Bisbee daily review., 1911-09-16
GOVERNMENT APOLOGY
 ID WARREN REALTY CO.
Letter of Attorney General in Ordering Dismissal
 of Suit


 In his letter to s. c. Klngan. spe- cial representative of the department of justice, Attorney General Wicker sham of the United States, in direct ing the dismissal of the cases of the government against Hoyal' A Smith and associates of Bisbee, says: It is a matter Of sincere regret to me that the government should have been placed in the position of accusing of dishonesty and fraud persons whose conduct was above Teproach."
 in view of the importance of the de- cision of the department, not only to the persons immediately at interest as bearing upon the mining industry of the southwest, particularly as relat- ed to those districts wherein the for ! nations are limestone deeply imbec- Ged, the following portion Of the at- torney generals letter is published: At the earnest insistaRce of Hoyal A. Smith and his counsel. this de- partment gave them an extended hear ing, at which evidence was produced amounting, apparently, 10 a demon stration of their contention that all 1 of the facts concerning the mining { claims. and the objects and purposes | of Mir Smith and his associates in urg- [ ing them for patent were laid before ! the land department before the pat. ents were issued fully and frankly and without any misrepresentation or l concealment whatsoever; and that ' that department, with the entire evi- | dence thus before it, deliberately and | without being misled or mistaken as | to the facts in any particular, decided 1 that the applicants were entitled to ] the patents and issued them accord lngly.
 "As the situation thus revealed was wholly incompatible with the exist ! ence of any cause of action in tho government based upon fraud and { misrepresentation, l referred the en- ' tire matter to the secretary Of the interior with the suggestion that un' ' less the showing made here should | turn out to be at variance with the true facts as revealed by the records of the department, there would be i nothing for it but to dismiss the suits | After due investigation and consid l eration the secretary by his letter oi 1 August 23, 1911, a copy of which l send herewith for your further infor
 nation, advises in effect that no fur 1 ther effort can consistently or prop 1 erly be made to maintain the htiga
 ton.
 Absolute Good Faith
 There seems to have been no req
 son whatever to question the good faith and varacity of Mr. Smith and his associates in these transactions | They appear to have expended large
 sums of money in the acquisition oi 1 the land, in the belief that it wa; valuable mineral land, and for the pur pose of developing and exploiting it ! as such IL Is true that they relied largely, if not entirely, upon geologi cal evidence as assuring the existencc of mineral below the surface, bat their confidence in this regard was substan italy in accord with the consensus ' Of opinion among those most comDe
 tent to judge, including prominent
 mining experts of the geological sur
 xey. That the occurrences of. mineral
 at or near the surface were insignifi Cdlii dllQ bOfE AAAttcs n aA-g rNAAO-7AN
 relation to the peculiar deposits which
 the applicants hoped and expected tc { encounter below, were facts vel
 known to the land department at tho
 time when the patents were issued
 as were also the plans looking to the
 use of a portion of the surface fol township purposes. The charge thai the land was in part acquired to bt
 sold and used as town lots and to bt
 used for grazing purposes seems whoi
 ly unsupported.
 Evidently the request which led
 to the institution of these suits was
 due to an oversight by subordinate officials of the land department The
 nature of the case as 1t stood before
 that department at the time when the
 patents issued could not have beer
 known to the secretary Of the interiol
 when he made that request, and was
 not known to this department.
 The cases were as follows: United
 States ys. Warren Realty and Develop
 ment company and Hoval A. Smith United States gs. Warren Realty and Development company and Hoyei A smith, Della Williams and I. w. Wal . lace: United States vs. Warren Ranct company, Hoyal A. Smith and Henry
 Hovland. All have been dismissed.