The American Magazine (1906-1956)/Volume 64/The Taming of the West/Heney Grapples
THE TAMING OF THE WEST
BY LINCOLN STEFFENS
AUTHOR OF "The Shame of the Cities," ETC.
ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS
HENEY GRAPPLES THE OREGON LAND-GRAFT
Heney's connection with the Government as a prosecuting attorney began in a political pull. In Arizona he had ably defended some land grants belonging to the Camerons of Pennsylvania. So in 1903 when Heney went to Washington as the legal representative of Judge Noyes of Alaska, whose unwarrantable actions had been taken to the courts, he carried a letter to Attorney-General Knox from Don Cameron. His client was properly removed, but Knox was impressed by Heney and offered to make him an Assistant Attorney-General. Heney was beginning to build a practice in San Francisco and refused. But when a little later Knox telegraphed for himself and Secretary Hitchcock urging Heney to go to Portland and try the land cases, he felt he could not refuse the request.—The Editor.
FRANCIS J. HENEY laid bare in Oregon the government of that state and the system of corruption which reached thence to Washington and back again. He also raked some muck and put some low-down rascals and high-up citizens into jail, and we all saw that done. But this story aims to follow the outlines of government, the actual government of Oregon and the United States as the facts sketched them in Heney's own mind. We begin where he began, knowing nothing and nobody, and perhaps we shall get what he got: a typical picture of our American "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 
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Daniel Webster Tarpley, fellow conspirator with Puter, McKinley, and others |
Marie Antoinette Ware, a United States District Court Commissioner and a tool of the land thieves |
Horace Greeley McKinley, confessed timber land thief, now running a "gambling Joint" in China |
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arrival to find that the day before, while he was on the train, the United States Attorney had had the trial put over. Emma Watson had disappeared. The excuse seemed good and, besides, Heney was well satisfied with the delay. It gave him a chance to study the case. And when he encountered difficulty in getting the evidence from Hall, he set it down to "professional jealousy." He tried next to draw out Col. A. R. Greene, the Special Agent to the Secretary of the Interior, who had gathered the evidence, but Greene also was uncommunicative. Heney smiled. "A friend of Hall," he thought. But when, at a final conference, Mr. Hall told Heney how little would be expected of him; that he, the assistant to the Attorney-General, might make the opening speech and otherwise be assistant to the District Attorney—then Heney "got mad." He wired to Mr. Knox that a "personal conference would be to the interest of the government;" and Mr. Knox asked him to come to Washington. The Attorney-General had his fears; the first question he put to Heney when they met was:
"What do you think of Hall?"
"Above the average ability of men in that office," said Heney, who knew the United States district attorneys in Arizona, California, Idaho and Texas.
"But what of his fidelity to the government?" asked Mr. Knox, who, as Attorney-General, knew more of United States district attorneys than Heney.
"That's all right, too," said Heney, the unsuspecting, "But he's jealous of his prerogatives." And Heney went on to tell how Hall regarded him as an assistant.
"Oh," said Mr. Knox, "that isn't what I sent you up there for. You are to be in full charge." And he telegraphed to Hall that Heney represented the Attorney-General and was to be obeyed as the Attorney-General himself would be obeyed.
Heney and Burns Meet
That would settle Hall's "jealousy." The next thing was to settle Greene. Heney called on Secretary Hitchcock. "The old Sec'," as the Department called him affectionately, was glad to meet Heney, and he introduced William J. Burns to him. But the "old Sec'" had found another great detective, Col. Greene, and Heney heard all about Col. Greene. Also he learned something about Greene and Hall that increased his anger.
When he was leaving Portland, Hall gave Heney, as the whole of the Puter case, a transcript of a preliminary hearing. This showed that Puter and the two men with him had got hold of lieu-land scrip by having men and women "file homesteads" in a forest reserve. Each claimant had to swear that he had lived five years on his "piece" and made improvements. The allegation was that these persons were fictitious, and that Marie Ware, a United States District Court Commissioner, had knowingly received these fraudulent proofs and forwarded them as genuine. All was clear, except that there was no evidence that the fictitious persons did not exist or that they had not improved their lands. Having studied the case on the train, Henry wired back to Hall to have Greene inspect the lands, investigate the "persons," and report to him at Washington. They did not report to him at Washington; they reported to the departments; and their report said that they had made their inspection and investigation long before Heney had told them to. “Why hadn't they told me that?" said Heney. "Why were they keeping back such essential evidence in the case?
Burns told him. "They're jobbing you," he said. When Heney talked of Hall's jealousy, the detective laughed. "He's a crook," said Burns, and he reasoned it all out. Since Hall was the prosecuting officer in a district in which there were land frauds, he must connive at them; how else could they go on? And as for Greene, wasn't he a Special Agent in the Land Office; and hadn't Burns caught Special Agents in California—yes and made them confess? Why should Special Agents in Oregon differ from Special Agents in California? Heney smiled. The swift sweep of Burns's "suspicion" struck him as it did the President and Mr. Hitchcock and Chief Wilkie—as preposterous. Heney wouldn't believe Burns. Mr Hitchcock let him dictate an order to Greene to report to Heney; it was a pretty sharp telegram, and when the Secretary signed and sent it Heney
Spot on which "A. O. Austin" (an imaginary settler) was alleged to have his cabin. He, or somebody for him, swore that he had cultivated this ground!
Looking across township 11-7. Many of the fraudulent homestead claims were located on this snow-capped peak of Mt. Jefferson, 5000 feet above the sea. These pictures were all taken by A. W. Barber, an official of the Land Office Department, and used as evidence of fraud in the trials
The nearest approach to a clearing on a 160-acre farm where somebody "swore" he had a cabin, several acres of cultivated ground, and raised crops every year!
was satisfied. He left Washington, feeling able to cope with the "jealousy" of his subordinates at Portland.
While he was wailing in San Francisco for the spring term in Portland, Heney saw more of Burns. The Hyde-Benson case came on in San Francisco. That was Burns's own case. He had had the California land-grabbers indicted at Washington and Benson was arrested there, but Hyde, and Dimond, their attorney, and Schneider, their tool, were in San Francisco, resisting removal. Mr. Knox retained Heney to represent the Government. There were other assistants, all sorts of United States District and Deputy Attorneys-General, but Heney, in charge, soon came to see that the man who knew the whole case best, both the evidence and the story, was William J. Burns, the detective.
Impressed with Burns's ability, Heney began to see also that his suspicion, which had seemed so suspicious at first, was not unreasonable; it was most reasonable. His was a logical mind illuminated with imagination. Mr. Heney couldn't believe that Oregon was so rotten as Burns imagined it, but the detective's "theories" stimulated Heney's imagination.
"Come on up to Portland with me, Burns," he said, when they had beaten the "leading lawyers" who defended the Hyde-Benson land thieves of California. "If you will, we will see who is behind the Puter-McKinley-Tarpley land thieves of Oregon."
Burns went. Heney drew the California case to an abrupt close; he had to get to Portland in time. He had wired to have the Oregon case postponed, but Hall answered that Judge Bellinger would not consent. Burns thought this looked "funny"; Heney didn't. And Burns was right. A year or so later the Judge told Heney that he would have granted the postponement if he had been asked, but that Hall never had asked him till Heney had started. Then as before, while Heney was on the train, the case was put over.
"Heney's onto lawyers now," said Burns recently, "but at that time he had a great respect for his profession, and he believed a lawyer would be on the level with another lawyer."
Heney and Burns had analyzed the case on the train and they both saw openings for further investigation. Out of his California experience, the detective inferred, for example, that Puter et al. must have worked other jobs. Their methods were so "good " that they must be the result of long practice and studied development. Furthermore, Puter and McKinley, like Benson and Hyde, must have pals in ihe Federal and state offices who permitted the frauds and large clients who bought the lands they jSlole. Burns's iniagination began to suspect the whole political and financial organization of society in Oregon. Why should one state difier from another? Heney smiled.
Leading Citizens Show Themselves
At the state line a Portland friend of a San Francisco banker friend of Heney boarded the train. His friend had wired him of Heney's coming and he wished to have Heney—and Mr. Burns, of course—meet some of the leading men of Oregon. Heney, a clubman and a man of the world, was "delighted." There would be a little informal dinner. And there was. Given at the leading club, some of the leading citizens of the state were present, among them W. D. Fenton, the chief counsel for the Southern Pacific, and Charies H. Carey, ditto for the Northern Pacific Railroad. After the wine had flowed and the cigars and coffee were served, the conversation came around naturally to the work before Mr. Heney, and—Mr. Burns, too, of course. Burns is sober and vigilant at a dinner; Heney is as good company as you could wish for. He was gay and thoughtless that night till he began to catch the drift of things. The leading citizens of Oregon spoke of the magnitude of the timber and land business of their great state; of the legal hindrances to it; and of the "custom of the country," which an outsider might have difficulty in understanding, the ancient custom of "getting around" the land laws. The conversation was an apology for crime and a plea for land criminals.
"So you see, Mr. Heney," said Mr. Fenton, of and for the Southern Pacific, "it is bad laws that make men—hum, well, let us say, that make such irregularities necessary." And Mr. Carey, of and for the Northern Pacific, nodded approval.
Heney exploded. He saw, and he said that he saw what they were up to, these leading citizens. They were trying to influence him, to keep him from going "too far." He wished to warn them then and there that he meant to go "too far"; that if he could get past the petty thieves to the leading citizens, who were the real crooks, he would get them. There was only one way to get rid of bad laws, and that was, not to evade and break them, but to enforce and, by showing that they were bad, repeal or amend them. And, said the guest to his hosts, any leading citizens who took any other course, and especially one that included perjury, were criminals in heart and mind. Their education and their polish made no difference; these made the matter worse. They were corruptionists, they corrupted the law and the people and themselves.
U. S. District Attorney at Portland "It was Bristol who gave Heney his first definite grasp of the whole corrupt system of graft in Oregon"
Oregon's view of Oregon Frauds
Heney did not realize it at the time, but when he said that such men corrupted everything they touched, be spoke the truth. Fenton repeated in a church this defense of the land frauds, and it was, and it is, the common excuse offered by men and women everywhere in Oregon, and, for that matter, in the Northwest, for crime and corruption. They call it the "land conscience," but it is the typical American view of law. The people out there feel about the land laws only as people in other parts of the country feel about liquor laws and public franchises. Since the liquor laws are too strict, they must be broken. Since you can't get a franchise for nothing, without bribing your city officials, bribery is necessary and right. We've all heard this sort of talk, and so Heney heard in Oregon. Since the land laws were drawn to save the public lands for small people who want small holdings, the big monopolists cannot get big holdings without breaking those laws, debasing themselves and corrupting public officials and public opinion; therefore it was, and it is, right to do all these things in Oregon.
When Fenton spoke for Puter at that little dinner in Portland, Heney's suspicion was born, and Burns's imagination mothered it.
"What did I tell you?" said the detective. And they reasoned together. How could such frauds go on without becoming common knowledge? How could they succeed without the connivance of corrupted officials and the support of influential leaders of a corrupted public opinion? Everybody must know about the land frauds. The investigators needed to know what everybody knew. They must begin their work by getting the gossip of the town. The gossips tell the truth; their gossip is not always accurate, but it is the truth.
A Special agent of the Interior Department, who is honest and competent
Above and Beneath the Surface
Wherefore Heney went forth into the upper, Burns into the underworld, seeking to learn what all men knew. Both hemispheres were against their purposes, but the line of resistance was not unbroken, Heney was taken into the clubs of Portland and he fell under the tutelage of Charles J. Reed, the wit of the town, who was a fellow-member with Heney of the Bohemian Club of San Francisco. This cynical man of the world helped Heney. He furnished no evidence, of course, but he let Heney hear that gossip which lays bare, as good fiction does, the state of society and the relations of men one to another. Another great help was W. C. Bristol, now the United States District Attorney at Portland. Upright, independent and very dignified, this young man was not popular, and he and Heney did not hit it off personally at first. But Bristol was rich in precise, well-ordered, documentary information and his experience by in the field of land-graft, railroading and politics. He had been a land attorney for the Southern Pacific. Heney had need of Bristol's knowledge of the land laws and the facts, and he consulted frequently with him.
And Bristol—a corporation attorney (of the Heney type)—gave the best that was in him. He was professionally scrupulous; he volunteered nothing; and he didn't help Francis J. Heney. He responded as a citizen to the demands which the Assistant Attorney-General made upon him in the name of the government. It was Bristol who gave Heney his first definite grasp of the whole corrupt system of graft in Oregon.
And Burns, coming up from below, had the same system. He also encountered opposition, but he also had an opening wedge. When Emma Watson disappeared, Burns assigned "Dug" Doyle, a "shadow," to "rope" (locate and fetch, without arresting) the woman. "Dug" hadn't found Mrs. Watson, but he had worked in with the under-world and he introduced Burns, who soon was deep in the muck. The under-world sees the upper-world of graft very clearly; it knows men and the relations of men and it has the "straight" of many a crooked deal. Burns heard what the criminals had to tell; he saw what they saw and, at night, when he and Heney met at their hotel to compare notes, it was amazing how the gossip of the clubs dovetailed in with
Mrs. Emma A. Watson, one of the co-conspiritors with Puter and others in the land frauds
Emma Watson's "Strawberry Patch "—above the snow level!
leaders who developed the resources of the country. They ran steamships, built roads and railroads. They made the government grant them immense tracts of land for their roads, but they built the roads till the grants of land made land grafters of them. The map of Oregon to-day is streaked up and down and all around by zigzags of "military road grants," which show no roads but which do show fortunes in timber. And so with the railroads. They also got lands from the government to help them finance their schemes for the development of the state. They also turned grafters. And this, the inevitable result of grants and grafts, was a pity, for it turned good, great, enterprising men into grafters. But that is not all. As we have noticed before: To get their grafts, and keep them and get more, the grafters have to go into politics and corrupt the government. The road-builders of Oregon, first the "military road" makers, then the steam promoters, corrupted Oregon, just as the same kind of men have corrupted every other state we have seen. And Heney, unwilling to see Oregon with his Arizona Territory eyes, was able to look back and see Arizona with his Oregon eyes. He had fought the vice interest in Tucson. In Portland the vice interest was powerful, and he saw men who saw it there as he had seen it in Tucson—as the cause of all their woe. But Heney was to fight the land-graft in Oregon and he saw that the liquor interest was only a junior partner of the land and the railroad interest. No wonder then that he, having beaten vice in Tucson, was beaten in Arizona: incidents and men that he could recall vividly showed that he was beaten in the territory by the railroad, mining and land interests, which were working with the vice interest, as agent, to corrupt and possess the territory. Oregon, the young state, was only one stage higher, or lower, in the development of the System: a system of corruption, by vice and the railroads, of the people and the government for all businesses that want grafts out of the government.
A Vista of Graft
Puter, McKinley et al. were nothing but the land thieves who stole for big land grafters; and Heney heard that the railroads and land grafters, not only in Oregon but all over the Northwest and as far east as Michigan, used them. And protected them. For Burns's contribution to the picture was the thieves' jargon about the Puter gang's connection with, for example, Franklin Pierce Mays, a law partner of Charles H. Carey, the counsel for the Northern Pacific who had nodded approval when Fenton, the counsel for the Southern Pacific, explained to Heney at their little dinner the Oregon view of Oregon land grafting. And this connection ran on up, they both heard, to Hall, who had as an assistant in his office Ed Mays, the brother of Pierce. And Pierce Mays had a pull with Binger Herrman, the Land Commissioner at Washington; and Hall was in with Herrman and, above him, with the United States Senators and one or two Congressmen. The government, state and (so far as Oregon was concerned) Federal, represented, not the people, but the grafters! Heney heard, but he would not believe; he saw, but he could not imagine. Burns smiled. This meant, to Heney, that the United States Attorney, appointed presumably to represent the United States government and defend it from land frauds, represented the thieves! Impossible. Wasn't Hall prosecuting Puter, McKinley et al.?
"Let's get Hall in and sound him," Burns suggested. "If the Puter gang are in the business, they must have put through other deals, and if Hall knows one case, he must know others."
Burns had learned in the under-world that one George Sorensen, a member of the Puter gang, was Hall's source of information and that that was why Hall did not indict him. Heney called Hall into conference and, with Burns and Rittenhouse, his stenographer, present, examined him. Hall looks like a big, honest countryman, all candor and honesty; and he was able-minded. But he gave himself away that day. He said that he had been approached with an offer of a bribe of $5000. Heney's sudden interest recalled him to himself and he explained that the offer came not from Puter et al., but from a certain dentist in town who was one of the many citizens that had sworn, for $150 each, that they had lived upon and improved homesteads. Heney demanded all the facts, and when Hall said he must treat the matter as confidential because the witness was a source of evidence in the cases, Heney flew into a passion. He wanted to know why the Attorney-General could not be trusted. Hall flushed and Burns, seeing his embarrassment, made one of his shrewd bluffs.
Examining a United States Attorney
"Ah, say," he shot in, "we know who your man is. We are beginning to find out a few facts ourselves and we know where you get yours. You got this from George Sorensen."
Hall, convinced that they knew more, admitted that Sorensen was the man, and Heney followed up the attack.
"What case does the dentist come in on?" he asked. And Hall disclosed the other cases; better cases; cases easier to win; cases involving men higher up.
"What did I tell you?" said Burns, the suspecting." Was Hall a crook?"
"No," said Heney. His theory now was that Hall had meant to let him try the weakest case and lose it; then he, Hall, would go on alone to try the better cases and win.
"Or lose," said Burns." You think he's bent only on 'doing' you. I tell you he is protecting somebody. He wants you to be beaten, but that is only part of his game to regain control of the whole situation and—save it."
Francis J. Heney is the most remarkable example I know of that typical American who, having eyes, saw not, and having ears, heard with them, but not with his mind. This ex-political boss of Arizona, while in Washington that summer, induced the Attorney-General to pledge the President to reappoint Hall United States District Attorney!
Heney went home by way of Portland, and, telling Hall what he had done, instructed him to prepare another, the second Puter case, and to make use of Sorensen as a witness. Hall promised. But when Heney and Burns returned to Portland to put on the case, Sorensen had "skipped," Hall said. Bums laughed. Even after that Heney let Hall open the case and conduct the examination of witnesses—for two days.
Meanwhile Burns was at work. The reason this, the so-called "7-11" case, was better than the other was that the persons were real who had sworn to having lived upon and improved the land Puter and his gang had obtained by fraud. It was hard to prove that fictitious persons did not exist, but these real persons could be found, frightened and brought in as witnesses. Bums sent out his son, George, with a photographer to take affidavits of these persons and pictures of the claims and the "improvements." George Burns discovered, as his photographs reproduced in these pages show, that none of these claims had ever been improved. They couldn't be. Part of township seven-eleven was up above the snow line on the mountains. Snow lay till June on the alleged "strawberry patches." Some claims were inaccessible, upon a mountain peak, or down the sides of precipitous cliffs. All were worthless, for, you understand, Puter and his gang did not want this land in the forest reserves to keep. They sought only the right to exchange it for other land and these rights, called scrip, were sold to timber men who used it to "lay down" upon (claim) rich timber and grazing lands "anywhere" in the public domain.
To help find and bring to court the persons who acted as dummies in this business, Heney and Burns had the service of Capt. Ormsby, a former forest superintendent of the Interior Department, who had worked on the case. This old man was telling things. One day, however, when he was "coming through" to Burns, Hall saw him and called him out. When Ormsby returned to Burns, he was a changed man; he had nothing more to confess.
Heney is a fighter. A case to him is a fight. He was fighting a case then. Everybody that was helping him was his friend, everybody that was against him was his foe. This act of Hall was like a blow, and, as with President Roosevelt, so with Heney, a blow makes him see what no argument can. Heney saw now at last that Hall was crooked. And Heney has another trait in common with Mr. Roosevelt. What he sees fighting, he will fight.
Heney Takes Charge
Up to that time Heney had sat silent at the trials. Hall was the man. The papers of that period show it; they have large pictures of Hall, a little tintype of Heney. Local pride was glad to give credit where credit was due and Heney meant to let Hall have all the glory in his own state. But the day after the Ormsby incident, Heney said quietly to Hall that there would be a change. He offered no explanation." I will examine all witnesses, Mr. Hall," he said.
Hall pleaded, but Heney was a rock. He tried the case. It made a difference, too. The evidence began to go against Puter and his gang. Leading citizens were alarmed. The papers began to "hit up Heney," the pictures were caricatures, but from this on he was the man. Other influences appeared, in front and behind. No matter. Heney makes jurors, and judges too (as I've heard them say), believe in him; they see that he is sincere, fair but fierce in his sense of duty to the state. He taught this Oregon jury that the crime of Puter et al. was not merely conspiracy, not only stealing, but a violation of the public policy of the United States and a menace to good government. And those jurors understood. To the amazement of the whole Northwest, Heney convicted Puter, McKinley and the other conspirators—the tools of the big land grafters.
The verdict was a personal triumph for Heney and he might have gone home, his duty done. The government had asked him to try only the "first of the series," but Mr. Knox knew his man. Heney never thought of quitting. He ""couldn't afford" to go on, but on he went—after the men behind the tools. They were alarmed. There comes a time in the progress of every honest investigation when the grafters are panic-stricken. They lose their heads and fly apart, each to save himself. That is the time to strike. They rally afterwards and fight better than ever. The conviction of Puter started the panic in Oregon and Heney was quick to strike.
While the jury still was out, he sent a shot toward Hall. Meeting Col. Greene, he told him he knew Hall was protecting Loomis, Ormsby and Sorensen. Like Greene, Loomis was a special agent under Hall's control; Ormsby, the crooked ex-Forest Superintendent, was a member of Hall's grand jury; and Sorensen was Hall's man in the Puter gang, who had "skipped."
"I don't know why," said Heney to Greene, "but Hall is protecting these fellows, and if he doesn't look out I'll have him removed. Now that's between us."
Heney gave Greene this "to carry" and the messenger must have run with it, for the moment the Puter verdict was rendered, Hall came in where Heney and Burns were.
"Do you know," he said smoothly, "I have about concluded to indict Loomis, Ormsby and Sorensen."
"Do you think you could find Sorensen?" Burns asked, quite as smoothly.
Oh, yes. Hall could find Sorensen. He had a letter from him, from somewhere in Wisconsin. And he fetched the letter. Heney glanced at it and handed it to Burns, who stepped out, had it copied and returned the copy to Hall. They were building a case around Hall, and the original showed that at the time Sorensen was wanted. Hall was in correspondence with him. Burns wired the Secret Service at Chicago to locate Sorensen, the key to Hall.
Puter Confesses to Burns
The key to the situation as a whole, however, was Stephen A. Douglas Puter, and the moment they convicted him, Heney and Burns set about getting him to confess. A thief, but a land thief; a criminal, but a criminal of the forests and plains, "Steve" Puter was a strong, free, fighting spirit. He would be hard to break down. The idea of "peaching on his pals" would be abhorrent to him. But so was the idea of confinement. Puter had said that he would die before he would go to prison, and the day after the verdict, his brother, Clarence, an attorney, called on Heney to ask his consent to "a fine, a big fine—anything but jail."
Heney was hard. "Steve gets the limit," he said, "in the penitentiary." And, knowing where the brother would go next, Heney hurried in to see the judge. He explained the situation and his plan, and when Clarence Puter appeared in chambers, the judge was as hard as Heney. It was Burns's turn now. The detective reasoned that while Puter would "stand by" his friends, he would expect his friends to stand by him. Puter must be "isolated." Burns found a way to warn Pierce Mays and the other gentlemen involved with Puter that they were under suspicion and that they would better not be seen with Steve or his brother. This done. Burns had it suggested to Puter to appeal to Mays and his friends to go on his bond. When the "shadows" reported that Clarence Puter had called on these men and come away "mad," Burns went to see him.
"Puter," he said, "the big fellows are making a 'fall-guy' of your brother. They want him in jail out of the way. Now Heney's onto the whole lay-out and he doesn't want Steve and that bunch. He wants the big guns, the very fellows who have gone back on Steve. And if you don't believe they have quit him, go and see. Try Mays or any of 'em."
"I have tried them," Puter said, bitterly, "I've tried 'em all."
A bloodhound in pursuit. Bums turns cat when he catches his prey. He played with the Puters. He saw them both. They hated to "squeal," but Burns held out in one hand a picture of Steve as a fool serving years in prison out of loyalty to friends who had gone back on him; in the other, new friends, himself and Heney.
Steve Puter confessed, and his confession opened the way to the land-fraud system. The others "came through" also—McKinley, Tarpley, Marie Ware, Emma Watson. But the best witness was Puter. Like most men who have kept secrets for years, Puter enjoyed talking, so he talked and talked; he would go away and, recalling things he had forgotten, would come back to Heney with them. And now, when no one is left to listen, Steve Puter is making a book.
Well, it would take a book to tell all that Puter and his pals know of the land and other grafts of Oregon; and most of it was brought out in the trials, the long, hard-fought trials which lasted two years and are going on still. Heney won all of his; at least he got 33 convictions out of 34 cases. And now W. C. Bristol is carrying on the work. But our interest, as I have said, is not in crime, but in the effect of crime on men and government—as Francis J. Heney saw it.
The Inside Story
And the first thing Heney saw in these confessions was that United States Attorney Hall did indeed represent the graft system. Bums had been right all along. The reason Hall was prosecuting Puter et al. was cleared up by the inside story of the case: Puter and McKinley had had a row over some stolen land and they unloaded their troubles on a young man named Lloyd, whose father, a lumberman of Minnesota, had sent him West to learn the (land-graft) business. Lloyd "squealed" to Col. Greene. The Special Agent was loyal to the government then and he reported this and a fraud in the surveyor-general's office to Mr. Hitchcock. The Secretary directed Greene to co-operate with United States Attorney Hall. Hall needed the information Greene furnished him. His term had expired and Charles W. Fulton had promised his place to George C. Brownell as pay for his (Fulton's) election to the United States Senate. Brownell was President of the Oregon Senate; he had been the Southern Pacific's man there for years; as chairman of the railroad committee, he headed the "combine" of "corrupt politicians" who accepted campaign contributions from big businessmen and held up little business men. Brownell delivered the decisive votes which elected Mitchell and other men besides Fulton to the United States Senate. His claim to promotion into the Federal service was "good," therefore. But Greene's eidence in the surveyor-general's case involved Brownell, and Hall used it to drive him out of the race. Brownell named his partner, J. W. Campbell, as his heir to the senatorial gratitude; he did not know that there was anything "on" Campbell. There was and there was something "on" somebody else, too. The Puter-McKinley cases reached up to Binger Herrman and Senator Mitchell himself, so Hall rushed off to Washington, where he explained to the senators just what Col. Greene's evidence meant. The result was the now famous letter to Brownell, dated in the Senate, Washington, Jan. 18, 1904, part of which follows:
My dear Senator and Friend:
"I can assure you we are both anxious to discharge in some proper way the great obligations we are both under to you. I have received your several dispatches since Hall left Portland and both Senator Fulton and myself have done everything in our power to protect you, and also Campbell—who is also under the ban of Greene and others, as we learned to our great surprise and regret—and, without going into particulars, I think we have been able to so arrange matters as to protect you both. Of course, friend Brownell, this letter is to you in the strictest confidence. The best way for the present is to drop all talk about the District Attorneyship; let the matter stand for the present. Both Fulton and I have for the purpose of protecting your interest gone very much farther in a certain direction than we ever supposed we would. I cannot explain fully to you until I see you just what I mean. Hall leaves this evening for home. My advice would be for you to say nothing to him unless he says something to you. Just let the matter drift for the present. This is all-important."
This was signed by John H. Mitchell and there was added a line saying: "I have read the above and fully concur in it," signed C. W. Fulton.
Reaching Higher Up
Here then was a full explanation of Hall. But here also was something far more important: the two senators from Oregon apologizing to Brownell, a crook, for not having him made a United States District Attorney, but reporting to him a bargain with the present United States District Attorney not to prosecute him and "others." This was the System and Heney saw it, and he saw how he, by speaking for Hall at Washington, had assisted the corrupt bargain. But he made amends. Such treason to the United States Government in office is not a crime, either in law or in public opinion; not yet. Heney had to get something "specific" on Hall, and he got "something specific" later on. He has this fellow under indictment now on two conspiracies, one to impede the administration of justice, the other "to unlawfully maintain a fence around lands of the United States." But Heney did not have to wait so long to get rid of Hall.
Burns had heard that Sorensen was coming home, and McKinley knew when. Heney haled Hall before the Grand Jury and, making him tell about Sorensen 's offer of a $5000 bribe from the dentist, indicted Sorensen. When Sorensen arrived. Burns brought him to Heney, who read him Hall's testimony.
"Dentist!" said Sorensen. "Hell, it was for you fellows (Puter and McKinley) and, by God, he arranged to meet me at St. Louis and take the money."
Heney had Hail removed from office by wire.
Hall had become by this time a very small speck on Heney's horizon, but he loomed large in Oregon, and his removal, consummated before he or anybody else knew of the confessions of Puter et al., startled the state. Heney, with his big stick a-swing, was a terrible sight in the minds of men; he fascinated the guilty consciences, and Burns, purring reassurances, was steering them to him to confess. The investigators knew just whom they wanted. Puter's outline of the System showed them that it was the same as that of California. Even the method of stealing was alike, so like indeed that they asked Puter how it happened. And he told them:
Hyde and Benson and Schneider introduced it into Oregon. Puter said that he and men like Mays, the railroads and all the other land grabbers began by bribing all sorts of people—"good** citizens and '^bad," men and women, sailors and bankers, farmers and merchants, dentists and other professional persons, mayors, legislators and politicians—^to swear falsely that they had lived on homesteads or otherwise '* proved up" on claims which they turned over to the grafters. Thus was the foundation of the system laid de^ and broad in Oregon on the corruption of the people themselves.
Oregon Learns from California
But the grafters gradually learn everywhere that it is unnecessary to share the graft with the people, and Hyde and Benson of California taught Oregon a lesson. When they came up these they had a grafter's row with one Page, whose attorneys were Carey and Mays. Page, intent only on the land he and Benson were fighting over, proposed to produce certain letters which flowed that Benson had paid "fees" to Senate Mitchell. But Carey was Mitchell's Northern Pacific Railroad manager in politics. And Mitchell and Tanner were Benson's attorneys. A settlement was arranged, therefore, in the interest of graft. The territory was divided. Since Benson had a use in California for the Oregon Senator's influence at Washington, he agreed to keep out of Oregon. He and Hyde were to have the Federal land-graft in their own state and that of Oregon was to be left to the Oregon grafters. And, as a token o€ good will, Hyde and Benson and Schneider explained their improved method of forging fictitious names to claims. That's how the people of Oregon lost their share of the land-graft of Oregon.
This established Burns's theory of parallels between states, and following it, Heney went next after Ormsby, the ex-Superintendent of Forests, who reported to Washington the recommendations for forest reserves. If Oregon was like California, the land grafters drew the maps and bribed the Forest Superintendent to send them on. Burns used the fear of Heney on Ormsby to make him "come through," and, sure enough, the old man confessed that he got from Pierce Mays the map of the Blue Mountain Reserve. Nor was that all. This map was made in the Land Office at Portland, with the Land Commissioner, Binger Herrman, out on one of his vacations, looking it over with Mays.
Here at last was Binger Herrman, the sly, whom Burns had failed to get in California. And they had also Mays, a state legislator and a railroad attorney, and Ormsby, a bribed Superintendent of Forests. A Congressman turned up next. Col. Greene, seeing his friend Hall out of power, went to Heney one day with a tip that a certain Special Agent, Thomas B. Neuhausen, could "deliver" Congressman Williamson. This was a bad introduction for Neuhausen, but when he appeared, young, clean, keen and jolly, Heney took a fancy to him. Neuhausen did have a case on Williamson. The Congressman had "got in" late on the Blue Mountain Reserve. All the land within the lines was taken, but he had filings made on a contiguous piece, and thus began his career in Congress by petitioning to have his land taken in—for "his constituents."
"Why didn't you report this before?" asked Heney of the Special Agent.
"Who to?" said Neuhausen, quick and to the point. "I knew Hall was crooked and——"
Honest Men Discovered
Neuhausen knew the System and he knew it well. He had evidence on Hall and others too. He and Bums completed the case on Williamson. Neuhausen turned out to be an orderly, resourceful assistant; he stayed with Heney to the end and now he is helping Bristol. So the System wasn't complete. The lines of graft ran up into the House, of Representatives, but though they had caught a Congressman, they had caught also an honest Special Agent.
There were other exceptions. So soon as Heney had demonstrated his courage and ability, Governor Chamberlain, a Democrat elected in this solid Republican state, offered the aid of all the executive departments concerned in the land business, and this help, accepted, proved well worth while. The Governor of Oregon was, and he still is, the head of the state, not of the state system, and the people there know that and they appreciate it. For they re-elected Governor Chamberlain, and while Heney was in Portland he saw that Republican city elect for Mayor Dr. Harry Lane, a physician and a democrat (with a small d). No, Oregon isn't a bad state. On the contrary, there is a movement on there which promises to put the people of Oregon among the leaders of reform, but that is another story. Suffice it for the present to say that Oregon was better than most of the United States.
Federal Corruption
The stronghold of the "interests" there was in the Federal branch of the state government. United States District Attorney Hall was one case in point; another was that of the United States Marshal, "Jack" Matthews. Matthews was the Republican boss of Portland and, therefore, the most powerful political agent in the state. He let vice be protected in the city and the public utility companies, and in the state represented railroads and other privileged businesses that "had to" keep politics corrupt. Heney had nothing to do with this, he thought, at first. He had learned in Arizona that he couldn't do much in Tucson without fighting the territorial boss and his Federal organization. He soon learned in Oregon that he couldn't fight Federal graft in Oregon without tackling also the boss of Portland. As United States Marshal, Matthews impaneled Heney's land-fraud juries and Bums convinced him that he exercised the functions of the office to which the President (for the Oregon Senators) appointed him to protect the criminals the President (for Knox and Hitchcock) had appointed Heney to prosecute. Heney had to ask the President to oust Matthews and appoint in his stead Charles J. Reed, his friend.
This change was put through while the grafters were in a state of panic and, lest they should rally, Heney labored hard and swift to accomplish other ends. He got one of the business bribe-givers back of the petty political bribe-takers—Frederick W. Kribs, a great lumber agent for C. A. Smith, and Pillsbury, the flour man of Minneapolis, Minn. Puter delivered Kribs. He said that he (Puter), learning that the Northern Pacific was "copping off" some fine timber land, jumped in with sixty-four fellows on the same land. Pierce Mays handled the railroad gang of perjured claimants and there was a fight, of course. Afraid of the power and the money of the railroad, Puter bethought him of Kribs, who he knew represented Smith and Pillsbury and had lots of money which he used in the most reckless corruption. Kribs went in with Puter, agreeing to pay $5 an acre for the land and all expenses. Kribs was a client of Mays also, however, and through him managed a division of the spoils. The railroad got half the land and Puter and Kribs the other half, but there was a difference in the quality of the timber. "And," Heney says with a laugh, "the railroad got the worst of that deal."
A Bribe-giver Confesses
Puter's "delivery" of Kribs showed that this big business man could deliver others higher up and Bums was sent out to call on and scare him. He was easily frightened. Burns soon had Mr. Kribs flying to Heney. And he came whispering. Burns and Rittenhouse, the stenographer, were present when Kribs greeted Heney, and they saw him speak into his ear.
"Oh, no," said Heney aloud. "You can't see me alone."
The confession that followed was the story of a briber who believed and had found that every man had his price. "He told me how he corrupted every Federal, state and city official that he ever had had to do business with," says Heney. He used checks, too, and upon his testimony with his checks as exhibits Heney removed more special agents, registers, and other Federal officeholders than on any other evidence whatever. Fred Kribs has not reformed; he was not put on trial; but he rendered a great service to the United States. This habitual briber "delivered" United States Senator Mitchell, Binger Herrman and many other politicians. Mr. Kribs might have delivered his principals back in Minnesota and other big business corruptionists, but Heney preferred the politicians. He has learned since to take the business men, as we shall see in San Francisco, but that is because Oregon taught him where the roots of our evil lay. While he was at work in Oregon on a Federal job. United States Senators looked bigger to him than the business men that keep the Mitchells, Fultons and Aldrichs in the Senate.
With Kribs's evidence, and Puter's, Heney went after Mitchell and Herrman—^under difficulties. When it leaked out that Heney was trying to indict Mitchell, not only the politicians and business grafters — all society in Oregon faced Heney with a solid frowning front.
John Mitchell Hippel, alias John H. Mitchell, was loved in Oregon. It was a corrupt love. When I was up there this year, many men and women still mourned the fate of this remarkable man, and the reason they gave was that he had got something out of the Government for them or their friends or the state. Sometimes the land or the office or the favor was right; oftener it was wrong. He must have been a most kind man, and, as a Senator, most industrious in the betrayal of all of the people to some of the people. He was a traitor, Senator Mitchell was; lovable. but not clean; generous, but with public property; he betrayed the United States to Oregon and he betrayed Oregon to the railroads. For the Southern and Northern Pacific railroads "kept" Senator Mitchell. It was proven that he was under a salary of $6000 a year from the Southern Pacific. Senator Mitchell presented graft and corruption.
His Life and His Character
And when Frank Heney, representing the people vs, graft, accused Senator Mitchell, Oregon turned against Heney, and the real fight was on. Heney's life was in danger. Desperate plots were laid to kill him. This was generally known before Heney heard of it. He received warnings, but he paid no heed to them till one day hie noticed that he was followed. Whirling about on the "shadow," he learned that he was a Burns man. Heney was angry, and Burns had an unpleasant time explaining how he had learned that a couple of men, gun-men whom he (Burns) knew to be willing to do murder, were in town under contract to shoot him at a certain comer or to pick him off through his hotel window. So well known was this that once when Heney was talking at his window with a friend, the man's wife drew him away, out of danger.
I think Heney enjoys physical danger. He quarreled with Bums for putting a guard on him and took no precautions whatsoever, excepting that he k^t his own "gun" clean and handy. But an attack made at the time on his character aroused his fiercest wrath. Bums learned that some men and women of the under-world had been hired to swear that Heney had gone to a road house with Marie Ware. Bums ran out the whole plot and Heney called Marie Ware before the Grand Jury. She confessed that she had been asked to "put up this job," and Heney summoned everybody concerned directly in the plot—bankers, railroad attorneys, senators and other officials, touts and women; he produced the evidence of his innocence and of their guilt and—this is how he indicted ex-United States Attorney Hall (among others) for "conspiracy to defeat the administration of justice." For, of course, this obscene scheme was laid, not primarily to hurt Heney, but, through his downfall, and disgrace, to save graft, the grafters and beat the law. Another Vista of United States Graft
Assailed from below, Heney was attacked from above, too. From the moment he started after Mitchell, Senator Fulton led a big grafters' intrigue at Washington to undermine Heney with the President. Knox had resigned the Attorney-Generalship and Attorney-General Moody, a very politic man, did not support Heney. He didn't want to remove "Jack" Matthews from the United States Marshalship and Heney had to force that. When Judge Bellinger died. Moody had W. W. Cotton, chief counsel at Portland for the Harriman system, appointed to the Federal bench. Heney's charges and his success in convicting Congressman Williamson beat that move, which would have defeated his whole prosecution. And finally, when, later, Heney proposed the appointment of W. C. Bristol for United States District Attorney in Hall's place, Heney had to go to Washington and at a meeting of the lawyers in the cabinet, with the help of Secretaries Hitchcock, Taft and Root, Bonaparte and Metcalf, force Moody's hand. But that is Bristol's story, which is not over yet and not ready to tell.
Desperate as Heney's position was, however, it was enlightening. All this opposition, front and rear, above, below and all around, showed him the System. When good men and women protested, he saw that they were corrupted by their associations; when the State Legislature passed unanimously resolutions of confidence in Senator Mitchell, he looked over his list of state legislators, indicted, confessed or under suspicion, and he understood that that legislature was in the System. And when Mitchell, indicted, rose and wept in the United States Senate, and the senators left their seats to go up to him and before all the world take his hand and show their sympathy, Francis J. Heney realized that United States Senator John H. Mitchell, the man he was proving a felon, was a symbol of the condition of a government, state and national, and a personification of the moral disgrace of a people.
"And when I saw that so vividly, Mitchell, the man, became as nothing to me. I wanted then to convict that System and show to my people, all over this land, what I was seeing."
How Mitchell was "Got"
Well, Heney convicted the System. "Steve" Puter told how when he laid twelve claims on the top of a mountain, he got into a muss with a Dr. Davis, the Mayor of Albany and chairman of the Republican Central Committee, who also was "in on" that same land. Davis had a pull and Puter paid bribes all along the line to surveyors, special agents, forest superintendents, registers and receivers, etc., and to some forty-five citizens. One of these officials, the man Loomis heretofore mentioned, wrote a private letter to Land Commissioner Binger Herrman. Davis wrote another, as Chairman, and had it attested by the Secretary of the Central Committee. These intimate letters are part of the evidence on Herrman. But there was a clerk in the Land Office at Washington and he was reporting adversely on the claims, so Puter took Enmia Watson to Washington. She was made up as a handsome, helpless widow. They saw Mitchell. Puter gave the United States Senator two $1000 bills. Puter kept a memorandum book of such transactions and he noted this payment. And for this small sum United States Senator Mitchell introduced Puter to Assistant, afterwards Land Commissioner, Richards, who passed these fraudulent claims to patent.
This, however, was not the case on which Heney tried Mitchell. He used it, but it was Kribs, the business man, not Puter, the thief, that made the Mitchell case. Kribs said, when he was talking about the fight with the Northern Pacific over Puter's claims, that the terms of the compromise included the promise of Pierce Mays to use his influence with Herrman and Mitchell to "expedite" their business. Mays went to work, but while he was still at it Mitchell arrived in Portland. Kribs saw Mitchell. Now Mays said it would cost $50 a claim to get Mitchell. Mitchell said his firm, Mitchell & Tanner, would do the work direct for $25 a claim. And they did it for that and Kribs paid with checks The Grand Jury reflected the Oregon reverence for Mitchell, and, to break down this feeling, Heney examined the Senator on the facts established in corroboration of Puter's story. Senator Mitchell proved himself a witless liar, arrogant with power, and yet, when Heney flamed up with facts, weak. Having thus discredited him with the jurors, Heney asked him if he knew Kribs. He said he didn't.
"Did your firm ever do business with him?"
"I don't know."
Some Fine Detective Work
That was all at the time, but both Mitchell and Heney knew that the basis of the Mitchell case was laid, both the prosecution and the defense. The charge was to be that this United States Senator took fees for using his influence in the Department at Washington to put through (fraudulent) business, and the defense was to be that the firm of Mitchell & Tanner, not the Senator, had taken these "fees." When Mitchell went back to Washington, Heney summoned Tanner and asked for his co-partnership contract with Mitchell. It was drawn in terms which exculpated Mitchell absolutely, for all fees for Department business were to go only to Tanner and the Senator was to be asked to do only perfectly proper business for his constituents without pay. Heney suspected that this paper was drawn for this particular case and Bums traced the stationery. The paper on which that agreement was written had not been manufactured till after the date of the contract. Moreover, there had been a recent change of stenographers in Mitchell & Tanner's office and the crucial paragraph contained three misspelled words. Heney sent for the firm's new stenographer, Tanner's own son, and asked him if he had not typewritten the contract. He hesitated, flushed, but said he hadn't. Heney made him write at his dictation a passage which contained the three words misspelled in the contract. The young man misspelled them as in the paper. Heney had the father and son indicted for perjury and, to save his boy, the father confessed and pleaded guilty.
Tanner said that Mitchell had suspected that Heney would catch him on the Kribs business and that on his way home to appear before the Grand Jury he had had Tanner meet him on the train. The Senaator told him that he wasn't afraid of Puter; a United States Senator's word was better than a land thief's, but Kribs was a business man and paid in checks. Mitchell said they must look the books over and the next day they did so. Everything was in them: the payment by Kribs and the $500 a month from the Southern Pacific. "My God!" the Senator exclaimed. "These books will ruin me. They must be burned or rewritten." And the next thing he thought of was that partnership contract. Mitchell's private secretary, Robertson, had written it. Mitchell had Tanner's son write the new one. Kribs produced his checks; the bank produced its books, which showed that month by month the fees were divided between the partners; former stenographers recalled the payments, and vividly, because the firm did so little other business. So the "fees" were traced from Kribs to Mitchell. One link in the evidence was lacking to make out what lawyers call a "beautiful case."
Chief Wilkie saw Robertson in Washington, served a summons on him and advised him to tell the truth. Robertson reported to Mitchell, who was getting telegrams daily from Tanner.
"What do you suppose they want of me?" Robertson asked.
Mitchell told him about the old contract and the new one. "They probably want to question you about it and you must be careful what you answer."
Robertson read the new contract, and looked so dumfounded that Mitchell went on to explain.
"Oh, we framed that up when I was out there. Any means are justified to beat those——." And he said he would give him a letter for Tanner, telling him just what to do.
Robertson walked the floor all that night, and at last decided to tell the truth. His wife approved and off he started, with the letter to Tanner in his bag. He went straight from his hotel in Portland to the Grand Jury. Heney asked him about the original contract and Robertson produced a copy of it; there was no such clause in it as that which exculpated Mitchell in the new contract.
"Did Mitchell give you a letter to Tanner?" Heney happened to ask.
"He did," and Robertson went and got that so-called "bum-this" letter, in which Mitchell wrote himself down a rascal.
The Justice That Kills
Heney published this letter, the news of Tanner's confession and enough other evidence to turn the tide of public opinion, and he did turn it. Men were convinced. The trial of the Senator was a spectacle for the whole nation. It was hard fought, but Heney and his staff of assistants, and Bums, the detective, had made a case that had not a loophole in it. Heney himself conducted the prosecution like a flame, so passionate was he, so sure and inexorable, and the elaboration of the evidence was like a conflagration. That Oregon jury convicted the Oregon Senator and—John Mitchell died.
And John A. McCall, the president of the New York Life Insurance Company, died; and A. J. Cassatt, of the Pennsylvania Railroad; and James W. Alexander, vice-president of the Equitable Assurance Company, lost his mind. There is something terrible about justice—when it is unexpected. Men say in Oregon that Mitchell was not so bad. He played the game according to the rules learned in life, and he had won, as others had, so many other of our successful men. He had made much money, been honored, even loved. The law slept and there was no justice. The system reigned.
Suddenly this man, Francis J. Heney, came along with his sense of duty. He awakened the law and did justice to Mitchell, who was no worse than others. He did justice also to Pierce Mays, whose friends protest that he is naturally a good man; Mays played the game and he is in prison. You don't often hear his neighbors speak so well of a man as his constituents speak of Congressman Williamson. He did only what everybody says "everybody did" in Oregon and he stands convicted of a felony. And so with many of the leading citizens of that state. They are not criminals yet they are under indictment, sentence, or notorious suspicion, and if Heney had the time and power he could go with the evidence already in hand to Washington, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and other states and "get "men who have become rich and respected in the land business. Is it any wonder the Northwest is aghast at the terrible results of justice done for once to a few men in Oregon?
If that same justice were certain always hereafter to be done to all guilty men in Oregon and everywhere else, these victims of Heney's unusual sense of duty might serve as examples. But Heney is about through with Oregon; Bristol, his successor, is not well backed up; and the system stands. Only the political head of it is gone, and Senator Fulton, the candidate for leadership of the system there, while not so popular, is quite as "bad" as Senator Mitchell was. In the course of the fight over Bristol, Heney sent to the President certain evidence (outlawed and therefore useless in court except in a libel suit) which shows that Fulton is a corruptionist. But corruption was the custom in Oregon. Heney exposed, he did not break up the System. He says that all of the public lands stolen by all the frauds he proved or ever heard of are a "bagatelle" compared to the areas of timber, coal and grazing lands handed over regularly to big corruptionists —individuals, railroads and other corporations—by Congress in legislation, which while not criminal is as corrupt and more dangerous than stealing. For this "lawful business" is the result, and the absolute proof, of the development of the system of corruption to a point where the national legislature represents without bribery not all, but a few of the people; not justice, but "legitimate grafts." And these grafts are so grand, and so sympathetic with small grafts that other men will take again the small chance Mitchell took, and Mays and Williamson and Puter, to succeed—in Oregon and in Idaho and in California, where the grand grafts are land grafts. In other states, other grafts, but the system is the same.
Either "Justice must be," as Heney said when he was a school-teacher, "swift, sure and inexorable;" or, as he says now, in California, we must deliver men from temptation. The purpose of his life and the use of his example is to try out the Law. And he can see that if the Law cannot do the job, the people at the polls must, and he says they will, change the System which, at present, pays bad men big and good men—very, very little.
(Mr. Steffens's article next month will describe Heney's wonderful work in San Francisco.)