Page:The American Magazine volume LXIV.djvu/608

590 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.

At the state line a Portland friend of a San Francisco banker friend of Heney boarded the train. His friend had wired him of Heney's coming and he wished to have Heney—and Mr. Burns, of course—meet some of the leading men of Oregon. Heney, a clubman and a man of the world, was "delighted." There would be a little informal dinner. And there was. Given at the leading club, some of the leading citizens of the state were present, among them W. D. Fenton, the chief counsel for the Southern Pacific, and Charies H. Carey, ditto for the Northern Pacific Railroad. After the wine had flowed and the cigars and coffee were served, the conversation came around naturally to the work before Mr. Heney, and—Mr. Burns, too, of course. Burns is sober and vigilant at a dinner; Heney is as good company as you could wish for. He was gay and thoughtless that night till he began to catch the drift of things. The leading citizens of Oregon spoke of the magnitude of the timber and land business of their great state; of the legal hindrances to it; and of the "custom of the country," which an outsider might have difficulty in understanding, the ancient custom of "getting around" the land laws. The conversation was an apology for crime and a plea for land criminals.

"So you see, Mr. 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. There was only one way to get rid of bad laws, and that was, not to evade and break them, but to enforce and, by showing that they were bad, repeal or amend them. And, said the guest to his hosts, any leading citizens who took any other course, and especially one that included perjury, were criminals in heart and mind. Their education and their polish made no difference; these made the matter worse. They were corruptionists, they corrupted the law and the people and themselves.

Heney did not realize it at the time, but when he said that such men corrupted