Imperial Valley press., 1910-04-30
WASHINGTON WAYS
 OF KILLING sILLs
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 entries in imperial Valley out of the desert land law entirely and is so clumsily worded that 1t is difficult to determine just what it does mean, particularly as to the qualifications of assignees. (The Imperial Valley bill simply added short section to the Desert Land Act and was not op- en to such objection. Ed Press.)
 Referring to the Gleason section. Mir. Churchill said:
 "I call your attention to the fact that the citizens of the valley are not urging this. On page 12 of the Sen ate committees report you will mo- tice the form of the bill prepared by the valley people themselves, and that includes the provision that the assignee must be qualified entryman." That is all we want"
 In the closing argument, Mir. Glea- son tackled an affidavit presented by F. G. Havens, purporting to show that Gleason, the Oakleys and Paulin had operated illegally in assignments. Ha- vens said of Gleason:
 "He was an active speculator in desert land assignments, and has made large fortune by such deals. He has never lived in Imperial Valley, nor done any of the work of pioneer ing, except to buy and sell land and water stock. After selling his entry to affiant he took a 338-acre tract by assignment, and was a very strong ad- vocate of the view that any person could hold as many assignments as he chose, so long as he did not qual- fly as assignee to an amount of land in excess of 320 acres at any one time. He dealt in blank assignments, and affiant has known of times when he had his pockets full of such as signments, aggregating hundreds of acres, all of which he had for sale"
 Gleason said of Ravens:
 "A special agent was sent out by the name of E. B. Linden from the Land Department here, and his report is now on file, and you can get it if you take the trouble, in which report F. C.. Ravens is spoken of as com mon crook That is the truest thing ah he ever did anything honest, never came across it.
 II will say further than that, that when this wholesale contest business was being worked by Sigel B. Skinner, who is now in the Los Angeles Coun- ty Jail, Havens was associated with him, and they entered into numerous contracts with dummy contestants, if you please, to bring these contests. There are reported to have been over twenty cases where these contracts were entered into wherein the con testant agreed that if successful, and case was won, one-half to one quarter of the land should be imme- diately sold and the proceeds appro- priated to pay Ravens and his asso- ciates for their assistance in winning the contest That fact became known to the Land Department of the Unit ed States, and every one of these preference rights of entry secured by the successful contests were suspend ed. They were suspended because of evidence which will come out in the trial of Sigel Skinner, who is now in jail, where he has been for four or five months, because there was not credit enough or wealth enough in the whole gang to get up a $10,00O bond to get him out of jail
 q will further add that F. c. Ha- vens has been for some time under investigation by special agents of the Government"
 That is a sample of the contents of the Pandora's box opened by Sec retary Ballinger and Senator Flint when they turned down the Imperial Valley bill and let Oscar Lawler butt into the matter with a turgid,. inco- herent, clumsy conglomeration of rot ten rhetoric and fool attorneyisms. Instead of relief for assignees in good faith. promptly and plainly provided, Congress is asked to give judgment in the Gleason Havens row, and there is little prospect of the passage of any measure of relief.
 The bill as 1t now stands Is as