"Democracy." And since that picture made a good citizen of Heney, maybe it will make good citizens of us.
And Heney did know nothing. "You see," he said afterwards, "I didn't know what I was going up against. If I had, if I had foreseen that two years' fight, I believe I wouldn't have begun it. I would have thought I couldn't afford it. I understood that I was to try a case, one case, which was all ready to try, and I reckoned that that would take me about three weeks."
STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS PUTER
Head of the petty land thieves whom Detective Burns "brought through," and whose confession opened the land fraud system up into the United States Senate
The first case did not appear on its face to be important, and as a matter of fact it never went to trial. The indictment charged "conspiracy to defraud the government" out of land and the defendants were Stephen A. Douglas Puter, Horace Greeley McKinley, Daniel Webster Tarpley, Marie Antoinette Ware and Emma Abbott Watson. Noble names these, but there was nothing noble about the persons who bore them. The men were land speculators in bad repute and, as for the women, Marie Ware was McKinley's mistress and Emma Watson was Puter's. The only sign of any significance in the matter was the opposition which developed the moment Heney took charge. The Bar Association of Portland met and "resolved" against his appointment, and these resolutions, sent to Senators Mitchell and Fulton, were made the basis of a protest by them in the Senate and to the President and the Attorney-General. This should have shown Heney that something big and strong stood behind Puter et al., but he wasn't "wise" enough yet to read such signs. Neither was the President, but Mr. Knox was. The President listened to the opposition and considered it, but when he spoke to Mr. Knox about it, the Attorney-General declared that if Heney was withdrawn, he (Knox) would resign. And when the President asked, in surprise, why he felt so strongly about so small a matter, Knox answered that it was the very fact that United States Senators and other such powerful persons were so deeply concerned over so small a matter which convinced him there was something back of it. This satisfied the President and he stood by Heney, who, like Mr. Roosevelt, thought the opposition was personal.
And it was, in a sense. The Bar Association and the Oregon senators took the "geographical graft" view of the appointment: since it was an Oregon job, it should go to an Oregon man. And they showed that they were not afraid to have an Oregon man try the case; there was no such opposition to the regular United States District Attorney, John H. Hall.
Mr. Hall had prepared the case and Heney had to hurry to get to Portland in time to try it, but he wired that he would be there, and he was taken aback upon his
