Page:Looters of the Public Domain.djvu/417

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Standard drilling rig in operation, showing a "sump hole" where the oil is stored after a gusher has been struck

he would not only accompany me to Los Angeles and appear before the Federal Grand Jury with his evidence, but would also have Rader go with us so as to substantiate everything contained in his books.

This conversation occurred about noon, and within the next hour I had wired Shirley C. Ward, our attorney at Los Angeles, a complete statement covering the evidence secured, and had received instructions to proceed to Los Angeles with McWhorter and Rader, together with their books, bills for material and other documentary evidence, as fast as steam could carry us.

Upon our arrival in Los Angeles, we went direct to Ward's office and exhibited the convincing proof we had brought with us. He was overjoyed at the sight of the evidence, and accompanied us to the United States Attorney's office and asked permission to have McWhorter and Rader go before the inquisitorial body and give their testimony.

Mr. Flint objected to the introduction of the evidence to the Grand Jury, and in this position he was sustained by District Judge Olin M. Welborn, whose son, Charles Welborn, was the attorney for E. L. Doheney, whereupon Ward resorted to the only available method of acquainting the organization with the nature of the proposed evidence by writing a letter to the foreman of the Grand Jury and requesting permission from Judge Welborn in open Court to have this communication delivered.

This request was also refused by Judge Welborn, just as Ward expected it would be, but the episode did not escape the eagle eyes of the newspaper reporters present, exactly as the astute lawyer had planned, with the result that every paper in Los Angeles printed the text of what had been written to the foreman of the Grand Jury.

Ward had practically made a brief of what he expected to prove by McWhorter and Rader, and as soon as the jurymen read the papers they summoned McWhorter and Rader before them, Mr. Flint to the contrary notwithstanding. The straightforward statements of the two men, made doubly impregnable by the mass of unimpeachable documentary evidence they had broughtPage 411