EDITORIALS
An Open Letter to President Taft Sir: ON JANUARY 9, two bills, (S. 9956 and S. 9958) were introduced by Senator Nelson and referred to the Committee on Public Lands. The first is a special bill...
...Respectfully yours, La Follette's Weekly Magazine...
...Never before in the history of the land office has such a burden been placed on the government as is now recommended by the bill proposed in behalf of the secretary...
...What considerations of public policy demand that the unbroken precedent of years should be reversed just at a time (as the public was led to believe) when the decision in the cunningham claims was imminent at your hands...
...After assuming the responsibility for the patenting or withholding from patent in the Cunningham entries, do you now wish to be relieved of it...
...If the claimants were given a new trial, testimony of critical value to the government—more or less collateral but having an important bearing on the case and contained in the present record—might and probably would be excluded under the strict rules of judicial procedure thus applied...
...New Hampshire Aroused GOVERNOR ROBERT P. BASS of New Hampshire is another governor who recognizes the need of placing the machinery for choosing a President directly into the hands of the people...
...What just grounds are there for giving the Cunningham claimants privileges which no claimants before them have ever received...
...The fact that before he became secretary he gave professional assistance to certain of the claimants in their efforts to secure patents, and the further fact that, since becoming secretary, he has, through his attorney, filed a brief with a joint committee of Congress in which he warmly defends the entries against the charge of illegality, make it altogether desirable that you should have relieved both Mr...
...Now let the legislature fall to and give the voters the means whereby they may have a voice in the selection of presidential candidates...
...Yet, if this bill should become a law, the claimants will be given the chance of making one more effort to defeat the government's case...
...You thus affirmed directly and reaffirmed indirectly your intention of taking personal cognizance of the Cunningham case...
...On January 9, 1911, the two bills here referred to were introduced in Congress by Senator Nelson...
...Gifford and Amos Pinchot, extending permission to those gentlemen to submit to you a brief on the question of issuing patents for these Cunningham claims...
...According to the records, the trial of the Cunningham caBe was begun before the Commissioner of the General Land Office, by service of notice of charges on November 12, 1909...
...It is easy to conceive that Mr...
...Is there any consideration that may be presented to Congress, other than that of saving the Secretary of the Interior the embarrassment of having these claims cancelled in the face of his own defense of them...
...Is this true...
...Long ago the Secretary of the Interior announced that he considered himself disqualified from acting in regard to the Cunningham case...
...Norton stated, was written at your direction, although it was mailed after you had left Washington and were on your way to Panama...
...This letter, Mr...
...You have, either directly or indirectly, given the country to understand it was your fixed purpose to make a personal disposition of the Cunningham case...
...He says in his recent message: "I recommend the extension of the direct primary law so that delegates to National Conventions shall be chosen by the direct vote of the members of each party...
...If so, upon what grounds of public policy or of public benefit...
...The cost figures given should of course, in each instance, read "per bushel...
...On November 9, 1910, five months later, you...
...Since 1836, the executive branch of the government has disposed of all such cases, and the Supreme Court of the United States has upheld its authority so to do...
...Ballinger and his subordinates of the duty of deciding the Cunningham case...
...Since April, 1910, the Cunningham case has been pending adjudication...
...secretary, Mr...
...And on April 2,1910, the hearings in the case were completed...
...Finally, it will deny to the people the right of having fraudulent claims promptly cancelled by the Executive...
...If the first bill passes, there will result the protracted delay and great expense of additional hearings...
...No such stumbling block to prompt disposal of land cases was ever devised until the Cunningham claims were pending before you for adjudication...
...The claimants have had a fair trial...
...Norton, wrote and gave to the press a letter addressed to Messrs...
...The government has already proved the claims fraudulent...
...The fraudulent character of the claims is already proved...
...But new that you have assumed the responsibility of the decision, there appears no reason why the extraordinary step of seeking legislation to wrest the case from your hands should be taken—a step which will effectually postpone the cancellation of the Cunningham claims for an indefinite period...
...It is a matter solely of executive duty, of executive responsibility...
...On the 18th of November, 1909, the taking of testimony was begun...
...The evidence in this case establishes conclusively that these claims were entered under an illegal agreement to combine after title was secured...
...Bushels" not "Acres" HROUGH a typographical error, the figures given in TLa Follette's for January 14, 1911, to show the cost of producing corn in the juvenile corn growing contests, made it appear in some instances that the amount named represented the cost per acre...
...You have yourself assumed all responsibility for the disposal of this case...
...This being the case, it is proper and important that Congress know the executive attitude toward these two bills...
...But whether it is or is not assailable is a matter which does not relate to the question of whether Congress, at the request of Mr...
...His election on a progressive Republican platform is assurance of that...
...Moreover, if either bill becomes a law, in the second consideration of this case the claimants will have the extraordinary advantage of knowing in advance the exact lines of attack of tie government, both as shown by the record of the hearings already held, and as indicated in the brief recently submitted to you by Messrs...
...Then there will be one more state added to the little phalanx that is breaking the way to an administration of the nation's government really by and for the people...
...It has been publicly stated that these bills have in some measure received your support...
...It is, in this particular instance, quite as important that the public know it...
...Scarcely had you taken passage for Panama, when Secretary Ballinger publicly declared his intention of recommending that a special act of Congress should be passed taking the Cunningham case out of your hands and turning it over to the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia...
...Ballinger's subordinates would feel a serious embarrassment in deciding this case contrary to the expressed opinions of their chief...
...It will put off indefinitely the cancellation of the entries, and consequently the development of the immense mines which lie within the claims—mines which should be promptly opened up when Congress has passed the legislation, properly protecting the public interests, so greatly needed for the development of the Alaskan coal fields...
...This argument may be answered upon several valid grounds...
...In view of your assurance to the public that this case would be decided under your personal supervision, in view of BallingeR's subsequent recommendation that you be relieved of this responsibility, it is a matter of grave concern that Congress be informed as to what are the real reasons for urging the passage of these bills...
...Ballinger, shall take the decision of the Cunningham case away from you...
...Is it your desire that, at the eleventh hour, Congress should take from your hands the jurisdiction of this case—a jurisdiction you voluntarily and publicly assumed...
...The first is a special bill for the transfer of the decision of the Cunningham case from your hands to the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia...
...You, yourself, have stated in a published letter that the responsibility for the executive act of patenting or withholding patents in land cases lies with the Executive...
...If the second bill passes, the claimants will be given the hitherto unknown privilege of having the case tried over again de vovo...
...Gifford and Amos Pinchot...
...The people of New Hampshire are back of Governor Bass...
...Under either bill the decision of the Cunningham case may be taken from your hands and turned over to the Court of Appeals of this district...
...The second is a general bill, providing for the transfer of the decision of all land cases from the Executive to the courts, and authorizing a retrial de novo in cases which have already been heard before the Interior department...
...No error or injustice to them is alleged...
...They have been represented by able counsel...
...You have taken it out of the hands of the Interior department...
...And let the legislature go the rest of the way and give the voters an opportunity to register their choice for President and Vice President...
...The further effect of the passage of either, or both, of the bills urged by the Secretary of the Interior, will be to increase materially the already great expense incurred in the determination of the case...
...On June 10, 1910, owing to the peculiar nature of this case and the relations previously existing between the Secretary of the Interior and the Cunningham claimants, you ordered that the land office make no final disposition of the claims without first advising you...
...If the case is tried over again, the government will be in the position of being obliged to prove them fraudulent a second time before they are cancelled...
...There is in this case, therefore, no so-called "vicious circle" of investigation and adjudication by officers of the same department...
...The record of testimony and proceedings already taken against these claims was made by men but little versed in the refinements of legal technicalities...
...It may be argued in favor of transferring all land patent cases to the courts that the present system of procedure is defective, in that officials of the same department both investigate land claims and sit in judgment upon the record of such investigation...
...On January 1, 1911, you were furnished with the Pinchot brief,—a carefully prepared review of the evidence in the case...
...In view of what has transpired, this question is important...
...Both the documentary and the oral evidence in the case prove beyond argument or dispute that the Cunningham entries should be cancelled on the ground of fraud...
Vol. 3 • April 1911 • No. 6
