Los Angeles herald., 1909-11-27
BANKER MAKES
ODD ADMISSION
HUMOR INJECTED INTO COAL
LANDS CASE
WITNESS SAYS HE IGNoRANTLY
SIGNED AFFIDAVITs
Financier and Railroad Builder SO in
Habit of Affixing Name to Docu-
ments He Does Not
Read Them
Associated Pressl

SEATTLE, Nov. 26.--Humor was in
jected into the Cunningham coal claims
inquiry this afternoon when Horace {.
Henry, the Seattle banker and railroad
builder. was placed upon the stand by
the defense and naively admitted that
he had joined the claimants without
knowing anything about the proposition
and had signed numerous aftidaVits
without knowing what they contained.
Il got so in the habit of signing atii-
davits that l just signed anything that
Cunningham and CLAWS asked me to,
said Henry during his examination.
Henry said he was approached by
Cunningham in 1908 Cunningham told
him that c. j. smith and former Gov
ernor Moore of Washington were in
terested in the claims and asked If
Henry wanted to file on one.
It told him to go ahead and put me
in" said Henry Il told him that If
he wanted my money to draw on me.
He always did. ] didn't pay any atten-
tion to the claims or what the other
claimants were doing, because l was
too busy building railroads. In the
spring of 1906 | took the contract to
build more than 500 miles Of the coast
extension of the Chicago, Milwaukee
& St. Paul railroad. and for two years
l had from 5000 to 100UO men at work
this coal claim.
Everything Went
Il let Cunningham look after it, and
everything he said went with me.
Il didn't have anything to do with
the GugEenheim negotiations and did
not know they were being carried on.
Later when I heard about the Guggen-
helm proposition / thought that it was
all right. I knew then that it would
cost close to S2,000,000 to build rail
road and docks to handle the coal, and
! knew that one man couldn't do 1t
alone. When the Guggenheim negotia-
tions fell through we organized the
Bering River Railway company. We
didn't have any intention of building a
railroad then. but merely wanted to
get a right of way so that some one
else couldn't come i'm and bottle us up
by getting the only available route"
Henry was shown an affidavit signed
by him, i'm which it was stated he
knew most of the claimants.
THAT statement is false" said Hen
ry. Il know only three or four of
these men. This shows that I signed
afidavits without looking at them.
Cunningham brought CLAWS to my Of
flee and asked me to sign the affidavit.
They said 1t was all right and I signed
it, | didn't read it over, for IL 1 had
] wouldn't have let a false statement
like that get into 1t. | was so busy
and got so in the habit of signing af-
fdavits that whenever Cunningham
and CLAWS asked me to sign one, l
did So
So Humiliating
1T is humiliatng to admit it, but
that is the truth"
During cross examination Henry was
shown a copy of the Cunningham
journal When asked if he had seen
the original. he said:
II never saw the journal and didn't
know that Cunningham kept any books
until he told me that it had been
stolen"
After he had you sign affidavits
that you say are not true, do you be-
liove that Cunningham told the truth
when he said his journal was stolen
by Clavis?" asked MIR. Sheridan, the
attorney.
Il believe that Cunningham told the
truth when he said that CLAWS stole
it." was Henry's prompt reply
During the cross examination Henry
reiterated the statement that he was
a very busy man and did not have
time to bother with coal claims. He
said that beside building railroads,
which is his principal business. he Is
chairman of the board Of directors OF
one bank, president of another presi-
dent of "a life insurance company and
has other important interests.
Throughout his testimony Henry IRE
rcsortod to the statement that
he couldn't remember what passed be
tween him and Cunningham, and that
he never paid any attention TO the
business anyhow, honoring drafts that
were made upon him by Cunningham
and taking it for granted that every
thing was Q. X.
The defense expects to complete the
examination Of witnesses here tomor-
row