in the matters at issue. Or do you prefer that, through the open door of an appeal to the people, the supreme ruler of the Nation, a righteous effort be made to recover back to the Government an amount that will to an enormous extent contribute to the payment of the national debt. This is not extravagant. It is not intended, in fact or by implication, as a challenge. It is put to emphasize that the question at issue is not limited to the alleged Lomas de Santiago grant. It is put that you may know the question at issue is not inspired by selfish or mercenary motives. It is put that you may know, and knowing understand, the situation is teeming with dynamic possibilities that should be discussed in confidential seclusion and in the spirit of fairness to citizens and Government. Now, Mr. President, I have presented to you a compilation of facts and circumstances of significant importance. If this communication is characterized by an excessive fervor and earnestness, full palliation will be found in the subject matter and in the occasion. It is not a pleasant thing to dwell upon the delinquencies of public officials in whom a trusting public must necessarily repose fiduciary relations on a most sacred nature. Public officers are the sustaining pillars in our political structure, and malfeasance on their part is an offense against society, which can not be condoned. When the higher dignitaries refuse to respect and sustain organic law, the very fabric of the Republic is in danger. The Constitution has conferred upon the people power imperial. By the adoption of that sacred instrument, they abolished all crowns and revoked every title except that of man. When the Constitution received the seal of approval by the people, a Republic was created. All variations from the plan and in the form of government provided by the Constitution have been dangerous. In the last great national campaign the shibbolith of the party whose banner you bore to victory was the protection and the preservation of the Constitution. Before we overstep the boundaries blazed for our guidance, will you not sound the trumpet and give the call. We are confronted with the most serious of all tests applied to the spirit of our institutions and in this great struggle, as you bear the oriflamme of battle against every intrigue which menaces the Republic or makes challenge against our organic law, I yield to no one in the loyalty of my pledges, nor will there be found one, in the great mass of American citizens, who will more readily give sincere applause or contribute more fully in soul and substance to the cause in which you are committed to leadership. The homesteaders will await your conclusion with anxious suspense and with confidence unalloyed. Further action on their part will be guided by the findings you may make. Will you not early give expression to your views on their rights to the end that such steps as they may be constrained to take may not be premature. Respectfully, Los ANGELES, CALIF. February 10, 1926. WILLIAMSON S. SUMMERS. SIR: Please be advised that in the mail on Saturday, March 6, there was delivered to me a communication from the Attorney General, a copy of which is herewith inclosed. The answer thereto has this day gone forward. may know its text, a counterpart is hereto attached. That you It It is believed the question submitted to you is far-reaching in its importance. The conclusion you were constrained to reach occasioned a distinct shock. was, however, to some extent absorbed by the intrepid boasts of the knowing ones several days before the Attorney General's letter arrived that this reference had been made, the necessary influence had been exerted and by reason thereof, the rights of the homesteaders had been denied. Your determination to send our cause back to one whose understanding of both the facts and the law is apparently limited and whose interest is manifestly withheld may corrode an ideal and cause an idol to crumble, but it will not abate the determination to protect individual rights, nor will it defeat the resolution to restore vast tracts of valuable lands to the public domain and interests invaluable to the Government. The impression does not prevail that you believe rights should be or will be submitted to the Attorney General if confidence can not be reposed in him as well. Rather, though reluctant the conclusion is, your disposal of this case is equivalent to saying an appeal to the people will not meet your displeasure. With abiding regret as to conditions creating the necessity, with grave concern that the rights of the few may be asserted and the rights of the many may be conserved, yet with no falter in courage this will be done. Respectfully. LOS ANGELES, CALIF., March 8, 1926. WILLIAMSON S. SUMMERS. WILLIAMSON S. SUMMERS, Esq., DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D. C., February 24, 1926. 571 I. W. Hellman Building, Los Angeles, Calif. SIR: The President has referred to this department for acknowledgment and consideration your letter of February 10, 1926, with inclosures relating to the Rancho Lomos de Santiago, Orange County, Calif. Your communication has been carefully considered to discover therein any additional facts which have not been heretofore considered in connection with this matter. It is believed that your claim that there never was a Lomas de Santiago grant is the only point which you have not fully discussed in the voluminous memoranda which you have heretofore filed, all of which were carefully considered. You are probably familiar with the record of more than 20 years' litigation which declared the existence of this grant and confirmed its validity. It seems clear that it could not now be successfully contended that no such grant ever existed. Respectfully, JNO. W. SARGENT, Attorney General. Hon. JOHN G. SARGENT, Attorney General of the United States, Department of Justice, Washington D. C. SIR: Your letter of date February 24 was placed on my desk March 6, and it was and is of interest to me. You say the President referred my letter of February 10 to you "for acknowledgment and consideration"; then you proceeded to state you had "carefully considered" before you acknowledged it. In the letter you sent me under date December 12, 1925, you referred so many times to a "hearing," I was led to inquire if jurisdiction was revested in you, after you had divested yourself of it on November 11, 1925. To this inquiry you never made answer. "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." In the letter of February 24 you protest "consideration" of rights with so much solemnity, I am constrained to believe the only consideration you have ever given them is to ascertain how you could best avoid their recognition. In your secret communication to the Secretary of the Interior, of date November 11, you stated officially that you had examined "voluminous documents' and the questions presented had been "exhaustively considered" before you reached a conclusion. At the hearing you reluctantly gave me several days after you had assumed to send the case out of the department without a hearing, you admitted you knew nothing of the homesteaders' side of the case, and as well, you confessed you were ignorant of the law. Resting securely, as you have been, behind the order of the Secretary of the Interior made November 17, 1925, wherein he closed the case, it is somewhat difficult to make me think "careful consideration" has been given. As to whether or not there is a Lomas de Santiago grant, you say "it seems clear that it could not now be successfully contended that no such grant ever existed." If a house cat had a little kitten in the oven of a cook stove, how long would it take and what the argument necessary to convince you it was not a biscuit? It was Diogenes who told us many years ago: "Nothing can be produced out of nothing." If a court without jurisdiction were to declare there was a grant, when in truth and in fact, there was no grant, would the declaration of the court make a grant? If a court without jurisdiction were to declare that pine knots were nutmegs, would that solemn declaration establish the fact in your mind? Would that final decree put the flavor and the oil of the nutmegs in the knots? It appears from your declaration, you have "carefully considered" everything and thereafter hastily made an adverse finding. It would seem you had in mind to forestall a request for a hearing. Please be advised that you fixed your status November 11, 1925. On that day you stripped yourself of jurisdiction and thereafter held a moot hearing and amused yourself by playing with rights guaranteed by the Constitution. An optimist could probably be induced to put British flags on an Irish market. It is possible for a novice to submit a question of usury to Shylock, but only a mind diseased could advise Marguerite to appeal for consideration at the hands of Mephistopheles. Respectfully, Los ANGELES, CALIF., March 9, 1926. WILLIAMSON S. SUMMERS. WILLIAMSON S. SUMMERS, Esq., DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D. C., March 19, 1926. 571 I. W. Hellman Building, Los Angeles, Calif. SIR: This will acknowledge receipt of your communication of March 9, 1926, and also, by reference from the President, your letter addressed to him on the same date transmitting copies of correspondence with this department respecting the Lomas de Santiago grant. These documents will be filed with the other papers in the case. Respectfully, JNO. W. SARGENT, Attorney General. (Whereupon, at 4.20 o'clock p. m., the committee went into executive session, and at the conclusion of which adjourned to meet subject to the call of the chairman.) MEXICAN LAND GRANT FRAUDS SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1927 UNITED STATES SENATE, COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC LANDS AND SURVEYS, Washington, D. C. The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10.30 o'clock a. m., in the committee room, Capitol, Senator Robert N. Stanfield presiding. Present: Senators Stanfield (chairman), Cameron, Dill, and Nye. Present also: Hon. Edward C. Finney, Assistant Secretary of the Interior; Hon. Bertice M. Parmenter, Assistant Attorney General; Guy Mason, attorney at law, Washington, D. C.; and Williamson S. Summers, attorney at law, Los Angeles, Calif. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. Judge Finney and Mr. Parmenter, this meeting was called for the purpose of taking up Senate Resolution 333. The committee has had this under consideration at two or three other meetings, and it was the unanimous conclusion of the committee that they would like to have you gentlemen come before the committee and tell us what you know about the conditions out of which this resolution has grown. We would like to hear from one or the other of you. Which one do you suggest that we listen to first? Mr. PARMENTER. Either way that suits the committee. The CHAIRMAN. I do not know which department it comes through first and which would be the best order. Assistant Secretary FINNEY. We have had to deal with at least two of these grants recently, and in on case we submitted the matter to the Attorney General for an opinion. The CHAIRMAN. I think the better way, then, is to listen to you, Judge Finney, if you will proceed. STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD C. FINNEY, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR Mr. FINNEY. The resolution apparently deals with Mexican or Spanish grants, of which there have been a large number in California and some of the other Southern and Southwestern States. Typical of some of them at least have been two cases which have been brought before the Interior Department through the filing, or attempted filing, of homestead applications. Senator CAMERON. Will you give the committee the names of those two? Mr. FINNEY. The first one is known as the Rancho de Lomas de Santiago, a tract of land situated near Los Angeles, Calif. It was confirmed by a commission or board of private land claims which |