The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-03-19
LAND GRAF TIERS
 REAP B|G HARVEST Something Like Seventy
 five Millions Stolen BALLINGER ACCUSED
Resigned Secretary Has Been Fully EAonerated by Committee of Congress-How Graft
 Was Worked
By SIDNEY EsPEY


 been found in every government depart
 ment and huge sums of money have been stoyen in one way or the other, the de- partment of the interior leads the list l of departments in furnishing rich spells | for these "apaches of finance"
 | During the last 25 years it has been es- | timated that more than s75, GOO has been stolen from the government in lands. Re- gently this estimate has been augmented,
 when it was found that certain corpora
 tions have laid greedy hands on valuable
 mineral lands in the west and in Alaska.
 In Alaska alone the total land grabbing
 has been estimated at over s20O,0OO.0Oo Land depredations in the early days were confined mainly to the ranchers.
 This form of land grabbing was termed
 Illegal fencing" From that the frauds extended to real estate dealers, who bought soldiers script, homestead entry deeds, lieu script, and other forms of government deeds conveying public lands to private owners. In later days cor porations entered the field, until much land in the west was owned by syndicate.
  the part of the government to undertake Investigations. Detectives were hired. special bureaus were organized, and the work Of reclaimaing lands illegally ob- tained from the government was com menced. The mares nest thus unearthed brought within the reaches of the law
 some of the most prominent men in pub I; o,,1 &a
 men were sent to the penitentiary and others were allowed to retain their good
 names and regulations only after the strongest political pressure was brought to bear
 The condition of affairs naturally re- | fected upon the various administrations. Not one of the secretaries of the Interior l Department, with few exceptions, down to the present time, spent four years in of- | flee without having been under fire. | Either as to his action in respect to the opening of the public lands to entry or in failing to actively prosecute the thieves and grafters who illegally obtained lands from the government Some harsh criti-
 cism was directed against several of the secretaries, and, in one case. it has been openly stated that the cabinet officer was "too closely allied with the interests to dispel the cloud of graft.
 Secretary Ballinger, who resigned his portfolio on March [, had been under con- stant fire from many points since he en- tered President Taft's cabinet-in fact,
 ever since his appointment by aex-Presi- dent Roosevelt as commissioner of the general land office. The finger of accusa- ton was pointed at him by reason of his
 action in respect to the Cunningham
 coal claims in Alaska, which it was
 claimed in Congress MT. Ballinger had passed, after having been advised that they were tainted with fraud. These lands
 are reputed to be worth many millions
 of dollars. Since that time the secretary
 had been under fire in respect to the con- servation of the public forests, having been accused of wasteful administration,
 too much leniency to land-grabbers, and
 numbers of other things respecting the public domain.
 He, however, was sexonerated of all
 blame in connection with the mal-admin- lstration of his office by committee of Congress which investigated the case. In the main large corporations of the country have been the principal offenders | against the public domain. Real estate | firms, mining firms, and other companies engaged in large industries in the west have been accused at different times of land grabbing. The most gigantic frauds, | however, were those carried on by a ring
 of real estate dealers in San Francisco.
 Their mode of operation defed detection | by officers of the government for years. | Dummy entrymen were obtained and ! deeds to large tracts of land secured Lands worth S125 an acre to $250 an acre were secured for from s5 to $500 per tract
 of 160 acres These lands were sold to
 numbers of individuals who settled upon
 the land, and complied with the terms of | the government. Often again the ring
 would have legislation passed by Con- gress which would be to their interest,
 such as the creation of forest reserves,
 where thousands of acres of their prop
 erty was located In lieu of this land the
 ring would obtain deeds from the gov
 ernment to other and generally more ex- pensive lands. These operations were
 carried on successfully for years, until 1 in the administration of Secretary Hitch- cock, special detectives were employed to
 run down the grafters and thieves A
 number of them were routed out of the
 general land office in this city and in | some of the western states.
 | Through these men information was
 gathered concerning the ring and num- bers of other offenders.
 | Of the San Francisco firm, the depart
 ment got such information as practically
 cleaned up the greater part of the graft CTS in the one fell swoop. The dominant member of this firm was man of the highest reputation, prominent in club and social circles, who had climbed from pov-
 erty to affluence within short time. He was brought to the District of Column ba, along with several of his eo-conspir- ators, for frauds in lands in nearly every state in the west. After a trial which
 covered the history of his crimes for more than ten years, he was sentenced to the pententiary. l The information received in this case was gotten by detectives and others who | secured the world in their search. The | case ruined several men and two women, caused the tragic death of two of tho principals involved, and the loss of for
 tune of another. Several of the minor l figures in the case, clerks in the general
 land offices, lost positions they had occu-
 pied for years, because they took bribes | from the land storks.
 | The history of the general land office,
 or that part of it which deals with the
 public domain. is replete with cases. of
 this kind. Hundreds of cases are on file
 concerning individuals who have applied | for government land, and later sold out | to some promoter.
 l The methods of obtaining lands from the government is generally known to all the
 people of the west, and for this reason
 many westerners have at one time or an
 clher obtained homesteads of 16O acres or
 more. During the last few years many new reservations have been opened py
 the government and this has caused per
 sons from the easterr states to take up