OCR Text |
Show NEWSPAPER MEN ON DEMENT. Standing: by the Interviews Which They Had With the Surveyor-General Surveyor-General of ITtah. Washington, February 4. The news paper correspondents were favored to-day by the Senate Committee on Public Lands on a matter in which Surveyor-General Dement, of Utah , is interested. Recently several of the correspondents sent out interviews with Mr. Dement about land frauds which he had unearthed in Utah. Perhaps without so intending he smirched the characters of several Government officials and prominent citizens. On Tuesday, before the Committee on Public Lands of the Senate, Mr. Dement denied the authenticity of the interviews, and, in reply to Secretary Teller, said he. had no evidence and had made no discovery that would throw suspicion on any Government Gov-ernment official or member of Congress. Answering an inquiry from Governor Murray asking :.Mr. Dement if he was responsible" forcbririecting him with the publications; Mr'. Dement replied by telegraph tele-graph that "all dispatches purporting to contain an interview with me are baseless base-less fabrications." The correspondents who telegraphed the interviews to their papers requested to be heard in support of their dispatches, and a meeting of the Committee was called for that purpose. John H. Corwin, correspondent of a Chicago paper, read to the committee the interview published by his paper on Saturday Sat-urday last, and testified that it was the substance of a conversation which he had with Mr. Dement on Fridav. The information infor-mation was given by Mr. Dement unhes itatingly ana without reserve, but as Mr. Corwin was leaving the room Mr. Dement De-ment said that he would prefer that the matter should not be used at this time, as it was only a part of the story. Mr. Corwin, thinking it a pretty good "starter," "start-er," laughed at the idea of not using it, and proceeded to write the matter up. Wilham E. Curtis, another Chicago correspondent, cor-respondent, to whom Mr. Corwin gave the substance of the interview, testified that the latter, in reference to a statement state-ment made by Mr. Dement, to the effect that a United States Senator had received money for aiding the passage of a confiscation con-fiscation bill, said that Mr. Teller's name was not used. George G. Bain, a reporter for a New York paper, read to Commissioner Sparks a digest of the dispatch sent to another paper hi his city on the subject, and asked the Commissioner what he knew about it. General Sparks replied that he knew no such condition of affairs ; that the statements were probably exaggerated. exag-gerated. Mr. Bain saw Mr. Dement later, and he dictated a dispatch to the effect that the Western land thieves were powerfully represented in Washington, their object being to defeat the confirmation confirma-tion of appointees whom they were unable un-able to control, and that there were a number of Congressmen and others implicated im-plicated in the land frauds. T. C. Crawford Craw-ford corroborated 'Mr. Bain's testimony so far as it referred to the transmission of the interview, which-was all he knew about it. . Mr.. Dement had been notified that the correspondents would be heard to-day, but he said he had no desire to be present. .. , . . |