J. H. Booth, Receiver of the Roseburg Land Office, testified to an acquaintance with McKinley covering a period of five years. He also identified the forest reserve selection that had been filed by Howe based on lands in township 11-7, and this application was likewise identified by Special Inspector A. R. Greene, of the Department of the Interior, besides H. J. Coleman and George R. Ogden, clerks in the General Land Office.
It was evident the prosecution concluded that the jury was tired of the monotony entailed by the introduction of so much similar testimony, as Miss Ella Wyman, of Chicago, was placed on the stand. She testified to being the proprietress of a private boarding house on Dearborn Avenue, Chicago, and that in March, 1904, Mrs. Watson had engaged a room at her establishment under the name of Mrs. Porter, remaining several days, or until arrested by Captain Porter, of the Government Secret Service.
Andrew Jackson, a colored porter in the employ of Miss Wyman, corroborated her testimony.
Next in turn was Captain Thomas I. Porter, of Chicago, who had been connected with the Secret Service of the Treasury Department for 18 years. He testified to having "shadowed" me through the streets of Chicago and to my room at the Grace Hotel, where I was registered under my real name. Later, while I was delivering a telescope basket to Mrs. Watson, he had followed me to her boarding house, and in that manner had discovered her whereabouts. Her arrest followed the next morning.
George B. McLeod, treasurer of the Astoria Company, of Portland, recounted certain business dealings with McKinley and myself, stating that he had arranged to purchase the 12 claims in township 11-7 from me at $5 per acre, but delivery of title was not made to him, as I had informed him that transfer thereof had been made to another person.
Frederick A. Kribs was the next witness, and testified to an acquaintance with me of several years' standing, and of various land transactions with me; that he also knew Mrs. Emma L. Watson, from whom he had purchased the 12 claims in township 11-7, upon which the defendants were being tried.
Frank E. Alley, a searcher of records of Roseburg, Ore., identified a plat of township 11-7 as one that he had made for McKinley.
After M. B. Rankin had been recalled to testify relative to land deals had with McKinley, Tarpley and myself. Court adjourned until the following morning at 10 o'clock.
W. A. Richards, Commissioner of the General Land Office at Washington, D. C, who was Assistant Commissioner during Hermann's administration, was called to the witness stand on Tuesday morning, and identified the letters received by Binger Hermann from Senator Mitchell, together with the affidavits of Mrs. Watson and myself in support of the 12 claims. These were the same that Hermann had failed to identify while on the stand.
Commissioner Richards not only remembered the circumstances attending the presentation of these papers to Hermann, but he was positive in his identification of Mrs. Watson and myself as the persons who had been introduced to him by Senator Mitchell, and with whom he had talked with reference to expediting the patents to the 12 claims. Had Binger Hermann identified these letters and affidavits while on the stand, it would not have been necessary for Mr. Richards to cross the continent for that purpose, and it might be stated that had we known in advance of Mr. Heney's determination to establish the identity of the papers named, we should have much preferred that Hermann would have been less forgetful, and in all probability, at the time I visited him at the Imperial Hotel, I should have coached him along different lines than the ones pursued by my suggestions to him at the time. Mr. Richards' testimony was in all truth the most damaging offered against the defendants up to this time, and he was permitted to go without cross-examination.
Page 157
