The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-01-05

1,sss G-'-- W o IT From the Government Service Investigation by
 Congress Asked For.
 The. Ballinger-Pinchot controversy, brought before Congress by a resolu- tion of investigation, began with the refusal of Richard Achilles Ballinger- within a few weeks after he became Secretary of the Interior, on March 6 last-to withdraw from entry certain portions of the public lands for so- called ranger sites at the request of Clifford Pinchot, chief of the Forest Service of the Z Department of Agri- culture. The dispute has grown, until today it is admittedly the foremost feature of ,President Taft.s4 admins tration Originally departmental af fair. 1t has expanded until of late it has resulted in whisperings of a Back from ElbaD, movement, with Theodore Roosevelt in the role of Napoleon and the activities of the Forest Service spread plot fer tue discrediting of the Taft regime. N It ShasheilR Rrossed the at, tention of the Cabinet, while import ant international affairs waited; pre- ceded long lists of distinguished per- sonages with important business on the engagement list of President Taft, and, finally, has halted Congress in its business of making. laws In the last days of the preceding administration James R. Garfield, then Secretary of the Interior, by di- rection of President Roosevelt, and with the idea of preserving the pulp lie domain from monopolistic ex-
 s1 k1, vast tracts of land located along wes- tern rivers, peculiarly adapted for fur nishing hydraulic electric power, During the last two weeks of February 1909, Garfield kept the midnight car bons agfow in his office boring over maps of western states, and stabbing with little pins as marks for with drawal, rivers which seemed to have power. site possibilities. These with drawals were under the supervisory authority'' of the Secretary of the In- terior. This authority, Garfield held, gave him the right to withdraw. ap- parently valuable lands until Congress should have time to legislate regarding their future disposition.
 Then the Taft regime began, and Ballinger replaced Garfield in the In terior Department. Chief Forester Pinchot, through his superior, Secre- tary Wilson, of the Department of Agriculture, had been recommending to the Interior Department for with drawal as ranger sites, small tracts in the public domain, outside of the forest reserves. There had been no difficulty under the Roosevelt admin istration, but when the first batch of these proposed withdrawals, located in the states of Washington and Oregon. reached Secretary Ballinger, he re- fused to approve them, saying that such action would be adding to the forest reserves-a power held exclu- sively by Congress-in those states. This was the opening gun. Secretary Wilson took the matter to President General Wickersham where it lay for months. It was finally decided in fla vor of Secretary Ballinger.
 Before the smoke of the ranger site skirmish cleared away, somebody dis covered that Secretary Ballinger was hard at work-and had been since a week after his taking office-restoring to entry millions of those acres that Roosevelt and Garfield had withdrawn only short time before Ballinger founded his restorations on the the- ory that the Secretary of the Interi- Or has none of the ."supervisory au- thority'' which Secretary Garfield had quoted to justify the withdrawals. Out of the west came a chorus of disapproval. Ballinger continued his restorations, until the matter was called to the attention of President Taft, who decided in favor of the supervisory authority
 This brought the Ballinger . admin istration down to August 1909, and then through the lowering cloudbanks there flashed, with thunderous re- port, the Glayis charges, regarding the Cunningham coal claims ir Alas lxa, as follows:
 "As to the action of the Land Office on these claims (the Cunningham coal entries), I assert that the Land Office ordered the Cunningham claims to pa- tent without due investigation when Commissioner Ballinger knew they were under suspicion; that while in office Commissioner Ballinger urged Congress to pass a law which would validate fraudulent Alaska claims; that shortly after resigning from office he became attorney for the Cunningham group and other Alaska claims; that soon after he became Secretary of the Interior his office rendered a deci- sion which would have validated all fraudulent Alaska claims. 4 rever- sal of that decision oh every point was obtained from Attorney General Wickersham. Had it not been for Mr. Wickersham's decision, every fraudu- lent Alaska claim would have gone to patent
 The Cunningham claims near Ka-. talla, Alaska, cover thirty-thre coal entries comprising 5,2S0 acres, A re- port made by the claimants experts say that they lip over 5000, 900