The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-02-08
Secretary Garfield Asks for More
 Money to Fight Gases
CLASH OF JURISDICTION
Secret Service Men Were Taken Off Land Fraud Investigation and For This Reason the Prosecu-
 tions Laneuished.

Washington, February That the in- terior department in it's investigation of land frauds has suffered by the legisla- tive limitation on the use of the secret service force of the treasury department was not admitted by Secretary Garfield when he recently appeared before the sub committee of the House committee on ap- propriatlons in his testimony just made public. The subcommittee is drafting the sundry civil appropriation bill in which the secretary hopes to see incor- porated an item of s5OO,OOo for fighting depredations on public timber, protecting public lands, etc.
 Secretary Garfield in his testimony said the $50O0O0 appropriation asked for, twice are large as that asked for last year was needed to unearth frauds committed years ago. The secretary said the public land laws had not been vigorously enforced in former years, although it is difficult to fix the responsibility for such laxness. He absolved Congress from blame.
 Secretary Garfield replied that prior to his administration both special agents of the department and men in the de- pertinent of justice which was described as procuring secret service operatives from the treasury department for this work, investigated land fraud cases These cases are investigated only by special agents of the interior department
 On the contrary, when Chief Wilkie ap- peared before the committee he said in discussing the discontinuance of the use of the secret service men in investigat- ing fraud cases that he believed that If it had not been for the proposed restric- tive legislation certain classes of inves- tigations we had had on hand would have been continued because We had reached the point where the men were out in the field collecting evidence"
 When asked if the discontinuance of the use of the secret service men, procured by the department of justice from the treasury Apartment to investigate land frauds, was due to anticipation of the lim- itation Secretary Garfield told the com mittee 1t was not. He added that he wanted to keep the investigation of land frauds entirely within his own jurisdic- tion.
 Members of the committee brought out the statement that the new plan was agreed on before MT. Garfield had knowl- edge of the proposed limitation.
 'There was a force under the depart ment of justice that was doing work of which the land office had no informa- ton and found" he said they were en- gagged on cases on which our own men were engaged, and there was overlapping of work, conflict and friction between them.
 The hearing also brought out the fact that the records show that the only se- cret service man loaned" or trans ferred'' from the treasury department to the interior department direct to investi- gate land frauds cases William J. Burns has not been paid for his work. The transfer was made before Mir. Garfield became secretary, and he doubted that such a transfer was proper.
 MT. Garfield admitted that although the limitation referred to prohibited the loan ing of men in the secret service division of the treasury department it did not prohibit the borrowing of men from the new secret force of the department of justice.