TAFT DEFENDS HIS CONTROLLER BAY ORDER

...Whatever the attempts which have been made, no one, as a matter of fact, has obtained in Alaska any undue privilege or franchise not completely under the control of Congress, and in all the scandal with which the public has been regaled very few specific instances of corrupt or improper attempts to acquire vested interests in Alaska have been shown by evidence that would stand the test of judicial examination...

...THE ONLY WAY to secure comparative immunity from typhoid and other diseases carried by the fly, is to kill the fly...

...Because of a lack of time sufficient to draft a memorandum myself I requested the Secretary of the Interior, who, with the Secretary of Agriculture, after full discussion, had agreed in my conclusion, to prepare a letter setting forth the reasons for making the larger elimination, so that it might become a part of the record...

...It is equally as inimical in this respect as is the common drinking cup which has been out ef commission in Wisconsin for some time.—Oshkosh Northwestern...

...Regarding the "Dick to Dick" postscript he announces it is "false and maliciously slanderous...

...He says: "When I made this order I was aware that the condition of public opinion in reference to investments in Alaska, fanned by charges of fraud—some well founded and others of an hysterical and unjust or false character—would lead to an attack upon it and to the questioning of my motives in signing it...

...The application was referred to the forestry bureau and then to the Navy Department with a view that perhaps the navy desired to use Controller Bay as a reservation...

...ONE-THIRD of the population of cemeteries consists of children under 5 years of age...

...Of course, it was possible," he continues, "that the owners of the Copper River Railway Company" (Morgan and Guggenheim) "might attempt to buy this railroad when and if it were built...

...On the other hand, the acrimony of spirit and the intense malice that have been engendered in respect of the administration of the government in Alaska and in the consideration of measures proposed for her relief and the wanton recklessness and eagerness with which attempts have been made to besmirch the characters of high officials having to do with the Alaskan government, and even of persons not in public life, present a condition that calls for condemnation and requires that the public be warned of the demoralization that has been produced by the hysterical suspicions of good people and the unscrupulous and corrupt misrepresentation of the wicked...

...His reasons for taking this stand he explains in his message in part as follows: "I expressed dissatisfaction with the order because it purported on its face to make the elimination for the benefit of a railroad company of a tract of land which the company could not by lawful entry obtain, for it was a tract 320 acres in one body when only 160 acres could thus be acquired...

...The forestry interests found no objection to the elimination of the tract indicated, "or indeed," the President writes, "to the elimination of 18,000 acres in the northwest shore of Controller Bay...

...Nothwithstanding this, however, I am in full agreement with the view that every care, both in administration and in legislation, must be observed to prevent the corrupt or unfair acquisition of undue privilege, franchise or right from the government in that district...

...but whether this was true or not it was clear that the order of elimination by reason of the restrictions of the act of congress would not permit the owners of either railroad to shut out any other capitalists...

...It was possible that Mr...

...I thought the paring down of the amount of public land to be acquired for terminals by the railway company proposing to build the railroad was a poor policy and one not calculated to result in investment or speedy construction...

...I am in full sympathy with the concern of reasonable and patriotic men that the valuable resources of Alaska should not be turned over to be exploited for the profit of greedy, absorbing, monopolistic corporations or syndicates...

...ANYONE WHO STOPS to think about the matter, will agree that the roller towel in a hotel, a boarding house, a railroad station, or in other public and quasi public places, where it has been a fixture since the travelers in the Mayflower landed en Plymouth Rock, is fraught with terrible possibilities as a spreader of disease...

...The President says he had "every assurance" at the time that the Controller Railway and Navigation Company was an independent enterprise, working in all good faith, and that no evidence to the contrary has since been brought to his attention...

...but every one must know that the resources of alaska can never become available either to the people of alaska or to the public of the united states unless reasonable opportunity is granted to those who would invest their money to obtain a return proportionate to the risk run in the investment and reasonable under all the circumstances...

...The delay is accounted for by the fact that a long statement was prepared at the White House for the press of the country, in which the President sets forth his defense for eliminating the 12,800 acres of shore land on this Alaskan harbor under circumstances that have challenged the attention of the whole people...

...I wish to be as specific as possible upon this point, and to say that I alone am responsible for the enlargement of the proposed elimination from 320 acres to 12,800 acres, and that I proposed the change and stated my reasons therefor, and while both secretaries cordially concurred in it the suggestion was mine...

...He denies it was a "secret" order...

...Hymen Cohen in the Chicago Tribune...

...Taft Defends His Controller Bay Order Bitterly Assails Those Who Have Criticised His Administration of the Public Domain AFTER MANY DAYS of consideration and labor, President Taft on the 27th transmitted to the Senate the papers in the Controller Bay case...

...I was willing to do this because I found the restriction in the law sufficient to prevent the possibility of any monopoly of either the upland or the harbor or channel by the Controller Railway and Navigation Company or any other persons or company...

...It is easy in cases like this to take the course which timidity prompts, and to do nothing, but such a course does not inure to the public weal...

...Moreover, he states, the rates to be charged would be always subject to congressional control, and if government ownership seemed the wise policy under the peculiar circumstances ample land for right of ways, harbor frontage and terminals must always remain available under the law for government use, or if it was preferred to take over to the government a railway built by private enterprise, condemnation was easy...

...A formal order to this effect was finally submitted to him in October, 1910, but when the matter came before the cabinet late in that month he found objection to it...

...In the second place, I preferred to make a much larger elimination of a tract facing the entire channel, and with sufficient room for a terminal railway town...

...The little tots could net have walked the distance from the home to the cemetary if we had not pushed them all the way * * * Open the windows and doors of your parlor and let your children meet the universal parents of life—sunshine and fresh air.—Dr...

...The Navy Department's answer was "negative," says the President, and after the matter had been considered by the Secretary of Agriculture, by the Secretary of the Interior and the General Land Office, a recommendation was made to him that 320 acres with a frontage of 160 rods on the northwest shore of Controller Bay be thrown open...

...I remarked this when I made the order, and I was not mistaken...

...President Condemns Critics THE PRESIDENT goes on to discuss the criticisms that have been made because of the manner in which these lands were thrown open to entry...

...The helpless state to which the credulity of some and the malevolent scandalmongering of others have brought the people of Alaska in their struggle for its development, ought to give the public pause, for until a juster and fairer view be taken investment in Alaska, which is necessary to its development, will be impossible, and honest administrators and legislators will be deterred from the advocacy and putting into operation of those policies in regard to the territory which are necssary to its progress and prosperity...

...The-President relates how Ryan, representing the Controller Railway and Navigation Company, applied in 1909 for the elimination of a tract to enable this company to acquire railroad terminals, etc...

...Ryan was acting for the interests of the Copper River Railroad, although I did not believe it...

...But a public officer when he conceives it his duty to take affirmative action in the public interest, has no more right to allow fear of unjust criticism and attack to hinder him from taking that action than he would to allow personal and dishonest motives to affect him...

...There can be no such thing as giving quarter, for there is no such thing as a good fly.—Milwaukee Journal...

...He then concludes his statement with a sweeping denunciation of all conservationists who have criticized the administration of the public domain under the present Administration...

...I am as strongly convinced as anyone of the necessity of the conservation of our national resources," says the President, "and as much opposed as anyone to their monopolization by large corporations, but my convictions on this point did not deter me from taking the step which I hoped might lead to encouraging the construction of a railway from Controller Bay to the Bering coal fields...