Page:Looters of the Public Domain.djvu/236

 borrow the price of a meal from a friend and repair to his bedroom, where he would sleep as peacefully as an infant. In the morning he would wake up and dress, seek some downtown lunch counter and relish a 20-cent breakfast with the same gusto he might display at a feast for the gods. He would then brace up to anything; that looked like ready money, close another big deal, and before nightfall be in the swim again with pockets lined with gold, and as ready and willing as ever to repeat his performance.

It was while we were engaged in business along the lines indicated that McKinley first met his present wife. As Miss Marie L. Ware, she was the United States Commissioner at Eugene, Oregon, and the two were brought in frequent contact through official association, as our transactions through her office were quite extensive, and originally upon a perfectly legitimate basis. It was a bad case of love at first sight between them, and anybody but a blind person could readily guess the outcome. Although Horace, was already married, and had a wife living at West Salem, Wisconsin, the cares of matrimony hung very lightly upon his shoulders and did not hinder him in any way from paying devout court to the fair Marie. So attentive to each other did they become, in fact, that Mrs. McKinley finally sought a divorce from her husband, and the ink was hardly dry on the decree before Horace and Marie were made husband and wife. As the facts relating to their marriage have never been published, and as they naturally form an interesting feature of my story, it affords me pleasure to give my readers full details of the affair.

Immediately after the conviction of Senator John H. Mitchell, in the summer of 1905, I had a consultation with McKinley, and as we had some timber deals pending, we decided to go East and endeavor to close them up. Taking the train at Portland, we proceeded direct to Chicago, remaining there something like a month or six weeks, when McKinley returned to Seattle, where he expected to negotiate the sale of some lands, while I went to Detroit, Mich., from which point I operated throughout the State, visiting a number of the larger timber land operators with whom I was acquainted, and also calling on several in the State of Wisconsin with whom I had done business previously. I found them all more or less indifferent to making further investments in Oregon titles, however, and was unable, because of the land fraud trials, which were then in full progress, to consummate a deal of any particular magnitude, although I did succeed, through hard work, in disposing of a few quarter sections of minor importance.

The main question in the minds of Eastern lumbermen at that moment related to the validity of titles to lands which they had already purchased, and few among them felt disposed to make additional investments, because of the stirring up that Francis J. Heney was giving the timber land operators at that particular time, and which, it was believed by many, would affect lands to which they had already received patents. I soon found, in discussing the subject of Mr. Heney's prosecution of the Oregon cases, that more time was being consumed in giving information than was being devoted to the selling of lands, and commenced to feel discouraged because of the outlook of turning an immediate trade. While thus engaged I received a letter from McKinley, written at Seattle, in which he advised me of his wife having secured a divorce from him. and of his intention to wed Miss Marie L. Ware, of Eugene, Oregon, and requesting me to meet Miss Ware and himself in Chicago, where the ceremony would take place. I was much surprised in receiving McKinley's letter, as it was the first intimation I had received that my old partner was divorced and free to wed the woman of his choice and for whom I was aware that for some years past he had entertained a great admiration.

Upon receipt of his letter. I immediately wired my acceptance of his invitation to the wedding, and lost no time in reaching Chicago, where I found Miss Ware and McKinley registered at the Morrison Hotel, they having arrived from the West that morning.

Page 230