Lincoln Steffens

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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?" ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”