Page:Looters of the Public Domain.djvu/301

Chapter XIX

C. A. Smith, the multi-millionaire of Minneapolis, and candidate for the United States Senate from Minnesota, grows exceedingly "chesty" when he imagines Puter has joined the "Down and Out" Club on account of being a fugitive from justice, and gives a local newspaper a false interview concerning the land fraud king—The latter retaliates, and proves Smith to be not only the Premier Disciple of Ananias, but a Shylock of the first water and a miser of the deepest dye, behind whom the turnkey stalked with fiendish glee until the statute of limitations kindly came to his rescue.

AS for the thousands of acres of valuable timber lands in Linn, Douglas and Coos counties, Oregon, which C. A. Smith acquired fraudulently through Fred A. Kribs, his Pacific Coast representative, it is not at all unlikely that the Government will soon take steps to cancel the patents thereto, as Mr. Heney, while engaged in gathering the evidence upon which Senator Mitchell was convicted, also unearthed all the details relating to the illegal process by which these tracts were secured. In the event of the cancellation of the patents to these lands, title would revert to the Government, and they could be relocated under the timber and stone Act of June 3, 1878.

But of this immense wealth of timber that still hangs in the balance, I have said enough. There are other vast tracts which Smith has acquired just as illegitimately—located also in Linn, Douglas and Coos counties. Oregon—which includes thousands of acres of the finest timber lands in the Northwest. Some of this was taken up under the Timber and Stone Act, with the aid of "dummy" entrymen, just as those portions alluded to were obtained, while the balance was embraced in forest reserve lieu selections under the "Scripper" law of June 4, 1897.

It was Fred Kribs' "stand-in" with Register J. T. Bridges and Receiver J. H. Booth, of the Roseburg Land Office, that enabled him to get the inside track on all the good things that were known to be floating around promiscuously in that District, but it has been shown that this relationship proved the undoing of the Land Office officials, and drove poor Kribs into such a tight box that he was forced to peach on his friends in order to save his own bacon.

It is a well-known fact that night after night, when the Land Office was supposed to be closed to the general public, Kribs and the Register and Receiver, behind closed doors, were secretly engaged in preparing the scrip selections to be filed the following morning upon all the lands, or the greater portion of them, embraced in some township that had just been surveyed and become subject to entry. Kribs certainly had the long pull in that office, and having prepared his selections in advance, was in a position to shut out all competitors.

His plan contemplated the temporary blanket covering of the entire newly-surveyed township with forest reserve scrip until such a time as his cruisers had a chance to inspect each forty embraced therein, after which Kribs would withdraw his selections from the culled portions, kindly affording the common herd an opportunity to get hold of something he didn't want. In this respect his action reminds one of a person throwing a bone to a hungry canine.

Other courtesies extended Kribs by the local land office officials—who have since been deposed on account of these transactions— consisted in furnishing him with advance information concerning the cancellation of certain entries by the Department. This would give him a long lead in the race to relocate the tract, and it is plain to be seen how the "other fellow" would fare in his efforts to get hold of some of the rich pickings that were supposed to abound in that vicinity.

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