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Page:Looters of the Public Domain.djvu/479

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to the Jones group of entries, with a view that these fraudulent claims should be passed to patent with as little delay as possible. He even went so far as to write personal letters to the head of the Land Department, insisting that an injustice was being done the homesteaders by longer withholding their final titles, and in at least one instance wrote a letter extolling Willard N. Jones as a man of irreproachable character and high standing in the community! It may be only a coincidence, and all that, and it may be that Senator Fulton falls back upon his well-worn plea that he was misled regarding his conclusions, but it would be interesting to know what kind of an excuse he is able to offer for the following self-explanatory correspondence between the Acting Commissioner of the General Land Office and Secretary Hitchcock, brought about through the unwarranted eagerness of Senator Fulton to have the Jones claims expedited:

Fac-simile of letter written by United States Senator Fulton to the Secretary of the Interior recommending Willard N. Jones, who was afterwards convicted by a jury for frauds in connection with the Siletz Indian Reservation lands

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