New-York tribune., 1910-01-30
CLAWS TO DEN NNETT
Continued from first page :

trials. That Commissioner General Land
0f1ce while IN Denver had expressed conn, conn
dence that several hundred entries would
be cancelled; that government is making
every effort to secure speedy action on
these cases, as all coal entries In Alaska
nave now been suspended for over four
years; that government is anxious TO clear
these. lands of bad entries, that 1t may get
that special agents say coming hearings
will reach some of largest interests yet
uncovered and that Ballinger has made It
plain that he will stand behind them to the
finish; that several of the railroad corpora
tions owned by Eastern capital are making
Indirect efforts to delay the hearings, hop
remedial legislation or permit greater con
solidaton, but ii is the position of the
Commissioner that such entries as are
fraudulent, as the law now stands, should
be cancelled at once, and criminal liability
developed before statute bars action.
Follow somewhat above ideas. l under
stand slanderous newspaper attacks about
to he made on Commissioner of the Gen
eral Land Office, Secretary of the Interior,
Pei Peirce in Alaska coal. | wish to forestali
Treat the source of your information secret.
as have consulted no one. After putting
this out until advised further, avoid m
terviews In this matter
At this point CLAWS was asked regard
ing his interviews with Commissioners
bennett in Seattle and Portland in July.
1909. A personal letter from CLAWS to
Schwartz was read. In it CLAWS said:
bennett and I had quite talk on the
him up. He has no doubt written you
stating that ] am trying to lnVolve nm,
etc. He realizes that he has not
tell tell you many things. but shall not do
so, because the purpose OF this letter IS
not to influence you agains, hi Renhei % nuair our
friendship, which ] prize very hlghly, as L
have few real friends. is my
opinion that neither bennett nor b. Will
last long,
"B." MEANT BALLINGER.
Whom did you mean by 'B.'?" the
witness was asked.
Mr. Ballinger."
"Was this your own opinion, or had
you conferred with anybody else?" asked
Representative Madison.
"It was my own opinion. 1 hadn't
conferred with anybody else. Other peo-
pie may Lave held that opinion, but no
body had expressed it to me-"
Senator Nelson here took up the ex-
animation.
1T seems to me-" he said, that you
were more anxious to make a point
against these officials than to secure
the cancellation of the coal claims"
"Well," said CLAWS, after some re1ec-
ton, "I thought the Alaska coal cases
would be better protected with them out
of the way
Representative Graham: Did you
have any personal ill will against either
bennett or Ballinger?"
CLAWS: mo, SIR
Representative DENLY: WAS it your
idea that bennett and Ballinger were In
league to favor these claimants, or did
you think they were merely incompe-
tent?"
CLAWS: THAT would be only an opin-
ion. l had some evidence that led me to
believe bennett needed the support Of
all the influential people he could get in
order to be reappointed Commissioner Of
the Land Office, and would go further
than he would under ordinary circum-
stances. 1t was hard to judge what
Ballinger would get out of it, if he got
anything"
Representative Denby: do you be-
lieye Secretary Baliinger was sincere in
his declarations that as Secretary of the
Interior he did not want to have any
thing to do with these Alaska cases
with which he had been connected as a
private citizen?'
CLAWS: 81 know that he did take part
in these cases after becoming Secre-
tary."
DISCUSSED CASE WITH PINCHOT.
CLAWS then told of the first steps taken
by him to bring his charges to the at
tention of the President. On August 5,
1909, he had a talk at Seattle, with Gift
! ford Pinchot, then chief of the Forest
Service, to whom he submitted certain
information which he thought indicated
that things were not just as they should
be- Later on the same day he went over
this information more in detail with Mr..
Pinchot and Ex-Governor Pardee of
ART EXHIBITIONS AND SALES.
IS A H.oh11, T,,~>