Los Angeles herald., 1909-09-16
UNCLE SAM WILL
RESCUE IMPERIAL
ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENER-
AL LAWLER TO PROSECUTE
sigel Skinner, Land Lawyer and Con-
tractor of imperial Valley, Also
Implicated In Coming
Trial
sContinued from Page One,

valley with the explicit understanding
that the land was to be assigned later
to the Chaplins. Similar indictments
were returned at the same time against
several other wealthy men with inter-
ests in the valley.
The man with whom the charges of
fraud are said to have originated in
this matter is Sigel Skinner, land law
expert, than whom there is no man
more familiar with conditions in the
Imperial valley from the opening of the
country for settlement. Skinner, for
the last three years, has been en-
gagged in tracing the history of the
thousands of entries made in the dis
trict on the United States records, to
which he has had free access, his work
being done with view to determining
IN which cases irregularities and tech
nical errors occurred.
Many Contests Filed
There are many such cases for a
number of reasons, and in probably a
score of them-in fact, wherever the
lawyer found the piece in question to
be valuable or well improved land-he
has filed contests. The law provides
that the contestor of filing on gov
ernment land, if he proves his con-
to file anew on the piece.
1T is alleged by attorneys for the de-
fense in the Chaplin case, and by scores
of residents of the valley, that Skinner
has made a large sum Of money by
discovering flaws in filings and MAX
ing successful contests. His method
IS to secure compromises with the
entrymen who are threatened or else
to sell to a third party his own law
full privilege, as a successful con-
testor, to the prior right of filing on
the forfeited piece. This novel manner
of making living might never have
been exposed and proved had 1t not
been that a former partner and col
laborator Of SINNERS, a rancher named
Clark Oxford, fell out with the expert
and, in a number OF affdavlts made
public in the valley this spring, laid
bare the whole system.
Registrar Is Accused
Shirley C. Ward of counsel for the
accused men openly declares that Skin
ner has received unusual favors at the
hands Of the registrar of the land Of
hce in Los Angeles, Frank C. Prescott,
and that 1t was through the friend
ship Of Skinner and Prescott that the
matter was brought to the attention OF
Oscar Lawler, then district attorney
for the government in this district. It
was a simple matter to bring the
charges and to prove them before the
grand jury, for the men accused have,
as q matter of record. received from
entrymen many assignments and sold
them to bona f1de settlers, among the
latter being some of the best known
and most prosperous ranchers in the
district today. In fact, the filing of
the charges laid bare another method
of making money out of government
lands which the Chaplins and others
not only admit, but defend as legal and
honorable.
Under this method, the two brothers
really made their money disposing of
large blocks of water stock in their
possession. When the California De-
yelopment company built canals and
opened the valley for settlement and
reclamation It Issued stock with which
to raise necessary funds for con-
struction and maintenance, each share
Of stock emitting the owner to the use
Of sufficient water to irrigate one acre
Of land. The corporation made two
important rulings in connection with
this stock, the first being that no land
owner or entryman could purchase wa
ter stock except in a block large enough
TO cover all his land, one share Of stock
for each acre in his fling; the other
that each share Of stock should be as
sessed each year for extension of the
system and maintenance of bitches, no
matter whether the stock was used to
procure water or was locked up In a