Stephen A. Douglas Puter Looters of the Public Domain

Annotation

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. From the dismal recesses of a prison cell, S. A. D. Puter, the acknowledged leader of the Oregon land-fraud ring, who was pardoned by the President, December 31, 1907, after serving 17 months of a two-years' sentence in the Multnomah County jail for conspiracy to defraud the Government of its public lands, has sent forth through these pages a series of narratives that is reasonably certain to stimulate deliberate thought and give expression to intelligent opinion in every quarter penetrated by the recitals. In them are depicted conditions, the revelation of which ought to have a tendency to awaken the lawmakers of the country to the necessity for providing legal safeguards against all such contingencies. Through this medium, courts may ultimately come to perceive the importance for removing most of the rigid bars that now operate as a protection to the criminal element, and permit the introduction of apparently irrelevant lines of testimony that material evidence might be fortified.<br><br>The whole civilized world has a listening ear to the ground, trained in the endeavor to catch some sound that will appeal to the harmonies of human nature; that will operate to lighten the burdens of existence, and foster the higher principles of life. The better elements of society are ever on the alert to gain new ideas that will aid in the development of these commendable features, and I am convinced that this work, unclassic as it may seem at times in expression, cannot fail to fulfill some hopeful expectation of that character.<br><br>I have collaborated throughout with Mr. Puter in the preparation of the book, under very trying conditions, and together we have endeavored to clothe the different narratives with some degree of human interest, commensurate with a strict adherence to the element of fact. Furthermore, out of all the mass of information bearing upon the subject that has been furnished me by the author, I have selected only such portions tha