The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1912-07-30
NEW WATSON
STORY TOLD
BY TRIBUNE
Chicago Paper Says that
Land Was Given Railroad,
Then Transferred to a Land
Company.
National News Association

National News Association
CHICAGO, July 3O-The Tribune to-
day printed the following Washington
dispatch, written by John Callen
OLaughlin, staff correspondent for the
Tribune:
On May 9, 1912, the commissioner
of the land office issued a patent for
5000 acres of government land near
Prescott, Arizona, to the Sante Fe
Railroad company, which in turn
transferred the property to the Arizo-
ma Land and Irrigation company, of
which former-congressman James E.
Watson, of Indiana, Is president.
Mr.. Watson worked energetically for
Taft delegates from Indiana during the
preliminary campaign some weeks
prior to the favorable action of the
land office. The Republican national
committee assembled in Chicago on
June 5, and Mr.. Watson sat with a
proxy on that body. His vote was
always cast for the Taft contestants.
From the platform also he defended
the action of the national committee
and the credentials committee in con-
nection with the seating Of the Taft
delegates from California and other
states throughout the proceedings.
He made the motion to lay on the
table and thus killed the minority re-
port recommending the seating of the
Roosevelt delegates.
The Santa Fee made application on
April IA, 1911, to exchange $3.50
acres on the Moqui Indian reserva-
ton in Arizona for 52,032 acres near
Prescott, Arizona, under the so-called
Indian exchange act of 1904. The
law permits a government land grant
railroad to trade lands given it by the
government for other government
land, provided it be of an equivalent
value To avoid the delay incident to
the Homestead act, parties buy land
from a road and induce the road to
exchange it for the property desired.
This was the procedure followed by
the Watson company. Government
experts were sent to inspect the tracts
offered in exchange for the railroad
land. These tracts were scattered.
The government experts recommend
ed against the exchange of 6,135 acres
on the grounds that this property was
of greater value than the railroad
land; 612 acres because they were
not contiguous tracts, and 1889 acres
on account of mineral deposits. The
rest Of the land, amounting to $4,000
acres, had been examined, and the
commissioner of the land office now
is considering whether or not to grant
the patent desired in the first instance
by the Santa Fee railroad.
The land matter is not the only one
the Watson company had had before
the land office. Under the act of March
8, 1891, granting irrigation rights in
volving the use of government lands
John Duke filed application for a
RICH of way for a division canal from
point on Granite creek in the Fort
Whipple Military reservation, Arizona,
traversing public land to a reservoir,
partly on public land, known as the
Willow Greek storage company.
Subsequently the Watson company
filed application for the same right
sought by Duke, as we'll as for certain
the land to be irrigated, and another
storage reservoir partly on public
land.
The district land office at Phoenix,
Arizona, was directed to order a
hearing in the matter to determine
priority Of claims and if the claim
made are bona fide. Final action will
not be taken according to officials of
the land Office until the records of
the hearing have been received.
1t is asserted that in the Watson
company's case the land office has fol-
lowed nearly the procedure authorized
by law which has been observed in
hundreds of other cases. 1t is admit
ted there was a departure from the
usual routine IN that it is not custom
airy when an application for exchange
involves several separate tracts to
grant patent on one before all have
been examined. Only in a single other
case has this been done.
The fact that Mr.. Watson was a par
tisan Of the President, of course, was
known to the land Office but it is de-
clared Mr. Taft did not display any in
terest in the matter