Los Angeles herald., 1910-01-08

The White House, Washington,
Jan, Z, 1910.
Sir: The secretary of Agriculture
informs me, that on the 2Sth of De-
cember your associate forester, Mr..
Price, went to him and proposed to
engaged with 1Ir. Shaw, assistant law
officer, instigating the publications in
various newspapers and magazines at
| tacking the good name of Secretary
Ballinger, and charging the interior
department and the land Office with
corruption. The secretary thereupon
wrote a note to you, under date of
December 20, asking for your recon-
mendation in the premises. You did
not answer, but on January 4 you had
a conversation with him in which you
said you wished to make a statement
which should be read in the senate at
the same time that my message trans
mitting the record in the CLAWS case
reached there, and that you thought
| you could induce Senator DoliVer to
| Introduce the statement for you.
The secretary advised against such
| a course but asked you for a recon-
mendltion as to accepting Prices res
| ignation, in order that he might bring
| the matter to me, to whom, he told
you, it must ultimately come, because
L IlClu COllSlQGIGu lllC NicNlo NAAe'i 5Nt7
and had passed on them
He Succeeded
without further conference with the
secretary and before making a report
to him, you succeeded in making pub
lie, by having it read in the senate,
| letter from you stating that you
| had sufficiently disciplined Messrs.
| Price and Shaw by reprimanding
| a inn
would be that no further punishment
was required, and this before that rec
| ommendation was submitted to the
! secretary and me, whose power and
| duty it was to determine upon Prices s
admission as to his completely and
what action should be taken with re-
spect 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 publications in the press. II
| should be said that the gravamen of
the CLAWS charges was that Secretary
| BaIlinger and the others were all af-
fected by a corrupt wish to patent
! thirty-three so-called Cunningham
claims upon coal lands in Alaska; that
| the question whether these claims were
| 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
the Withholding of it in order that he
himself may examine the evidence as
to the validity of the claim.
Plain Intimations
"These facts understood, the plain
| intimations in your letter are, first,
that I had reached wrong conclusion
| as to the good faith of Secretary Bal
linger and the officers of the land Of
flee, although you and your sub
| ordinates had only seen the evidence
of CLAWS, the accuser, and had never
seen nor heard the evidence Of those
| accused or the records that they dis
closed which were submitted to me;
and second, that under these circum-
! stances, without the exploitation by
Messrs. Shaw and Prince in the daily.
weekly and monthly press of the
charges Of CLAWS, the administration,
! including the president and the Of
| ficers of the interior department and
| land office, would have allowed certain
! fraudulent claims to be patented on
| coal lands in Alaska, although the
matter had been specifically brought
to the attention of the president by
the CLAWS charges.
1Ou SOl1ClLGQ Ine opportunity u
| make such a declaration in congress
for the purpose of offsetting, if pos
| sible, in the public mind, the presi-
dents decision in the CLAWS case, sup
ported by the opinion of the attorney
| general after a full examination by
| both of the evidence adduced by the
accused and the evidence on behalf
of the accused, while the latter evil
dence you and your subordinates had
never seen.
Disregarded Superior
"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 inn
| proper appeal to congress and to the
public to excuse in advance the guilt
| of your subordinates before l could
act and against my decision in the
| CLAWS case before the whole evidence
on which that was based could be con-
sidered.
Il should be glad to regard what has
| happened only as a personal reflection
so that / could pass it over and take
no official cognizance of it. But other
| and higher considerations must govern
me.
| "When the people OF the United
| States elected me president they placed
me in an office of the highest dignity
and charged me with the duty of MAIN
tanning that dignity and proper respect
| for tine office on the part of my subor-
dinates. Moreover, if l We're to pass
over this matter in silence it would be
most demoralizing to the discipline of
the executive branch of this govern
ment
| by your own conduct you have de-
stroyed your usefulness as a helpful
! subordinate of the government, and it,
! therefore, now becomes my duty to
! direct the secretary of agriculture to
remove you from your office as for
ester. Very sincerely yours,
"WILLIAM II. TAFT"
"Hon. Clifford Pinchot, forester"
Congress to Probe
The house of representatives today,
after a parliamentary battle in which
a combination of insurgent Republicans
and Democrats defeated the Republican
! organization, adopted a joint resolution
providing for an investigation of the
interior department and of the forestry
! bureau.
The resolution provides for an inves-
| tigation to be conducted by a joint
committee of the house and senate.
The defeat of the Cannon organiza-
! tion came in the adoption, by a vote of
| 149 to 146, of an amendment providing
that house members of the committee
be appointed by the house itself and not
by Speaker Cannon.
AS soon as the presidents special
message had been read in the house
today Chairman Dalzell of the rules
| tor1 in ixrf1a