The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1909-08-10
BALLINcER THROWS
Them OPEN TO THE
POWER M0N0P0LIES
Safeguards Erected by Roosevelt and Pinchot n
Protect People are Torn Down by Seattle Lawyer
in Tafts Cabinet .......,
BY SAMUEL .E EVANS
STAFF Correspondent United Pres.

oh CahNhs IN ht hINb
Staff Correspondent United Press.
HELENA. Mont. Aug. TO-
This is the true story of how the
birthright of great state has
been taken to round out the great
est American trust.
The state is Montana.
The trust is the Water Power
Monopoly, the youngest and des-
tined to be the greatest of all the
brood of American monopolies.
Scheme Worked Deliberately.
There is proof at hand that one
of the first official acts of Presi-
dent Taft's secretary of the in
terror, Richard Achilles Ballinger,
was knowingly to turn over to the
Water Power Monopoly millions OF
dollars worth of power sites along
Montana rivers.
Water power will succeed
steam, and white coal" as the
water power is called, will run the
railroads of the future. Not only
that, the electric power generat-
ed by mountain torrents will be
sent across the plains to operate
the mills and factories of many
states of the nation, and most i'm
portant of all, this wonderful new
power will pump endless floods of
water upon millions of acres of
arid lands, and so make new
homes FOR millions of Americans.
Will Exact Tribute.
But the water power trust will
be in a position to exact tribute
from every settler, and from his
children forever.
1t was in the closing days of his
administration that President
Roosevelt learned of the wholesale
selling of water powers by the
then forming trust. The grab was
at its height. The president sent
surveyors and experts from half
a dozen government bureaus into
the field to find out what was go
ing on. The first and unanimous
report was that the woods and
hills were full of the engineers
and surveyors of the trust, and
that the trust had better maps
of public lands than the govern
ment had.
So Roosevelt had secretary Gar
field end the grab by resuming
government control of public
lands containing power sites.
Locked the Doors.
1t was generally supposed that
Garfield was to remain in Taft's
cabinet, but on February 15, he
was asked by Taft to resign on
March 4.
Not knowing who the new sec
retary would be, President Roose-
velt and Garfield decided to lock
all the doors so that the new ad-
ministration would find every
thing snug.
Day and night the engineers
worked on their plans, and the
LAST THING President Roose-
velt did at midnight on March 4,
was to withdraw more land, to the
extent of 100000 acres, from
the reach of land grabbers.
Ballinger's First Act.
And THE FIRST THING Bal
linger did after he was sworn into
Taft's cabinet on March 8, was to
begin to turn that land over to the
half entrenched trust.
The throwing open of these
lands had progressed for a month
when rising tide of popular pro-
test was heard at the White
House, and the clamor increasing,
Taft called Ballinger in to explain.
BY one excuse and another, Bal
linger secured delay, and mean
time KEPT THROWING LAND
OPEN TO ENTRY, and was again
called to the White House, and
this time the public was given to
understand that the public lands
had again been withdrawn.
Trust Got the Tip.
But 1t was too late-the trust
had had warning and had had
time.
The power sites, scores of them.
were grabbed.
Right here 1t might be we'll to
remark that water power site
has to be mighty small one not
to be worth a million dollars.
A political explosion will come
with the public knowledge that 1t
was AFTER President Taft had
|ordered Rallinger to withdraw
certain Montana lands, which he
had quietly reopened few weeks
before. that the Amalgamated