HITS THE SHARKS.
SECRETARY HITCHCOCK ON PUBLIC LANDS.
Points To Oregon Cases.
Urges Early Repeal of the Timber and Stone Act, and Penalty for Law-Violators.
Bold Words on the Evil of Fencing the Public Domain by Private Interests—New Irrigation Law, Forest Reserves.
Oregonian News Bureau, Washington, D. C, Nov. 23—The recently discovered timber frauds in Oregon are rather widely exploited in the annual report of Secretary Hitchcock of the Interior Department, and held up as a forceful argument for the immediate revision of the Timber Laws. Although the Secretary cites facts and figures heretofore published in the 'Oregonian', he is gracious enough to omit from his official report the name of the State in which these frauds were discovered. His comments, nevertheless, are so pointed and so explicit that they cannot be mistaken. After showing the phenomenal increase in entries in Oregon under the Timber and Stone Act, in the last quarter, over those of the preceding three months, the Secretary says: 'Should this rate of entry continue during the entire year in that State, it would mean the acquisition, in round numbers, of 600,000 acres of timber lands under the Timber and Stone Act, and if the same activity in that class of entries were extended to the other public land States, then before the expiration of two years practically every acre of unappropriated public timbered lands would have been absorbed, and the successful operation of the Reclamation Act of June 17th last rendered doubtful, if its failure be not absolutely assured, for the reservation of public timbered lands that must of necessity be made to assist in conserving the waters to be impounded by the irrigation systems to be established under that act will be defeated or made so expensive by the purchase of said lands from private owners as to greatly delay the completion of the irrigation systems contemplated by that act.'
The reports of the special agents of this department in the field show that, at some of the local land offices, carloads of entrymen arrive at a time, every one of whom makes entry under the Timber and Stone Act. The cost of 160 acres of land under that Act and the accompanying commissions is $415. As many as five members of a family who, it can be readily shown, never had $2075 in their lives, walk up cheerfully and pay the price of the land and the commissions. Under such circumstances, there is only one conclusion to be drawn, and that is, where a whole carload of people make entry under that Act, the unanimity of sentiment and the cash to exploit it must have originated in some other source than themselves.
In all such cases a rigid inquiry will be instituted, to determine the bona fides of the entry, and if it be ascertained that the entry was not made in good faith, but in the interest of some person or persons other than the entrymen, the entry will be promptly canceled and the proper criminal proceedings instituted against the entrymen.
After three stubbornly-contested trials, a jury composed of John Bain (foreman), J. Marcus Freeman, Thomas G. Farrell, James B. Kirke, Frank Bell, H. Donnerberg, Theobald Kirsch, Worth Huston. Dom J. Zan, J. J. Hembree, Charles Agee, and John E. Bailey, returned the following verdict on the night of September 27, 1905:
In the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Oregon.No. 2914.
The United States of America
vs.
John Newton Williamson,
Van Gesner and
Marion E. Biggs.Verdict.
We, the jury in the above-entitled cause, find the defendants .J. N. Williamson, Van Gesner and Marion E. Biggs, guilty as charged in the indictment, and recommend them to the leniency of the Court on account of previous good character. (Signed:)
JOHN BAIN, Foreman.
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