position as commissioner, for the United States, of the United States. and Mexican Boundary Commission. If such announcement means that the President has not demanded Gen. Anson Mills' resignation, I most earnestly urge that you personally consider the facts set out in the accompanying document, which is officially of record in the Department of State, and then present the said facts to President Wilson. Having due regard for the conclusive character of the record proofs of Gen. Anson Mills' gross, treasonable abuse of his official position, I respectfully submit that it will be an outrage of public decency, and a monumental political blunder, if he be permitted to resign other than on the President's demand. A complete history of the Elephant Butte Dam affair is presently to be published both in this country and in England. Anson Mills' guilt is undeniable. And, apart from the moral issue involved, no friend to the present administration can wish to see President Wilson placed in the light of having ignored Anson Mills' patently dishonest abuse of office. I happen to know something of the (unofficial) judgment of certain high officials of the British Government respecting the conduct of the chief officials of the late Republican administrations in the premises; and, as it is perfectly plain that the cause of good government, sound politics, and our national reputation as an honest people demand that Anson Mills should not escape official censure, it is greatly to be hoped that President Wilson will not be misled into ignoring the damnable facts of record that so conclusively establish the guilt of the accused in this case. In fact, Anson Mills should summarily be dismissed from the Government service, and the President should call for a congressional investigation respecting the Elephant Butte Dam affair, and the origin of that graft-inspired treaty with Mexico of May 21, 1906. Trusting that you will not fail personally to consider the facts disclosed in the enclosed document, I have the honor to be, sir, Your obedient servant, NATHAN BOYD. Mr. Nathan Boyd to the Assistant Secretary of State. OREJON RANCH, March 19, 1914. The Hon. JOHN E. OSBORNE, Washington, D. C. DEAR GOVERNOR OSBORNE: With the enclosures herewith you will find a copy of a letter, dated the 24th ultimo, to Secretary Tumulty,' [For this enclosure, see ante, p. 580.-Agent's note.] from which you see that I am becoming anxious about the result of your report on the charges against Anson Mills. Seemingly, you were a true prophet when you told me that powerful influences would probably be invoked in behalf of the accused. Of course, I fully concur with you in the opinion that President Wilson can not be induced to do other than what he believes to be right; and, therefore, as it is unthinkable that the President would wittingly condone Anson Mills' perjury and abuse of office, or ignore your departmental report in the premises, I naturally fear that he has been misled in some way, or that the matter has not been brought to his personal attention. Since writing to Secretary Tumulty I have been informed that an El Paso paper has announced that there is to be no change in the personnel of the United States and Mexican Boundary Commission; and as this and the fact that I have not been advised of any final action having been taken on your departmental report of the result of the investigation ordered by Secretary Bryan (after the hearing the Secretary accorded to me in October last), apparently indicates that Anson Mills' influential supporters have been busy in his behalf, it seems as if the President had been misled and into a seri ously false position respecting the matter. Personally, as I stated to you last autumn, I do not approve of censuring public officials merely because they happen to be political opponents. But when the leaders of a political party are in power and in a position to make for justice and good government by expos ing grossly improper and patently dishonest acts of their political opponents (committed when the latter were in power), then, manifestly, it is not only right and proper, but also politically expedient, to investigate and expose such acts. It is not only right, but also necessary to good government, that the people should know wherein any of their public servants-under a political party's administration have betrayed the trust of office. And in this case in particular it is both right and expedient that the party now in power should leave nothing undone that may properly be done to expose and correct the evil done by the responsible officials of the General Government while the Republican Party was in power. A comprehensive and unsparing history of this shameful Elephant Butte Dam affair is presently to be published both in this country and in England. For years I have been contending and assuring my friends abroad that we Americans as a people are not a race of commercial crooks and political pimps such as we are commonly held to be; that we are not dishonest; that our present day ill-repute in the estimation of the world has unjustly resulted from our unfortunate habit of attending to our private business first and to our national business last; of leaving the affairs of the country in the hands of the professional politicians that, in the pay of big business, had acquired control of the Republican Party. I have contended that our people would not longer tolerate the ways of the political tricksters that had kept the money barons in control of our General Government; that with President Wilson at the White House and Secretary Bryan as the head of our “Foreign Office" graft and pull would cease to influence either our national or international policies; and in reviving the charges against Anson Mills I was largely prompted by my desire to be able to show the officials of the British Foreign Office and the investing public abroad that the great moral awakening that placed President Wilson and Secretary Bryan in power, that had made possible the new dispensation in our national life, had entirely overthrown the vicious system under which pull and prejudice were permitted to make for corrupt practices in this country, that nowadays, under the new rule established by the return of the Democratic Party to power, dishonest public officials can not depend on political pull or on the influence of great wealth for protection, and that all legitimate investments of British capital in our Western States will have the full protection of our laws. It was and is my desire so to have the facts of the Elephant Butte Dam affair presented to the people of Great Britain and of this country as to expose the dishonesty of the Republican officials responsible in the premises, and at the same time prove that under President Wilson's administration such dishonest practices are not condoned. Hence my insistence that-as warranting my contentions as above mentioned and as proof of the righteousness of President Wilson's policy, Anson Mills should summarily be dismissed from the Government's service, and that the President, himself, should at once take the initiative in calling for a congressional investigation respecting the Elephant Butte Dam affair in general, and in particular as regards the origin of the treaty with Mexico concluded May 21, 1906. As I informed you and Secretary Bryan on the occasion of my first interview with you on this matter, a full history of this disgraceful Elephant Butte Dam affair is presently to be published (in magazines) in this country and in England. As you know, the British claim growing out of the Elephant Butte Dam affair is soon to be arbitrated-which will also make the facts of the case widely public. And also there is going to be a congressional investigation in the premises especially to develop the real origin of that fool treaty with Mexico of May 21, 1906. (I have the definite assurance of more than one influential Senator as to this.) And, therefore, as all the facts of Anson Mills' guilt are soon so to be made widely public, it is obviously extremely important, indeed, that President Wilson be not misled into placing himself in the light of having condoned or ignored Anson Mills' patently dishonest acts in the premises, and that he, himself, should take the initiative in calling for such investigation. Surely, you must recognize that this is so, and that therefore it is your plain duty so to submit the facts to the President as to make it impossible for others to mislead him into a false position. Please, please, I beg of you, in the interest of our national honor, in the interest of our party's welfare, and in the interest of public decency and good government, fully discuss the matter with Secretary Bryan, and, then, with him-if possible, submit the facts in question, facts of which you and Governor Folk have personal knowledge, to President Wilson, without delay. I do not believe you yourself are likely to question my motive in urging that Anson Mills should summarily be dismissed from the Government's service, but others may do so; consequently I would point out that the records of your department, of the Department of the Interior, and of the Department of Justice show that I have repeatedly offered to forfeit my personal interest-a very large one, at that—in the original Elephant Butte Dam project if our Government would repay the moneys my English friends and others invested in that project and carry out the project as a national project without granting to Mexico a prior right to the waters of the Rio Grande flowing from the soil of New Mexico. My several offers, as above stated, were ignored. Doubtless the crooks then in control of the departments felt that sooner or later they would be able to jockey all the said investors out of their interests in the project and also secure such prior water right for Mexican lands. The claim of the investors in the securities sold by the English company (formed to finance the original Elephant Butte project) having been scheduled for arbitration under the terms of the AngloAmerican Pecuniary Claims Convention, my interests as one of the investors in the said securities are safe enough, especially looking to the fact that our Government can not decently pretend even that the vested rights of the English company had not lawfully been acquired under our laws. With such damnable facts in evidence as are those disclosed by the Supreme Court records in the Elephant Butte Dam case (United States v. The Rio Grande Dam & Irrigation Co. et al.) and by the various public documents in the hands of the British Foreign Office officials in charge of the case for the British claimants, it is inconceivable that any self-respecting counselor could have the face to offer any defense other than that the Government of the United States had been tricked, deceived, and imposed upon by certain of its officers. Yours sincerely, NATHAN BOYD. P. S.-My letter of the 24th ultimo to Secretary Tumulty (copy of which is enclosed herewith) failed to reach him. On the 11th instant I telegraphed to him asking what action, if any, the President had taken, and the reply was that they had "no record of the receipt of the letter." On receipt of such reply I at once wrote to Secretary Tumulty as per the enclosed copy.1 Mr. Nathan Boyd to Senator C. S. Thomas. The Hon. CHAS. S. THOMAS, OREJON RANCH, April 4, 1914. Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C. DEAR SENATOR THOMAS: Apropos of the substance of my telegram of the 31st ultimo, permit me, as a citizen of New Mexico interested in the welfare of this State as a whole as well as in that of the valley of the Rio Grande below the Elephant Butte Dam, again to thank you for your masterly speech of the 23d and 24th ultimo. Frankly I was more or less afraid you would not arraign Anson Mills and his official supporters with the severity warranted by their gross betrayal of the rights of the people of New Mexico and Colorado; but, now that I have read your most admirable, fearless, comprehensive, and trenchant exposition of the genesis of the so-called controversy" over the so-called "equitable distribution of the waters of the Rio Grande," and have found that in addressing the Senate on the subject of your resolution you did not hesitate to "call a spade a spade," I know that my fears were groundless, and that in you the good Lord hath given unto the people of the arid west a champion fully capable of defending the great principle at issue in the premises, i. e., the inherent right of each State to have complete and untrammeled control over the waters of its unnavigable streams. 66 As you know, I long ago recognized the grave menace to the agricultural development of the arid States that was foreshadowed by the Elephant Butte Dam suit; and, therefore, because I sensed the bureaucratic evils that would inevitably arise if the General Government in any way acquired a voice in the control of our unnavigable streams, I felt that it was my duty to refuse to agree to the terms of compromise of the Elephant Butte Dam suit that was pro [Not printed.-Agent's note.] |