Daily independent. [volume] (Elko, Nev.) 188?-1915, 1909-08-17
"A PLAGUE ON BOTH
THEIR HOUSES

The latest expose in land swindles
has made it's bow in dramatic fashion
Down from Spokane, where the dele
gates gather to discuss irrigation and
Up from Washington. where nothing
happens but Aldrich, comes the word
Of wholesale pilfering of government
coal lands in Alaska. The usual methods
of dummy entrymen are reported, but
che swindles of the north is said to be
worked on u most unusual scale. Over
10000 acres of coal lands, some of
tremendous value, are reported to be in
volved. Not only so, but highly re-
S)ected captains of finance and even
government officials, are said to be in
Oh the steal. If there is a steal-and it
)oks af if there were-the connivance
Of government officials somewhere may
be taken for granted. The only de-
tective in whom we have much conf
dence is Burns, the one who ran down
'5chmitz, and Burns says that when you
ind land fraud worth mentioning you
may know that someone in govern
nent Office is getting rakeoff
But this much of the tale is common
place, except as to size. The real melo-
drama is yet to be told. The coal land
1windle has been made part of the
Pinchot- Ballingcr feud. Pinchots
friends assert that Ballinger is con-
nected with these same coal frauds i'm
some way before he became secretary,
and hasn't experienced any alarming
change of heart since. Ballinger's
friends retort that this is base and
contemplate Islander, declare that the
new secretary of the interior is the
best hand at running down frauds that
Uncle Sam ever had and intimate that
he will set few secret service men to
investigating Mr.. Pinchot. At which
The Pinchot men come back with
sheer that the secretary is behind the
times, since Pinchot has for some
months past had his secret service men
investigating Ballinger. Both declare
that the government service is too
small to hold the two men, and an
nounce their intention of taking the
case to head quarters ut the earliest
possible moment. And President Taft
~ IL fat man and the weather is hot.
1T will not take much more of this
sort of thing to make the country cry:
"A plague on both your houses If
the tales of Alaskan coal frauds be
true, the News hopes the perpetrators
Of those frauds may wear stripes with
the least possible delay. But to make
the incident football of the personal,
fractional luarrels of bureaucratic poll
tics is more than human nature can
long boar.
And we cannot refrain from pointing
to this latest illustration of the beau.
ties of bureaucracy. For seven years,
we were told daily in the White House
sormon. that if we would only abolish
those pcsky things. the states, and
contralizc all power in divers and
snndry bureaus ut Washington. then
the corn would yield double measure,
and the trees would clap their hands.
Slucc tn" people declined to abolish
the states, the Only Statesman under.
took to do IT for them; and by the end
of his reign pretty much everything
under the American sun was super.
, Viscd by some bureau or other with
headquarters on the Potomac Be-
hold the result! Alexander turned
faunal naturalist has hardly time to
XII his tenth giraffe before Alcxanders'
sncccssors arc turning Alcxanders
phAlanx"N Of spies at each other. Each