with them, produced a profound sensation in the Grand Jury room, and had the effect of causing the body to ignore the indictments previously formulated, and prepare new ones, charging Charles A. Canfield and Edward L. Doheney with the crime of perjury in having made false affidavits that the west half of Section 30 was in the possession of the Gray Eagle Oil Company as early as November, 1899, and that they had seen a Standard rig in operation there at that time.
Thereupon Mr. Flint awoke to a sudden realization of the fact that he was something more than the mere attorney for the oil men. and in his official capacity as United States Attorney, pointed out to Judge Welborn that inasmuch as Judge Ross had held in his decision heretofore referred to that he had no jurisdiction over the cases at bar, consequently no crime could have been committed in any proceeding before him. no matter how glaring the perjury might have been, and it has always remained a mystery why Mr. Flint did not think of that when he was laying the iron fist of the Government down upon a lot of so-called Scrippers. When Mr. Flint's term of office expired, he was not reappointed, although making a vigorous effort for the place. He has since been elected United States Senator from California, defeating Thomas R. Bard, one of the most honorable men that ever represented the State in the upper branch of Congress, and it is claimed that Mr. Flint was greatly assisted in his election through the influence of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, which had no use for Bard.
Immediately after Judge Ross had rendered his decision in the Olive Land and Development case, wherein the contentions of the Scrippers were sustained at every point, the oil men of Bakersfield boasted quite freely that they were raising a campaign fund for the purpose of neutralizing the effects of these findings. They made no secret of the matter at the time, and in the course of a civil action tried in Bakersfield during 1902. Judson Elwood, one of the active spirits among the mineral locators, admitted on the witness stand that a large sum of money had been raised to fight the Scrippers. and that he had personally subscribed $1000 towards this fund, although he was nothing more than one of the small frys in this immense kettle of fish. Just what amount was secured by process of assessment upon each person whose interests were identified with the mineral locators may perhaps never be fully known; but that it must have aggregated an immense sum is evident from the sensational developments following closely upon the footsteps of the Court's adverse ruling.
Rumors were rife all along after Judge Ross decided the cases of the Cosmos Exploration Company vs. the Gray Eagle Oil Co.; and the Pacific Land and Improvement Company vs. the Elwood Oil Company, in favor of the defendants, that everything was not as it should be, but it was not until 1904 that I came in possession of tangible evidence that Judge Ross had a sordid motive in reversing himself.
Somehow or other the Government found out that I entertained grave suspicions on the subject, and May 20, 1904, I received telegraphic instructions to proceed to Los Angeles and investigate every feature of the situation as far as possible. I had gone away from Bakersfield in the summer of 1902, and for several months was employed on the Los Angeles papers when engaged by the California State Mining Bureau upon some special service that shall form the basis for a separate chapter. I was in San Francisco at the time of being commissioned by the Government to run down the ugly rumors that were afloat connecting the names of Binger Hermann, Commissioner of the General Land Office, with the scandals incident to Hermann's visit to the Kern River oil fields in a private car provided by the oil men, and of Judge Ross' acrobatic ruling in the last Scripper cases that came before him. I lost no time in going to Los Angeles upon the errand designated, and after spending several days there gathering information upon the subject, made a report to the Government substantially as follows: Page 412
