Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 March 1906 — LAND FRAUDS RAMPANT. [ARTICLE]

LAND FRAUDS RAMPANT.

Grafting Almoat Universal In Republican State Machine*. The startling statement is made by Secretary Hitchcock that he expects remarkable disclosures of land frauds In Kansas. Already twenty-four cattlemen have been indicted by the federal court In that state and only two counties have been investigated. The charges are conspiracy to defraud the United States, subornation of perjury and for illegal fencing of lands. It can hardly be possible that these fraudulent entries of land could have been consummated without the connivance of the government land officers, which Is the more probable since about all these rich cattlemen are Republicans. The Republican partisans who have been appointed to federal office In Kansas and other states have been the most active workers for Republican senators and congressmen, and the lavish use of money at elections, obtained from Insurance companies, railroad corporations, tariff protected industries, cattlemen and other tainted sources, is the fundamental cause of these frauds on the government. The grafting propensities exposed In the highest Republican quarters have evidently pervaded the machine in most states, so that the grafting has become almost universal.