Imperial Valley press., 1909-11-27
LAND FRAUD CASES
 NOT ALL ONESIDEO Defendants Make a Strong Showing and LawIer Meg
 aphone Is SilenCed
"stupendous Land Grabbing" Peters Out to Technical and Dubious IT, reqularity in Assignments-Testi- mony of Government Witnesses Shown to be Preposterous.

For the first time since Oscar Law Ter started out to initiate the methods of Heney and advertise himself at the expense of Imperial Valley, as the greatest graft hunter that ever came over the pike, the defendants in his "stupendous land fraud" cases are be- ing heard and treated by the Los Angeles papers as citizens having any rights under the law. Before the trials began, Lawler made mega phone of the press of Los Angeles and bawled through it that he had discovered a gigantic conspiracy to rob the government and was going to send a lot of bad people to jail in fig time. He convicted the de- fendants without trial, denounced as unmitigated scoundrels persons whom the law presumed to be innocent, and so long as the columns of the papers were open to him he filled them with utterly false accusations of land grabbing" in this valley and noisy. ad- vertising of himself.
 When the Los Angeles editors learn ed that there was no basis for the -'stupendous land fraud sensation; that there had been no grabbing Of large areas of land in the valley, and that the indictments charged only. il- legal trading in assignments of claims covering but a few hundred acres of desert land, they silenced the Lawler megaphone and virtually ignored the trial in court. Now that the defense is having it inning and showing that there are two sides to the case, the papers are making decent amends for the unfairness into which Lawler misled them and are giving fair re- ports of the trial. The Los Ange- les Times of Wednesday says:
 "The defense, in the government land fraud case against Frank Chap lin. David Chaplin and Paul H. Me- Pherrin, made strong showing in the United States District Court, yes terday. W. F. Holt, one of the pio- neers of the Imperial Valley, was on the witness stand practically all day in behalf of the defendants. He was under cross examination by Asst.-At- torney- General Lawler at adjourn ment.
 Holt gave an account of some of the transactions of the old Imperial Land Company and the California De- velopment Company. He said both companies were boosting the valley and doing all in their power to get settlers to take up government lands.
 "In the course of his testimony he asserted that government witnesses, who thought they had identified Me Pherrin as the nan who had paid them money for dummy" entries, were mistaken.
 "The Chaplins were pioneers In the Imperial Valley and were zealous in colonizing the new agricultural dis- trict. They took hundreds of per sons into the valley to see the land ana lnQuceu many IO IdhS uP Io|'0 and purchase water stock.
 ''In the absence of title and the consequent inability to convey and transfer lands, the settlers have re- sorted to assignment of their entries. The real estate market in the Im- perial valley has been active but all transfers were effected through as- signments.
 The defense claims that the De- partment of the Interior has recog- nized the lawfulness of making entry and immediately assigning it.
 Yesterday began the ninth week of the trial. So far as it is estimated that $8500 has been expended for the government witnesses. $20OO for iur- ors and several thousand dollars for serving the subpoenas upon the wit aesses. When finally concluded 1t will probably be one of the most ex- pensive criminal suits ever tried in the United States District Court for this district"