The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1911-07-27
Our Washington Letter.

(By Clyde H. Tavenner, specia
Washington correspondent of The
Reporter.)
Washington, July, 22.-Did Presi
dent Taft throw open Controller
bay under conditions especially de-
signed to permit the Horgan-Gug
genheim interests-and no other
to gobble up this richest Of the Alas
ka land prizes before anyone else
could have a chance to file?
This is the big important question
to which the house committee on ex.
penditures in the interior depart.
ment is seeking an answer.
If such was not the deliberate
plan of the administration, why
were these lands thrown open by
such unusual proceedure--by Sc
cret executive order instead of by
proclamation.
Another query: If there was no
conspiracy between the administra-
tion and the big exploiting interests,
how does it come that Spectator
Ryan, supposed agent of the Morgan
Guggenheims, alone know of the is
suance of President Taft's secret CD
order and was able to file soldiers
script on 100 rods of Controller bay
water front within three days after
President Taft signed the order elm
mating the land from the national
forest and before any other man
could have known of the order?
Another extraordinary feature of
the case is this: The unvariable rule
had been to give so day notice before
any claimant could file on this land,
but according to Mr.. bennett of the
General Land Office, when the Pres
ident's order first came to him the
60 day provision was in it, and when
he next saw the order there was no
time allowed whatever for notice to
the public-not even day.
That there was actually an under
standing between the administration
and the men who were to profit
through the Presidents amazing Sc
cret order is not a state of affairs so
remarkable to those who have been
following things in Washington.
There have been presidents exactly
paraleling such performance. When
the railroad regulation bill was sent
to the last Congress by the President
the public was in absolute ignorance
| of it's contents. But the fact deve!
oped later that although the President
had not seen fit to take the public in
! to his confidence, he had allowed the
railroad interests not only to suggest
the lines along which the bill should
be framed, and to load it with jokers
against the public interest, but to
actually pass upon and O. K. the
hof
mitted to know that it's preparation
was contemplated.
Before the investigation into this
newest Alaska land jugglery is fin
ished it promises to develop condi-
ton of affairs beside which the at
tempted theft of Alaska coal lands is
inconsequential.
The probe is in charge of Repre-
sentative James NJ. Graham, Of ILL
'nois, one of the really big men in
the Democratic house, whose career
from the very first day he entered
Congress has stamped him as man
above partizanship and one especi-
ally qualified by service on the Bal
linger investigating committee to
make the inquiry he is now so consci-
entiously engaged in.
An "ImpartiaT Investigator.
G. w. Burton, special agent of the
tariff board who is now travelling in
Europe gathering "exact Informal
ton" to be used as the basis of tariff
revision by the republicans, is an
Aldrich standpatter on the tariff
question. Burton, on the side, has
been writing letters back for publ
| ho
high protectionist paper. This elm
PARTIAL investigator, gathering Eek
act information in a recent letter
declared that: Your tariff revision
demand, fellow Americans, is fad"
In another letter, excoriating the
whole tariff revision suggestion, this
impartial" Investigator made this
judicial and carefully weighed obser-
walton: 1.-The merchants of our coun-
| try who are so inadvisedly shouting
| for lower duties in order to get the
cost of living reduced, should stop
making so much noise until they
learn what they are talking about"
All of which is interesting in view
of the fact that President Taft in
sists Congress should not touch the
ubiquitous Payne-Aldrich rates until
this ''impartial' investigator, G. w.
Burton, has told what it ought to do.
Chickens Coming Home to ROost.
For many years the government
paid a handsome rental for the use
of the Union building in Washington.
1t developes now that one Of the
principal owners of the building is
daughter-in-law of Senator Hale.
and that Senator Hale had inserted
in the Senate appropriation bill an
item which compelled the govern
ment to lease the building. Senator
Hale also caused millions of dollars
of public money to be expended on
naval shore station off the coast of
Maine, the bulk of which expendi-
ture was sheer waste. The principal
mission this yard performed was to
provide place for Senator Hale's
political henchmen. Nor was that all:
While Senator Hale was in the ex-
ercise of almost unlimited power
in the Senate as chairman of the ap-
preparations committee, his son,