WILL COMMITTEE CALL BALLINGER?
Will Committee Call Ballinger? ANOTHER attempt by Attorney Brandeis, counsel for L. R. Glavis, to compel Secretary of the Interior Ballinger to appear and testify in the conservation controversy...
...Ballinger Aid on Stand E.C...
...Oregon's Experience with the Initiative and Referendum By WILLIAM S. U'REN THE DIRECT LEGISLATION LEAGUE of the State of Washington asked William S. TJ'Ren this question, "What have the people of Oregon accomplished with the initiative and referendum...
...3. They have destroyed the political machine and the job of the party bosses...
...They have passed laws rejected by the legislature for taxing certain corporations...
...They have made a start toward protecting and preserving salmon and sturgeon in the Columbia river and its tributaries...
...Later in the day, however, Finney declared that Pierce had made such statement in his (Finney's) presence...
...On the ground that the full committee was not present action on the request went over for a week...
...Pinchot, sought long to ascertain if Ballinger had not inspired the replies which Finney wrote to the letters of Senator La Follette last year, relative to certain restorations of withdrawals that had been made by Secretary Garfield, and which letters Ballinger signed...
...He said his interpretation of the law of 1908, for which Glavis asked, was brought to him already written, by Finney, and that he promptly signed it on the word of the lawyers of the department...
...that he had likewise written Ballinger's opinion that land withdrawals like those of Secretary Garfield's were illegal...
...First Assistant Secretary Pierce continued the story of the department's connection with the Cunningham claims...
...In doing so he did not have the Alaska cases in mind although Ballinger had told him in the presence of Cunningham and J. P. Gray to take the Alaska cases off his (Ballinger's) hands...
...Ballinger was out of the city at the time, said witness, but wired back a sort of indefinite assent...
...Brandeis asked to suspend cross examination of Pierce until Ballinger had testified...
...Whereupon Mr...
...Brandeis then showed that at the time the attorney general made this statement there were in Ballinger's hands various daily reports by Glavis and Special Agent Jones regarding conferences with District Attorney Todd, also letters from Glavis and other papers, some of which have not yet been produced...
...These letters, he declared, would tend to disprove the attorney general's charge that Glavis had been dilatory in urging prosecution...
...2. They have adopted practical methods of selecting their U. S. Senators, securing election by the legislature of the candidates selected by the people, thereby abolishing the greatest single source of corruption, waste and confusion in the legislature...
...Pierce terminated this agreement on the advice of Finney...
...Pierce was positive that he had not told Glavis that Ballinger instructed him to take over the Alaska cases, as Glavis testified...
...Relative to the suspension of the cooperative agreement with the Forest Service, by which the forestry bureau administered the forests on Indian reservations, witness was asked if there was not inconsistency in the view that such cooperation was illegal and the practice of having a law officer of the Interior Department subject to the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice...
...U'Ren cited the following acts: 1. They have made a direct primary nominating elections law that is much more satisfactory in its results than was the old convention plan...
...They have removed the constitutional restrictions preventing proportional representation and the election by a majority instead of a plurality vote...
...In addition to the above list of results, other measures have been secured and the people have rejected eleven measures, some proposed by initiative petition and some proposed by the legislature...
...Brandeis produced a letter from Ballinger to Miles C. Moore, one of the claimants, saying the matter had been referred to the attorney general and that he hoped a speedy settlement might follow...
...4. They have abolished railroad passes within the state for public officers as well as for private individuals...
...a law which is designed, so far as money is concerned, to put a poor man on an equal footing with a rich man in seeking public office...
...5. They have stopped the grafters' sale of franchises in Portland and other cities...
...Witness declared that his conversation with Ballinger on the point was brief, but that he believed he expressed the latter's views...
...Commissioner Dennett might have told him so...
...Ballinger Holds Letters THE developments at Friday's session were that a large number of letters called for by Mr...
...and finally that he was responsible for the termination of the cooperative agreement by which the Forest Service superintended the work on forests in Indian reservations...
...Brandeis as early as January have not yet been sent in by Secretary Ballinger...
...He said nothing to Senator La Follette about the withdrawal of the restorations, as Ballinger had decided on such rewithdrawals about the time that he received the La Follette letters...
...They have made a stringent law against the excessive use of money in elections...
...He said there could be no appeal from his decision and maintained he had equal authority with the secretary of the interior, yet was scarcely able to reconcile that view with the order of the secretary that he (Pierce) take over the Alaska cases...
...Brandeis said he might not have known of their existence but for his discovery of carbon copies of some of them among documents sent in by the Forest Service...
...An interesting admission by Pierce was that an "Alaska lobby" had swarmed around the Interior Department during the closing days of the Roosevelt administration and the opening of the present regime...
...another virtual refusal by the committee to summon Secretary Ballinger until he wishes to appear...
...Attorney Pepper, representing Mr...
...Brandeis' latest move to force a ruling by the committee on whether or not Ballinger should appear was his request that he be allowed to defer cross-examination of certain witnesses until after Ballinger should have testified...
...At the opening of the session Brandeis entered protest against the failure of Ballinger to send in letters that passed between Glavis and District Attorney Todd and others...
...This led to a long wrangle in which Senator Root sought to compel immediate cross examination...
...Pierce said that hearings on the Cunningham claims are now being held before a commissioner and that he (Pierce) will have the final word as to their patents...
...They are developing a sense of individual responsibility for the success of self-government in Oregon, such as most men never felt when the legislature had the exclusive right to make laws and propose constitutional amendments...
...that he had written the replies to the La Follette letters which Ballinger signed...
...He took upon himself many of the charges laid against Ballinger...
...They have rejected some unpopular appropriations made by the legislature...
...Finney was not certain but that the law specified that the latter practice could obtain...
...6. They have deprived the legislature of power to call a constitutional convention without the people's approval on referendum vote...
...He testified that he had written the Pierce opinion...
...While Attorney Vertrees resented the imputation that such letters had been concealed, the committee voted to order the letters to be produced...
...Questioned at much length regarding the Cunningham claims, he sought to justify the attorney general's charge that Glavis had been dilatory in the prosecution of these cases...
...ANOTHER attempt by Attorney Brandeis, counsel for L. R. Glavis, to compel Secretary of the Interior Ballinger to appear and testify in the conservation controversy was defeated last week by the congressional committee having the investigation in charge...
...Witness declared that the Cunningham claimants had no particular interest in the request to the attorney general to pass on the new law...
...and the discovery of a scapegoat for Ballinger in E. C. Finney, his "assistant...
...9. They have added the recall to the constitution, giving the people power to discharge state and local officers who prove to be incompetent or untrustworthy...
...8. They have taught the legislature to respect the constitutional provision against putting special appropriations in the general appropriation bill...
...He denied that he had told Miles C. Moore that he could get patents without an examination, although the claims were ordered clearlisted on Love's report...
...It limits candidates to an expense hardly exceeding one-fourth of a year's salary in the office sought, and the state bears a large part of the outlay in the distribution of literature for parties and candidates...
...7. They have given cities home rule in charter making...
...In the absence of Chairman Nelson the committee deferred action for a week and the examination was suspended...
...In reply Mr...
...FINNEY, assistant to Secretary Ballinger and one of his legal representatives at the investigation, was the principal witness...
Vol. 2 • April 1910 • No. 16
