Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1910-01-08
Aroused by Violation of Executive
Orders, President Orders Dis
missal for InSubOrdinatiOn.
FOLLOW CHIEF.
President Accepts Gauge of Battle Thrown
Down by the Insurgents, Declaring That
Patience Has Ceased to Be Virtue.

| it must ultimately come, because I
| had considered the CLAWS charges and
! had passed upon them
Without further conference with
| the secretary and before making a
| report to him YOU succeeded in maxi
| ing public by having it read in the
| Senate Il letter stating that you had
| sufficiently disciplined Messrs Price
and Shaw by reprimanding them and
| that your recommendation would be
that no further punishment was re-
| quired and this before that recon-
mendation was submitted to the secre-
| tary and me, whose power and duty it
was to determine, upon Prices admis-
sions as to his completely, what ac-
ton. should be taken with respect to
his resignation.
I'm order to understand the full pur-
port Of your letter in which you ad-
nit the completely of Price and Shaw
in the publication of the press, 1t
should be said that the gravamen Of
the CLAWS charges was that Secre-
tary Ballinger and the others were
all affected by a corrupt wish to pa
tent 80 so-called Cunningham claims
upon coal lards in Alaska; that the
fraudulent or not remained to be de-
cided upon the evidence after both the
United States and the claimants had
been heard; that every patent as an
executive act is completely within the
jurisdiction of the President to direct
he Withholding of it in order that he
himself may examine the evidence as
to the validity of the claim.
nlQin
intimations in your letter are, first
that / had reached wrong conclusion
as to the good faith Of Secretary Bal
linger and the officers of the land Of
fee, although you and your subordi-
mates had only seen the evidence or
CLAWS, the accuser, and had never seen
or read the evidence of those accused.
or the records that they disclosed
which were submitted to me, and Sec
ond. that under these circumstances
without the exploitation by Messrs.
Shaw and Price, in the daily, weekly
and monthly press of the charges or
CLAWS, the administration, including
the President and the officers OF the
Interior department and land office
would have allowed certain fraudulent
claims to be patented on coal lands
in Alaska, although the matter nau
been specifically brought to the atten-
ton Of the President by the CLAWS
charges.
You solicited the opportunity to
make such a declaration in Congress
for the purpose of off-setting II pos
sible in the public mind the Presidents
decision in the CLAWS case, supported
by the opinion of the attorney general
after a full examination by both, Of
the evidence adduced by the accuser.
and the evidence in behalf Of the ac-
cused while the latter evidence you
and your subordDates had never seen.
You did this against the advice of
the secretary OF agriculture without
notifying him that you intended to do
so and without comforting with me at
all. Your letter was in effect an i'm
proper appeal to Congress and the
public to excuse in advance the guilt
of your subordinate before the whole
evidence on which that was based
could be considered.
Il should be glad to regard what
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