PINCHOT'S TESTIMONY DAMAGING TO BALLINGER
Pinchot's Testimony Damaging to Ballinger THAT SECRETARY BALLINGER had an intimate and complete knowledge of the Alaska coal cases instead of a mere "formal knowledge" as the President declared in...
...Pinchot testified that, after September 3, 1908, the accounts of the Forest Service for the work performed under the cooperative agreement were passed by the Treasury and paid...
...I desire to show you that the story of Glavis' courageous and successful fight to protect the property of the people, which ended in his dismissal without a hearing, is but a single chapter in the history of the public lands...
...I shall show that in pursuance of that duty, I laid before the President, both by word of mouth and in a letter of November 4, a statement of my conviction that Secretary Ballinger has been a dangerous enemy to Conservation...
...Pinchot sketched rapidly the growth of the Forest Service beginning with an appropriation of about $28,000 less than a dozen years ago to its present proportions with an annual appropriation of $5,000,000...
...Pinchot Had Warned Taft ACCOMPANYING his statement, Mr...
...Ballinger in relation to the conservation of natural resources...
...Asked to summarize in a sentence the status of the conservation move-ment at the time the present administration went in he said: "It had grown from a few disconnected activities to be the great idea in the American mind...
...The first of these concerns the policy, devised and inaugurated by the last Administration, of protecting against monopolistic control the water power sites owned by the people...
...his opinions, when he saw that the nation's resources were in grave danger, the last-quoted sentence above is significant...
...Ballinger Deceived Taft GIFFORD PINCHOT, former Chief Forester, removed by presidential order, was the most important witness examined...
...that he had told Balliwger that Love was only half hearted and that when he (Jones) presented his report, Love declined to sign it...
...May 22, 1909, Senator La Follette wrote Secretary Ballinger with reference to the latter's restoration to entry of land on one western river...
...Brandeis, attorney for Mr...
...In it he set forth the whole conservation situation and warned the President against being misled further...
...Ballinger has been unfaithful to his trust as a servant of the people, and as the guardian of public property of enormous value...
...and that finally, when I charged him last autumn to the President with being an enemy of the policy of Conservation, he capped the climax by giving the President himself an explanation of his conduct that was essentially false...
...Pepper, attorney for Pinchot, declared it was essential to the orderly development of the testimony...
...Ballinger replied, May 25, saying the land had been re-withdrawn...
...Ballinger who was then Land Commissioner...
...Ballinger, however, was no sooner in office than he threw open to entry vast tracts on the Platte, Green, Big Horn, Yellowstone, Colorado, and other rivers containing great water powers...
...At the suggestion of Mr...
...Jones Upholds Glavis THE chief witness Friday was Special Agent H. T. Jones, who worked with Glavis on the Alaska coal cases...
...that he personally, quietly conducted operations the effect of which would be to smooth the way for the transfer of the properties into the hands of the Guggenheim syndicate...
...This would not have been done if the Comptroller had previously decided that such work could not be lawfully performed...
...I shall show you how the Forest Service became involved in these cases, and how Glavis submitted the facts to me...
...The imperative.duty before this country is not merely to rid itself of an unfaithful public servant...
...PINCHOT testified that Secretary Ballinger had deceived President Taft in regard to the necessity of terminating the cooperative agreement between the Interior Department and the Department of Agriculture under which the Forest Service cared for the forests within Indian reservations...
...He mentioned the withdrawal from entry by Secretary Garfield of millions of' acres of forest lands and power sites...
...In view of Pinchot's prompt dismissal for later making public...
...Pinchot testified that there never had been a decision by the Comptroller to the effect that the cooperative agreement was unlawful...
...Pinchot's Testimony Damaging to Ballinger THAT SECRETARY BALLINGER had an intimate and complete knowledge of the Alaska coal cases instead of a mere "formal knowledge" as the President declared in his letter dismissing Glavis...
...PINCHOT testified that the Chugach National Forest in Alaska, which includes 21 of the 33 Cunningham claims for which Secretary Ballinger was counsel, was created over the protest of Mr...
...Ballinger Reverses His Own Order HE CITED veto messages of President Theodore Roosevelt and Robert M. La Follette, when governor of Wisconsin, to show the awakening of the public to the importance of conserving power sites in the public interest...
...Before submitting to direct examination, Mr...
...We hope he will...
...Pinchot called attention to a decision of the Comptroller rendered in 1907 which expressly recognized the lawfulness of one Department of the Government employing the force of another Department to perform special work such as was performed by the Forest Service for the Bureau of Indian Affairs...
...I believed then, as I believe now, that he told the truth...
...that he permitted the opposing lawyers to see the Cunningham journal and all his affidavits, which naturally were then repudiated...
...Ballinger, and that as part of his reply he laid before the President a statement concerning the Cunningham cases, which statement is shown by undisputed documentary evidence to be absolutely false in three essential particulars...
...that he has shown himself a consistent opponent of the Roosevelt policies of conservation...
...Ballinger willfully deceived the President, and was disloyal to him...
...Two of the ablest and most experienced lawyers of Seattle were pitted against Sheridan, and Jones believed it reflected upon the intentions of the Interior Department to entrust a case involving millions, if not billions, to the hands of a young and inexperienced attorney...
...Secretary Ballinger may pass victoriously through the ordeal of this investigation...
...I shall show you that since I learned the facts you have heard from Glavis, and others, which I am about to lay before you, I have acted steadily in the light of them, as it was my duty, both as a public officer and as a citizen, to do...
...It raises the question as to whether the executive order forbidding public expressions by subordinates was designed to forestall such a statement...
...Ballinger's hands, and that the country will demand of this Committee a verdict in harmony with the general conviction that the Secretary of Interior has been unfaithful both to the public, whose property he has endangered, and to the President, whom he has deceived...
...But the committee decided to determine in executive session whether or not it should be admitted...
...Objection was entered by Mr...
...I shall show you that this letter was submitted by the President to Mr...
...James R. Garfield said recently, "Ballinger and I were at college together...
...I shall show you that under our present law and practice the more difficult task falls on those who would protect the public property, and not on those who would despoil it...
...Responding to a question, Pinchot began to testify to a conversation he had with the President...
...that he restored the power sites to entry without the remotest idea of withdrawing them...
...In one instance Ballinger reversed his orders...
...He testified that Special Agent Love disliked his Alaska assignment because he (Love) was a candidate for marshal of Alaska and said he disliked investigating his friends...
...I shall show you that Secretary Ballinger entered his office with the clear determination to make short work of that policy...
...It will then appear that Mr...
...A far more important duty is to bring about a fundamental change in the law and the practice towards conservation, to prevent for the future what has been in the past the useless sacrifice of the pubic welfare, and to make possible hereafter the utilization of the natural resources and the natural advantages for the benefit of all the people instead of merely for the profit of a few...
...Under direct examination Mr...
...Milwaukee Sentinel...
...that he reversed it so far as he was allowed to do so...
...He declared the Secretary of the Interior was "the most effective opponent the conservation policies have yet had," and that if after the present intense public attention had subsided the same unwise tendencies reappeared, and the public interests were again menaced, "I might find it necessary to make public my opinion as to these relations, even if it should involve my official position...
...Pinchot's Testimony Interrupted MR...
...But one may doubt his ability to pass an examination in English composition, judging from the following epistolary effort: " I desire that you, in making any of these appointments, in addition to the president being consulted, Postmaster General Hitchcock also be consulted, provided the appointees are not directly suggested by the president...
...Pinchot submitted an important statement to the Congressional Investigating Committee...
...Long afterward he learned that Love also had made a report and that it was on Love's report that Ballinger had ordered the Cunningham claims clearlisted...
...Vertrees, attorney for Ballinger, to making this public...
...In addition, Mr...
...Jones corroborated Glavis' view that because of Secretary Garfield's hostility to the Alaska cases, powerful influences had been brought to bear against his retention in the Cabinet...
...In his letter of September 16, 1909, in which he exonerated Secretary Ballinger, the President said it was necessary to terminate the cooperative agreement because of a decision rendered by the Comptroller of the Treasury that this agreement was unlawful...
...Investigation shows it was re-withdrawn between the time Ballinger received the La Follette letter and the time he replied to it...
...Glavis, Stephen Birch, managing director, and J. N. Steele, attorney for the Morgan-Guggenheim syndicate, were summoned to appear and testify before the committee...
...The Comptroller decided September 3, 1908, that the Forest Service could not lawfully detail a clerk to work in the Interior Department under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior but this decision had no application to the work performed by the Forest Service, under the direction of the Forester, for the Interior Department in connection with the forests within the Indian reservations...
...1 Ballinger Misstates Facts MR...
...Among several other matters there are three of principal importance to be called to your attention...
...I am convinced now, as I was when he came to me, that Glavis is a faithful public servant, and the facts that he presented prove that Mr...
...Asked if his affidavit to that effect which was sent to the President was intended as a reflection on the President, Jones declared, "It was not, but if it did it went to the right place...
...He testified to numerous conferences with Ballinger, then Land Commissioner, showing that Ballinger had a thorough knowledge of the Alaska cases...
...For goodness sake, James, what college...
...that he deliberately deceived the President,—these were among the charges brought against the Secretary of the Interior before the congressional investigating committee last week and suppported by a mass of startling testimony...
...He said: "What I desire to lay before the Committee is a consecutive story of my experience with Mr...
...and that under the present system, the betrayal into monopolistic control of what belongs to all of us is made easy, and monopoly often in practice inevitable...
...When this story has been told, and the witnesses whom I shall ask you to call have been heard, you will realize that the interests of the people are not safe in Mr...
...Pinchot submitted a letter he wrote President Taft on November 3, 1909...
...Jones said James S. Sheridan, who succeeded Glavis as special agent, was inexperienced and did not know as much law as did Glavis...
...The second has to do with my connection as a Government officer with the Cunningham coal cases, and with the Glavis charges...
...And we were just ready to begin effective action...
...The third principal matter is concerned with the attitude of this Government in law and administrative practice toward the conservation of natural resources belonging to the people...
Vol. 2 • March 1910 • No. 9
