Los Angeles herald., 1909-09-20

XII AM confident of the. conviction
of the men charged with fraud
- in the Imperial valley. 1 am
as confident of their guilt of gross and
wholesale frauds of the most unpar-
donable character as I ever was of
anything"
With this strong preliminary state
ment Oscar Lawler, solicitor general
of the department of the interior,
opened long and interesting inter
view at his home, GAG New Hampshire
street, yesterday afternoon, Few
hours after his arrival from Washing
ton on a trip combining business and
pleasure and which will keep him here
until early in October. Mr.. LaWler
told of men and affairs in Washington,
gave a comprehensive view of the per-
sonnel of the present administration,
brought home to Southern Californians
many facts of Importance and handled
without mercy the men who are &C
cused of robbing the public in Inpe-
rial valley.
United States District A. l. McCor-
mack is well qualified to prosecute
these criminal charges and 1 do not
know that l shall take a hand in them
at all. 1 found it necessary to be on
the coast at this time on other busi-
ness and did not come primarily to
prosecute the indicted men-F. N. and
D. Chaplin, Kemper and McPherr1n.
If I am needed or can give any assist
ance l shall be here. The case against
these men, not only as to fact but in
law, seems to me overwhelming.
Progress Of Valley Retarded
"These men, conspirators and origi-
nators of gross fraud, have done more
h. md
people q Imperial valley than all the
natural obstacles found there. How
any honorable or honest man can face
another and defend the practices they
admit is beyond me. They went to
the valley when it was first opened,
located by means of drove of persons
thousands of acres of the best land,
placed water stock on it and sold it at
immense profit. The intent of the des-
ert land act as far as the government
has ever interpreted it was to reclaim
and make useful the waste ground of
the southwest. But the intent-and it
has always been so held-was to make
farms for the people. Any practice
tending to the use of the rights to file
for the wholesale enrichment of men
who did not settle and who had no
such idea at any time, is wholly with
otu the purview of the law.
yet these men have the effrontery
not only to justify their acts in secur-
ing dummy entrymen' and paying
them for making entries and then as
signing their several claims, but dare
to represent those acts as beneficial to
the Imperial valley. To show how far
they will go 1 can tell you that, dur
ing the progress of the first hearing of
the matter, 1 asked Attorney Ward to
give me his opinion as to the legality
of a. hypothetical case.
Cites Hypothetical Case
'I said: Suppose that one of your
clients should have met at the depot a
man who was passing through here on
his way to New York. Suppose that
your client knew this man had never
made his home here, that he would
never do so and that he would never
come back here again; chat he knew
the man had never been in Imperial
valley and would not go there. And
suppose he should ask such man to
file on a piece of desert land in the
Los Angeles land office, your client
paying the fees, and then assign that
filing to your client in lieu Of gift of
$25 made him on the spot-would you
justify such an action on the part of
your client, bearing in mind the desert
land act of the government and the
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