having had any professional eX-
perience) to give them in cnarge of
Mr.. Sheridan. a lawyer, whose good
of the claims even Fir. Claws
has not the temerity to question.
TO DISCHARGE
''In your answer you request author
Ny to discharge Mr.. CLAWS from the
service of the United States for dis
loyalty to his superior officers in max
ing a false charge against them. When
a subordinate in government bureau
or department has trustworthy evil
dence upon which to believe that his
chief is dishonest and is defrauding the
government it is of course his duty to
submit that evidence to higher anthor-
ity than his chief. But when he makes
a charge against his chief founded upon
mere suspicious and in his statement
he fails to give his chief the benefit of
within his knowledge
that would explain the chiefs action,
he makes it impossible for him TO con-
tinue in the service and his immedl-
ate separation therefrom becomes
necessity. You are therefore authorized
to dismiss l.. r. CLAWS for unjustly i'm
peaching the official integrity OF his
superior officers.
CENSUREs THE PRESS
Il can not close this letter without
referring to certain other matters con-
nected with your conduct of the in
terror department, which have been
unfairly used in the public press TO
support general charge that you are
out of sympathy with the declared poll
icy of this administration following
that of President Roosevelt in favor OF
the conservation of natural resources,
especially in connection with coal lands,
with water power sites, and with the
system of reclamation of arid lands,
which are all within the jurisdiction
of the interior department.
WATER PowER SITES
on the f1oer of the irrigation convention
at Spokane by former Governor Par7s
dee of California that you had restored
to the public domain for settlement
certain lands which had been with
drawn by the last administration for
the purpose of conserving water power
sites, and that after complaint made
thereof you had subsequently with
drawn some of the lands again from
settlement; but that meantime, between
the one act and the other, an oppor-
tunity had been given to the so called
water power. trust to file entries and
obtain vested rights in valuable water
power sites in Montana.
AT the. same time this charge was
made by Governor Pardee there ap-
peared in the public press, in a teIe-
gram which seems to have had the
widest circulation, statement quoted
from Montana paper that a water
power company with capital of $1O.-
00e, 900 had in the interval located and
obtained vested rights in $4,000 acres
of Montana land, which absorbed for
the company, all the valua0e water
power sites in that state and that the
reference to the particular land Office
and the particular agent through whom
this result was accomplished
THE inference which il was sought to
have drawn and was drawn by news
papers hostile to you was that you had
brought about the restoration to set
tlement of the land for the purpose of
enabling private water power compa-
nies to acquire vested interests; that
after doing so you had withdrawn what
remained and that you took this course
because you were out of sympathy
with that policy of conservation of na-
tioual resources and were In favor of
the corporate control of such water
power sites.
ssIn my judgment he is the best friend
Of the policy of conservation, who in
sists that every step taken in that di-
rection should be within the law and
buttressed by legal authority. Insist
ence on this is not Inconsistent with a
whole hearted and bona f1de interest
and enthusiasm in favor OF conserva-
tion. From my conferences with you,
and from everything | know in respect
to the conduct Of your department, /
am able to say that you are fully in
sympathy with this Administrations at
titude in favor of the conservation OF