OCR Text |
Show PIMM'S PROTEST ! OPPOSED BYPflLMERi i Attorney General Sees no Rea- son for Clogging Courts With ; Hopeless Appeals WASHINGTON. 'Feb. 0. Holding that it is not the government's duty to clog the courts wllht frivolous and hopeless appeals, Attorney General Palmer, in a statement last night outlined out-lined tho basis for the government's decision against carrying to the supreme su-preme the Southern Pacific oil land cases, which decision has be6n. the subject of protest by Gifford Pinchot, 1 former chief of the bureau of forestry, in letters to $fr. Palmer and to President Presi-dent Wijson. " Indisputable evidence, t.he ntlornoy genera,Vs statement, asserts, was presented pre-sented in" the trial of the oil cases in he lower court that at the time, the tracts in question which are located in southern California, were granted in ;1S92-1S07, the Southern Paoific rail-iroad rail-iroad had no knowledge that the lands were oil bearing. Also, the statement (adds, evidonce was produced showing that the Southern Pacific for years I after receiving, the grants had the .lands on the market as agricultural land sold large acreages as such. iThcrofore in the opinion of Mr. Palm-evi Palm-evi granting of the lands, later found to contain oil. could not be held void on a charge of bad faith in their acquisition. ac-quisition. This, position, it is added, was concurred in by- government attorneys at-torneys acquainted vith the cases. "In such circumstances," the statement state-ment continues, "no lawyer would advise ad-vise a. client to enter an appeal, and any appelate court would consider such an appeal, to be almost frivolous. 1 cannot-assent to the doctrine tha't it is the government's duty to clog tho courts with frivolous and hopeless appeals, ap-peals, or to harrass business interests of the country by prolonging litigation entirely without hope of recovery on the part of the government. "Nothing but the most perverted Imagination could suggest any relation between some cases, involving oil leases, which I tried some years ago in Oklahoma, for Pennsylvania clients small independent oil producers and this Southern Pacific litigation. Pin-chot's Pin-chot's studied effort to create the impression im-pression that these cases are similar ,to the Southern Pacific litigation is cowardly because he avoids a direct - T- , charge, and contemptible because b seeks to create a false Impression. . oo ; ! |