Oregon Corrupt Like California
But that's theory, and theory is offensive to practical people. Let's stick to business. And the startling truth about this land business is, that like the railroad and the public utility businesses it has to corrupt every state where it is carried on and every part of the Federal government that it touches. We have seen what Burns saw in California; Burns has seen more since in that state, and we shall see all that also, later. But while he was working up the land frauds in California, it developed that similar land frauds were being practiced in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Colorado—in all the unsettled states and territories. It will be remembered that Holsinger reported Schneider as saying that Benson and Hyde operated in Oregon as well as in California, and Burns had made some inquiries up there, but he couldn't "run out" the Oregon and the California cases at the same time. So Secretary Hitchcock had assigned to Oregon a special agent. Col. A. R. Greene, A special agent is not always a detective, and Col. Greene had gone noisily about his work. He has been severely criticised for proceeding with such a delicate task with "one brass band playing in front of him and another in his rear." But that's one way of working and it turned out to be a good way in this case. For there happened to be a quarrel among the land-grafters of Oregon, and when it became known that Col. Greene was making an investigation for the Secretary of the Interior, some of the insiders called on the special agent and gave him a peep at the inside.
Hitchcock Gets Him a Prosecutor
The result was a steady fire of reports from Greene to Mr. Hitchcock of facts, rumors and enough evidence to give the Secretary the impression that Oregon was worse than California. It looked as if even Binger Hermann, the sly, might be caught up there, and the Department desired ardently to catch that man. For Hermann, upon his dismissal from the Land Office, had gone home to appeal to the people. He ran for his old seat in Congress. His party organization (for some reason) gave him the nomination and luck, or a trick, did the rest. While he was running. President Roosevelt went touring up through Oregon. Binger Hermann boarded his train, and once when the President was standing on the rear platform greeting a crowd, Hermann stepped out beside him. Just as the President glanced about laughing, a photographer, who was there for that purpose, took a snapshot of the two together: the President and the Land Commissioner he had put out of office. The people seemed to conclude, as many of them said, that they could "stand for" Hermann if the President could, and they re-elected him. Speaker Cannon and the ring that runs the House put Hermann (for some reason) upon the Public Lands Committee, and there he was, a thorn in the side of Secretary Hitchcock.
Col. Greene made a case; he made his case before Burns made his; but the special agent had not got Binger Hermann. The special agent had got big information; indeed he had obtained indictments in several cases, but the cases and the culprits were small. The Secretary wasn't satisfied. Like the President, Mr. Hitchcock wanted to go "higher up."
The only hope was in a strong prosecution, a prosecution that should be also an investigation. Burns had a theory about the United States District Attorneys in the timber-land regions. Since they had jurisdiction in land fraud and other Federal grafts, which went on all about them, he held them guilty until their innocence was proven. He was as suspicious of the attorney-general's department as he was of the Department of the Interior, and his suspicion had been grounded somewhat by his experiences in both California and Oregon. He was for a special prosecutor, therefore, and that is what Secretary Hitchcock came to want: a prosecutor who would prosecute not one but all his land cases, and expose the whole system. And he got him—Frank Heney.
(In the next article, which will appear in the October number, Mr. Steffens will take up Heney and the story of his wonderful work in the prosecution of the land thieves.)
