The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1910-03-18
OUR WASHINGTON LETTER

Mr.. Editor:
The Ballinger-P inchot investigation
is exciting more interest at the national
capital than is legislation in either
House of Congress. Mr.. Pinchot has
completed his testimony and James r.
Garfield, who was Secretary of the
Interior, holding the cabinet portfolio
now held by MIR. Ballinger, during
President Roosevelt's administration,
has been in the witness chair. Mr..
Garfield has given the Senate committee
some enlightening information relating
to the involved history of this question.
In the statements of Secretary Balling
er's connection with the Alaskan coal
cases as lawyer Mr.. Garfield charged
that he had known of the Guggenheim
deal and reiterated his opinion that the
express authority of the. law was not
always necessary to enable the executive
to act in the interest of the people.
There was long controversy concern
ing Mr.. Garfeld's withdrawal of water
power sites while he was Secretary OF
the Interior, and the Senate committee
pressed more closely for justification
of his right to place charge on their
use by measuring the water resources
which were impounded. 1t was plainly
the sense of the Senate committee that
such waters were controlled not by the
federal government, but by the states.
Mr.. Garfield replied that the states
owned the waters and the government
the lands surrounding them, and that
each party could impose such restriction
az were deemed necessary. The wit
ness strongly justified his large with
drawals of lands and said that his
statement to President Taft that Mr..
Ballingerhad sought to return them to
entry without attracting too much public
attention was based on an assertion of
Reclamation Engineer Davis. Mr..
Davis, chief engineer Of the Reclama-
ton Service, succeeded Mr.. Garfield on
the. witness stand, and said he preferred
not to testify unless directed to do so
by the committee. Senator Nelson,
the chairman of the committee, did not
hesitate tosadvise him to testify.
In this connection it is significant
that although Mr.. Ballinger, Secretary
of the Interior, is to attend the Mime
sofa Conservation Congress to be held
at St. Paul next week, he will not be
invited to attend the banquet to be
given by the St. Paul Roosevelt Club
on March -, in honor of Clifford Pinchot,
former Chief Forester. This is a
significant straw indicating the trend
of public opinion and public feeling.
Secretary Ballinger is undoing much
that has been done by his predecessors,
both ex-Secretary Garfield and ex-
Secretary Hitchcock. A large part of
the lands along the Gande River in
Colorado and Utah withdrawn by
Garfield, will be restored to entry by
Ballinger. Also, coal lands in New
Mexico withdrawn by Hitchcock and
Garfield will be restored to entry.
There seems to be determination
on the j.. part of Congress to
provide large sum of money for the
construction of federal buildings in
Washington. Representative Martin
of South Dakota, member of the
Public Buildings Committee of the
House, has called upon the Secretary
Of the Treasury for statement of the
amount of rent paid by the government
in Washington. The program is to
erect a number of public buildings
within the next few years. 1t is ex--
pected that bill providing for bond
issue to cover the cost of the construc-
ton of the buildings, about fifty mil
lions of dollars, will be presented. 1t
will no doubt be economical for the
government to build its own offices, mas
much as the rented property used is
quite inadequate for government pur-
poses and the amount paid in rent is
three or four times asImuch in relation
to the value of the property as the
amount that the government can Sc
cure by the Issue of per cent bonds.
Mr.. S. J. Murphy of New York, rep
resenting John D. Rockefeller, ap-
peared before the Senate committee
on the District of Columbia yesterday
morning to explain the plans for the
incorporation of the Rockefeller
Foundation in the bill recently intro
duced in the Senate. His explanation
threw much additional light on the plan,
which he said had advanced no further
than has already been made public.
He however, cleared up some legal and
technical details of the incorporation,
and he confirmed the facts already
published.