Daily Kennebec journal., 1910-02-15
WITNESS CLAWS is
NETTLED BY COUNSEL
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not loyal 70 his trust and not faithful
to the people-was this one:
| after giving me the full right and
instructions to make full and COM
plete investigation of all the coal cases,
he personally tuJh up an old report
by Special Agent Love a few days
after. and deliberately ordered the
Cunningham claims to proceed to
| patent. The Love report to my mind,
| and | have acted on a thousand or
more reports. did not in itself warrant
favorable recomr endation. 1t show
ed there had been an understanding
among the claimants and suggested
fraud rather than a compliance with
| the law.
| Another evidence that Mr.. Ballinger
was not trying to protect the peoples
| rights, was his appearance before the
| public lands committee of the House
| in favor of the Gale bill which carried
out the statement Ballinger made to
Jones. that he-would do what he could
| to secure legislation which would have
| enabled these fraudulent claimants to
secure patents. If the Gale law had
passed it would nave validated the
| claims.
His next action consisted in his
asking me in the fall of 1905 when he
was in politics and arranging for cam
oaign contributions to hold Off any
| investigation of the coal cases. This
showed ne didn't have the interest OF
tie government at heart"
Dan Olp, "At this time was Mr.
Ballinger an officer of the government
mo, sir: he was on a committee to get
campaign contributions"
another action which showed he was
unfaithful was the fact that after hear
ing at the conference of Mr.. Schwartz,
Mr.. bennett and myself that there was
great necessity of securing construction
of the law of May, 1908, and agreeing
with us that the matter was of such I'M
portance that the attorney general should
act upon, and after instructing us to pre-
pare letter for the attorney general for
him to sign he deliberately changed his
mind for some reason and turned the
matter over to subordinates of his own
department
"None of these are things upon which
Il criminal charge could be predicted, but
to my mind it was far more cowardly for
him to do these things than if man had
actually stolen something for which he
could have been convicted.
'Tn July, 1909. when 7 saw Mr.. Ballinger
at his office in Seattle and told him we
had been ordered to proceed to an imme-
diate hearing, he knew the weaknesses
~lo
the affidavits he had himself prepared for
Cunningham. In spite of this he did not
take any action to secure a postponement
of the hearing.
'These statements are all that I can re-
call that show him unfit for his office
unfaithful to his trust and not loyal TO
the people," Mr. Vertrees read demand
which Claws successor made on him for
certain letters that We're missing. CLAWS
said he turned all the papers over. The
ones said to be missing. he declared
ought to have been in his office
Now, isn't it fact that you furnlsheo
these letters to a paper that you piaceo
all the papers that had been called lot
by your successor in one of the poNes III
the grand jury room which was proken
open on the sth of this month and the let
tars and copies found therein:
This is absolutely false. 1t is frame
ND" cried CLAWS, showing anger 1or the
first time "Those letters didn't hurt me-
Why did want them? They hurt bailin-
ger. If I wanted to steal those letters 90
Won think T would leave them where red
eral officers could get them?'
81 which aDDparPd
in the weekly paper were some of which
he furnished carbon copies to the forest
service He furnished these copies to the
forest service as a further means of safe
guarding the Alaska coal lands. he ex-
planned.
"When did you first do this to safe
guard the Alaska coal lands?"
after I saw the President at Beverly,
last September"
"Ddn't you say in an article you wrote
in weekly paper that the attorney gen.
eral oyerruled Mr.. Pierce on every point
and sustained you and thus saved the
Alaska coal lands?" asked Mr.. Vertrees.
Yes" replied CLAWS.
"And doesn't the attorney general in his
report to the President say that the men,
orandum submitted to him in the prepara-
ton of which you assisted specifically
excluded any possible consideration of
Cunningham cases?'
Il was very much surprised that he
would make that statement" replied Gla-
Wis, because he had my report on the
Cunningham claims before him, and one
of the questions we submitted to him,
thought. covered the Cunningham class of
cases"
The examination was proceeding along
this line when adjournment was taken
until tomorrow morning.
A TWO-HOURS DUEL