Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 July 1885 — ON THE WARPATH. [ARTICLE]

ON THE WARPATH.

Pink Fishback Connects Eminent Republicans With a Big Swindle. John Elkins Makes the Fraudulent Survey of the Maxwell Land Grant W hile Tteve Elkins Gets in Some Fine work As an Attorney, To the Editor of the Indianapolis News: A letter from Mr. Stephen B. Elkins to the Commissioner of the General Land Office was published in the dispatches of the Associated Press this morning. Mr. Elkins tries to escap the odium which is gathering upon the men who have been stealing the public domain and driving pioneer settlers from their homes. What agency Mr. Elkins had in assisting the Maxwell land grant swindlers in their big steal in New Mexico and Colorado will appear further on. — That he and his brother, who made the bogus survey, helped consummate the swindle, his letter admits. Mr. Eskins, as appears from his letter, had been a director, a shareholder, and the attorney for the swindling corporation while he lived in New Mexico. He does not state, what was also true, that he was the Territorial Delsgate from New Mexico in Congress for several terms. Indeed, he still hails from New Mexico, and last year was put on the Republican National Committee representing that Territory. These things should be remembeaed, in view of Mr. Elki s plea that in procuring the issuance of the fraudulent patent he was simply acting as the appointed attorney of the rascals, and should not be held responsible for the fraud. Perhaps Mr. Elkins was not so innocent and ignorant as he wonld have it appear.— We shall see.

Let me, by way of prelude, state some interesting facts. When we whipped Mexico, in the war which grew out of the annexation of Texas we exacted as indemity a cession of a portion of her territory, *and in that way acquired Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, California, etc. By a stipulation in the treaty of Guadalupe hidalgo, of February, 1848, it was agreed that the United States should respect and confirm valid grants made by Mexico to her citizens of lands lying within the ceded territor . By the Mexican colonization laws of 1824 and 1828,Rand grants were restricted to eleven square leagues. "3 Miranda and Beaubien were Mexicans. They procured a grant of land from the provincial Governor of New Mexico, then a part of Old Mexico, to enable them to cultivate beet roots and cabbages. It was what was known as an agricultural grant. The alcalde proceeded to putthem in possession, which he did according to the approved Spanish fashion, taking them upon the land and causing them to walk to and fro upon it, pulling'herbage, casting earth into the air and proclaiming aloud to the coyotes and jack rabbits that they were the lords of the soil. The alcalde then retired to his adobe palace and made a record of his doings. This record is the foundation of title. The alcalde made no survey; he simply designated certain streams, mountains and mesas as indicating the limits, approximating the elev-en-league limit as well as he could. Signor Miranda had a fair daugh- ‘ •’ / • ■ •’* ’

ter. Me gave her in marriage to one Maxwell, whose name would indicate that he was not a Mexican. Signor or Mr. Maxwell entered upon the land, and when settlers came into the neighborhood he was went to point out his northern boundaryline and assure the ranchmen who located outside of his lines that they would never be disturbed It did not occur to the original g antees that they had more than the eleven leagues allowed by law. But certain schemers saw great possibilities in this grant. They conceived the idea that its boundaries might be stretched so as to include about 2,000,000 acres of land, and drive hundreds of settlers from the homes they were occupying as pre-emption and homestead claimants under the law. They bought Maxweirsjinterest, formed a corporation, hired able lawyers and influential lobbyists and beganfoperations at Washington. The grant was confirmed by Congress, bu‘ there had been no survey and no patent issued. For sufficient reason the swindlers procured two members of the Elkins family to make the survey and procure the patent. John did the surveying in New Mexico and Stephen asststrd in the thimble-rigging in the Land Office at Washington. The Beaubien & Miranda grant was for a hundred thousand acres more or less in Colfax County, New Mexico —a good garden patch for raising beets, as was represented in the application for the grant. Wnen Stephen B. Elkins’ brother John had surveyed i ,it had grown to the proportions of a small empire, running over into the State of Colorado, and covered at least one million acres of land that neither Beaubien, Miranda or Maxwell ever dreamed of owning. Now it is claimed that certain wicked Mexicans deceived Mr. Elkins’ brother Jonn, and induced him to run the lines of the survey where he did, without knowing that he was including within it over a million acres of Government land, much of which had been surveyed, platted and taken up by settlers. Mr Stephen B. Elkins’ brother John was no fool. He was not deceived. He was a rascal, as I shall now show. Governor Kirkwood, when Secreiary of the Interior, investigated this case and in a letter to the Attorney General recommending tha bringing of a suit to cancel the patent which Mr. Ssephen B. Elkins, as attorney, proceeded to issue, speaks of the survey as follows:

The testimony of the witnesses who profess to have identified and pointed out the calls of possession is in the highest degree loose and contradictory, besides being meager ah unsupported. Other and manifest inconsistencies appear unexplained in the pages relating to all the boundaries which should have demanded the strictest scrutiny before the approval of the survey. I deem it proper to state that the records of the General Land Office show that nearly all the townships traversed by the located northern line of the grant in Colorado had been surveyed and the plats filed long before the survey of the grant. Yet the plat of approved survey does not show a single township or section line, and makes no reference thereto, but represents the whole as an unsurveyed region upon which the marks and monuments purport to have been established by reference to natural a topograhical object, many of the names and delineations of streams and geograhical prints being deliberately changed from those already officially reported by the township surveys and plats. But the survey was only one step in the sheme. The patent was yet to be soured. When the settlers saw Mr. Elkins’ brother John skipping about the country with a gang of perjured witnesses — elastic chains an seven-league boots—surveying their home into the Maxwell grant they took alarm. On the 13th of April Mr. Foster, a ranchman, wrote to the Secretary

of the Interior, asking that the settlers might have an opportunity to show that the survey was fraudulent. He received the following answer: Washington, D. C. April 23 1879 Your letter of the 13th inst., to the honorable Secretary of the Interior, relative to the Beaubien and Miranda grant, was refferred to this office by the department on the 18th inst. In reply you are informed that the survey of this grant, approved by Surveyor General Atkinson, December 20 1878 is before the this office for action. No examination has yet been made here to determine the correctness of said survey, and consequently no opinion can now be expressed in the matter nor can it be determined until such examination is concluded whether all the evidence necessary to a decison upon the survey has ever been obtained. Respectfully, J. A. Williamson, Commissioner. It was just at this time when Mr. Stephen B. Elkins put in his oar, for a small consideration to induce the department to issue a patent according to the bogus survey made by his brother John. Meanwhile the settlers were preparing the proofs to show the fraud in the survey and Mr. Fisher wrote another letter to the Secretary of the Interior, May 17, 1879, to which the following response was received: Washington D. C. June 4 1879, Your letter- of the 17th ult. to the Hon. Secretary of the Interior relative to the Beaubien and Miranda grant was referred to this office on the 24th ult. In reply you are informed that the grant in question was patented May 19 1879 in favor of Charles Beaubien Gaudalupe Miranda and the patent transmiited to Lucien Birdseye, Esq., New York City, on the 2d inst. It will thus be observed that this grant has been finally adjudicated so far as the executive branch of the Government is concernen and therefore the survey is not open to contest here. Respectfully J. A. Williamson Commissioner.

Think of it! There was the bugus survey and plat in the hands of the Commissioner, with the other records, showing, as Secretary Kirkwood says that it was a fraudulent survey. The survey was made by Mr. Elkins’ brother. Mr. Elkins was there, the paid attorney, asking the Commissioner to violate his duty. The protest in behalf of the settlers was placed in the ommissioner’s hands May 24, and, without giving them a hearing, a patent was issued on June 2, and on June 4 the Commissioner writ s that the protest is to lare, though his own letter show he had it nine day before the patent was issued. And Mr. Elkins says, in his explanatory letter that he was hired or appointed to do this dirty work. So was his brother. Mr. Elkins seeks to escape by hiding behind opinons given by Mr. Bayard, Mr. Evarts and others. These opinions are to the effect that when Congress confirms a Mexican grant the title of the garntees can not be successfully assailed. But Mr. Elkins knows that these opinions were given long before the survey was made. Nobody denies the validity of the grant. The great rascality was perpetrated when the Elkins family made the survey and procured a patent for a million acres more than the grant called for, and Mr. Evarts ana Mr. Bayard had nothing to do with that. It was the work of Stephen B. Elkins and his brother John. What were the settlers to do. Mr. Elkins had his fee. Mr. Elkins’ brother his pay. Mr. Birdseye had the patent for the swindlers, and the 3,000 settlers had lost the title to there homes. An appeal was made to Governor Kirkwood, Secretary of the Inierior, who recommended a suit in the name of the United States to cancel the fraudulent patent which

Mr. Elkin; says he was hired to procure. Attorney General Brewster brought su't in the Federal Court at Denver, where it is pending now. The Government has been put to a great expense in employing counsel and taking evidence. I learn that Secretary Lamar has requested the Present Attorney General to bring a similar suit in New Mexico. Mr Elkins says in his letter to M.. Sparks Commisioner of the Land Office, that he is indifferent as to the result of the suit. The honest settlers who have been robbed of the title to their homes by the Elkins family are not indiff rent. The frends, of these settlers are not indifferent, and as a Republican I wish to record my thanks to a Democratic Commlssiner of the Land Office who has the courage to espouoe the cause of the pioneer settlers against the land Eirates who hire such men as Elins to do their dirty work.

W. P. FISHBACK.

June 30, 1885.

Manning and Logan on Teniovals. General J ohn A- Logan recently called upon Secretary Manning on public business. He desired to know if the revenue collectors at Quincy and Cario, HL, both of whom were friends of his, were to be retained or dimissed. “Mind” exclaimed he, “I am not asking their retention. I only desire information on the subject, in order that they may arrange their plans for the future.” Mr. Manning replied in his usual direct fashion: “They will both be dismissed as soon as suitable men can be found to fill their places. I may as tell you that it my purpose to make changes in all the collection districts, and in other branches of the department, just as rapidly as I can bring them about.” “I have no fault to find with that at all,” responded the General. “It is only right that men filling responsible positions should b in full sympathy with the administration. If I were a Republican secretary of the treasury and I found these important places filled with Democrats you may be sure I would remove every one of them.”

The frank statement of these two gentlemen, who had not met before, seem to put them at once upon to e most friendly footing. “I should like to ask you. another question,” said Gen. Logan. “I recieve a great many letters from old soldiers throughout the country asking me to protest against the dismissal of ex-soldiers employed as watchmen tnd messengers in t e departments here. What shall I say in response to these inquiries?” “You can simply say that these people are dismissed only for causes; and you may add, if you like, that their places are invariably filled by veterans of the late war, the only difference being that a R .publican soldier is replaced by a Democratic soldier. The first-named have been carefully looked after for nearly a quarter of a century. I think it time now to give the others a chance.”

The Asbury Park Journal says: A very near-sighted gentbman and a very white-handed dude sat next to each other at one of our prominent hotels. In midst of dinner yesterday the guest were startled by a piercing yell emanating from the mouth of the dude, and there was a rush to see what was the matter. The dude had rested his hand for a moment on the edge of the table, and the nearsighted man took it for a piece of bread and jabbed his fork half way through it

Horatio Seymour has many historical relics. When he wants to i e can sit in a chair that belonged to Daniel Webster, look ontof a window which was once in Faneuil Hall, and warm his feet at a fireplace of tiles taken, from the house of John Jay at Albany.

Cljc llfsnoci'dlicScnltiifl RENSSELAER, INDIANA. j W McEWEN, - - - Publisher.