Page:Looters of the Public Domain.djvu/17

 It is idle for Eastern magazine writers of the "slobbery" variety to declare that Puter's so-called confessions were brought about by detective ability of the "sixth sense" order. I am in a position to state authoritatively that he went to Heney on his own volition, exactly as he has described in one of the chapters, and gave to the Government the information that sounded the doom of the Oregon land frauds.

Those who profited most by Puter's fraudulent operations had recognized in him a daring spirit whose early environs had stamped him with courageous instincts, and they knew he was not afraid to take chances—with law or anything else. They found out that they could use him as a battering-ram to break the laws, and open the doors to a vast treasure trove. Sordid motives were behind all their concern for Puter, and when the time came—as come it must where dishonest methods are the incentive—and they realized that the "jig was up," they deserted him as rats leave a sinking ship. To them he was simply a worked-out gold mine, and with all their assumed superior intelligence, blunted, perhaps, by constant contact with greed, and with minds intoxicated by the stimulant of illegitimate gain, they were unable to cope with the problems of retribution—the unexploded blasts in the abandoned shafts.

To Ethan Allen Hitchcock, ex-Secretary of the Interior, must be attributed the principal credit for the suppression of the land-fraud evils, and his greatest luster shines forth as a limelight upon the class of enemies he has made by the operation. Every scoundrel in the land has denounced him for doing what they well knew was his plain duty as an honest official, and if any reward must come to him, it must be in the future from the hearts of a grateful people, and not from politicians.

If doubts have ever existed as to the necessity for the adoption of stringent measures that marked the prosecution of those involved in the crime of looting the public domain, I am reasonably sure a perusal of these pages will have a tendency to remove any such feeling, and convince the most skeptical that Secretary Hitchcock was actuated by sound and lofty motives when he throttled the land-grabbers with the iron hand of the Government. That he did so at an opportune moment, none can deny, because he was dealing with an element that had become so bold in their designs that they felt themselves above the law, and it was a case of a desperate ailment requiring a desperate remedy.

The influence of any class imbued with corruptive methods is detrimental to the best interests of a community, and there is no use in denying that those who have been instrumental in causing so much rank perjury in connection with the acquisition of titles, are responsible for a condition that has left its mark upon the people of the public land States in a manner comparable to the trail of a serpent.

There is a compensating side to these land frauds, after all. The fact of attempted fraud of so stupendous a character discloses in itself that the prize was great which moved men to chance their reputations and jeopardize their personal liberty. They were at least seeking something that was worth the having. Men are not likely to take these risks unless the inducements are sufficiently alluring to excite, to the last degree, the cupidity in their natures. This does not involve any defense of fraud. It simply brings to the attention of the world, through this medium, the marvelous opportunities for the honest acquisition of wealth that abound in the West.

The history of any great undertaking wherein exploration has figured, and wherein conditions have demanded the exercise of abnormal energy, indicates clearly that there is nothing in the world worth having that can be attained without a compensating hardship of some sort. The gold of the Klondike was buried far below the surface in icy moss; the treasures of Tonopah and Goldfield lie deep beneath the sands of an appalling desert; and so of the vast domain of Oregon, with the immense wealth that is wrapped up in its undeveloped forests and stock ranges; they offer difficulties in the way of acquisition by legal process Page 11