Mr. FINNEY. I think that-I can't say positively. I am sure that some of the others did. It has been so long since I have read the testimony, I can't answer that.

Senator WALSH of Montana. How did they come to go out there and just appropriate the whole country?

Mr. FINNEY. Of course, now, I don't know anything about these particular men, Senator, but I do know that along in 1917, 1918, and 1919, when we were considering the leasing act, there was sort of an epidemic of locating in Colorado. There is no question about that, and I called it to the attention of the House committee on one occasion because I had received a newspaper clipping from Colorado about the large number of locations.

Senator WALSH of Montana. It is not the matter of locations that occupies my mind now. I could understand very readily that a stampede might occur and hundreds of people might rush into a certain locality and proceed to locate claims. I understand that.

Mr. FINNEY. That is not my theory of what occurred here. My theory is these people were trying to get these locations before the enactment of the general leasing law.

Senator WALSH of Montana. Exactly, but that is not what transpired here. Here, four or five men went out and in some way or other proceeded to locate the whole country, and of course they must have had eight names on every location.

Mr. FINNEY. Yes; and there is no charge that these eight were dummies. I think Mr. Kelley can verify that.

Senator WALSH of Montana. There is nothing of that kind in the record that I can see.

Mr. FINNEY. No charge of that that I know of.

Senator WALSH of Montana. Don't these very facts point unmistakably to that conclusion?

Mr. FINNEY. To what?

Senator WALSH of Montana. To the conclusion that there must have been some kind of an organization that was financing this locating expedition.

Mr. FINNEY. That had not occurred to me, Senator.

Senator WALSH of Montana. What theory have you about it? Mr. FINNEY. This is my theory, and I will go back to just about that time. There was a great deal of excitement in Colorado about oil shale. I, myself, with Commissioner Tallman, attended the Mining Congress in Denver some time, I can't remember the exact year, probably 1918 or 1919. They had retorts there showing the development of oil shale and what a wonderful rich thing it was going to be, and all that sort of thing, a laboratory proposition, and it was discussed to some extent. There seemed to be a theory that the oil deposits in sands were going to run out and that these shales were going to be the great resources of the United States for the production of oil, and it was my theory that these fellows, many of them perhaps irresponsible-I am not speaking particularly of these locators had become excited with the idea that here was something very valuable that they could locate under the mining laws; that the mining laws did not limit the number of locations which could be made, as you know, and they thought "Here is our chance to go

out and stake a lot of claims and sell them out and make a lot of money.

It never occurred to me that any particular corporation or person was trying to control the whole thing, and I have never found any evidence in the records that such a thing did occur.

Now, it is true that in this very report Winchester states that the Union Oil Co. of California had acquired some acreage in there. I think it was 10,000 acres. I am not sure, although it was a large acreage. It is true that I have observed in examining cases that Mr. Derrick, formerly president of the Honolulu Oil Co., had applied for a small acreage there, but I have found no evidence that any one company had acquired, or attempted to acquire, a controlling interest.

Now, what the fact may be, I don't know.

Senator WALSH of Montana. I just merely speak of the impression it leaves upon my mind. It leaves a distinct impression of suspicion about the whole transaction when people go out in the country and locate an area 11 miles long and 2 miles wide.

Mr. FINNEY. Frankly, I felt

Senator WALSH of Montana (interposing). I would subject their testimony of discovery to the very highest scrutiny.

Mr. FINNEY. Well, frankly, I felt they were locating

Senator WALSH of Montana (interposing). Reading the testimony, as it is recited in Mr. Duncan's letter, I got the impression, as a matter of fact, they did not make any discovery at all; that they just proceeded upon the assumption, or upon the theory, the theory that has been advanced, that this was one great body of ore, and all they had to do was look at it and go and mark out the ground. Of course, I have not read the testimony, but from Mr. Duncan's recital of it, I can not see that they made any discovery at all; that they really did anything in the way of exposing any mineral.

Mr. FINNEY. Well, unless Hubbard was not telling the truth, Senator, he did make a discovery in the sense of finding, either by natural exposures or otherwise, shale in each claim, and he took samples and tested them by burning them.

Senator WALSH of Montana. I thought after he testified that he had been there 11 days and then was obliged afterwards to come on, when it was shown he could not have been there at the time he stated, to say he was in and out was a rather weak kind of justification of his testimony.

Mr. FINNEY. That of course, is a difference of opinion.

Senator WALSH of Montana. That is merely my impression about that.

Mr. FINNEY. I did want to say before we left the subject that I frankly felt, as probably did Mr. Kelley and others, that this rush of locators out there did undoubtedly result in the staking of a whole lot of lands where no real discoveries had been made, and I think we have been rather careful in dealing with these claims.

Senator WALSH of Montana. Of these 88 claims that were thus pretended to be located, how many of them have gone to patent? Mr. FINNEY. Now, I can't answer that question. The Freeman claims have never passed to patent. He has never applied for patent

as yet. The other charges were subsequentlly made by the Land Office as to assessment work and so forth, and charges were directed against them on that point, failure to do assessment work, and failure to resume, so they have never gone to patent. We possibly could look them up but Mr. Goerner here, who is in the mineral division, says he thinks none of the 88 claims have gone to patent. We can verify that for you.

Senator WALSH of Montana. Could you prepare a map for us on which would appear the 88 claims located on this expedition, and with a marginal notation indicate the present status of those? Mr. FINNEY. Have you reported on all the 88, Mr. Kelley; do you know?

Mr. KELLEY. I think so.

Mr. FINNEY. Possibly we could. If we have the data in the office, we certainly will be very glad to do it.

Senator WALSH of Montana. That would be helpful.

And, at the same time, make a list of the alleged locators of these 88 claims.

Mr. FINNEY. Make a list of the locators, Mr. Goerner, on each of the 88 claims.

May I finish about the decision?

Senator WALSH of Montana. I supposed you were through.

Mr. FINNEY. After Mr. Duncan's decision came to me and I did not agree with it, I wrote a substitute, as I have recited, and I carried both of the decisions, which is our practice, to Secretary Work, the Duncan opinion, the proposed Duncan opinion, and the one prepared by me. I had a little talk with Secretary Work and told him there was a disagreement and left them on his desk. He subsequently referred them to Mr. Edwards, the Assistant Secretary, former solicitor, and Mr. Edwards concurred in the opinion that I had prepared, and thereupon Doctor Work signed the decision of September 30, 1927

Senator WALSH of Montana. Before we pass that, who was the solicitor at the time your opinion was written?

Mr. FINNEY. E. O. Patterson, and his name was on the Duncan paper.

Senator WALSH of Montana. Will you let me see the Edwards opinion?

Mr. FINNEY. This was the paper that I had prepared, and put my name on, and it was sent down with the Duncan opinion for Mr. Edwards to review. He indicated his concurrence by putting his name on it.

Senator WALSH of Montana. He did not write a separate paper? Mr. FINNEY. He did not write a separate paper; no, sir. Senator WALSH of Montana. Do you know whether Mr. Edwards had the Duncan opinion before him?

Mr. FINNEY. Oh, yes.

Senator WALSH of Montana. He is now Assistant Secretary? Mr. FINNEY. He is now Assistant Secretary; yes, sir. Both decisions were before Doctor Work, and both were before Mr. Edwards.

Then, on the 28th of October, 1927, a motion for rehearing was filed by Summers' attorney, for a reconsideration, or whatever you

call it, a motion. I have a copy of it here. It set up some six grounds but they principally related, I think, to assessment work, failure to record notice of performance of assessment work, failure to record location notices, and so on.

Senator WALSH of Montana. Who is that attorney?

Mr. FINNEY. Frank Delaney.

Senator WALSH of Montana. Located where?

Mr. FINNEY. Glenwood Springs, I think. Yes; Frank Delaney, First National Bank Building, Glenwood Springs, Colo.

Senator WALSH of Montana. What disposition was made of that? Mr. FINNEY. Well, before that was acted on, it was in the files awaiting action, and on the 1st day of January, 1928, Mr. Kelley wrote a letter to Secretary Work with respect to these claims, stating, as I recall it

Senator WALSH of Montana (interposing). That is, pending this motion?

Mr. FINNEY. Well, it was while the motion was lying in the files unacted on.

Senator WALSH of Montana. Yes.

Mr. FINNEY. It is a very lengthy proposition. Shall I give the substance of it?

Senator WALSH of Montana. Before we go to that, Mr. Finney. Mr. FINNEY. All right.

Senator WALSH of Montana. I want to call attention to one of the letters of Mr. Kelley, and then we will recur to that, because in the same connection he refers to this letter.

He says, in Article IV

The next discovery I made on this trip to Washington was that neither the solicitor of the department nor any of his assistants were willing to write the decision in the way Finney wanted it. He had been compelled to write it himself. Later the solicitor and attorneys in his office indicated in my presence that they disagreed entirely with the decision. All these facts appear in letters which I wrote officially to Washington, and which are still on record, presumably, in the confidential files of the department. I have kept copies of them all.

There is so much substance to that statement, as has been disclosed here, namely, that the solicitor and the other assistants in his office concurred in the Duncan opinion.

Mr. FINNEY. That is right.

Senator WALSH of Montana. And disagreed with you about the matter.

Mr. FINNEY. Yes, sir; I prepared the substitute. I did not ask them to prepare one. Of course, if I had desired to, I could have ordered one of them to prepare it, but I did not care to have a decision prepared by an unwilling assistant. I am perfectly capable of preparing one myself.

Senator WALSH of Montana. Mr. Kelley's article purports to give the substance of the letter that he wrote to Doctor Work. We will see what he says and then see what the opinion says. [Reading:]

It was an enormously important point-the disposal of much of the Nation's largest remaining oil resources turned upon it.

The engineers of the Denver field division cut their cross section. Then they divided the material they took from it into samples of every few inches or feet. The samples were next tested with extreme care for oil in a Government laboratory maintained as part of the field division.

MANY BEDS BARREN

The samples proved conclusively that instead of this formation containing oil in every inch there were many beds, some of them nearly 100 feet thick, which were as barren of oil as a snowdrift. All the samples were taken just below the surface, but between the surface and the underlying beds of oil existing several hundred feet underground. To support the theory by which they were to escape the provisions of the mining laws requiring discovery of oil, the oil company. lawyers had argued to Doctor Work that this formation contained no such barren areas between surface traces of oil and the rich deposits deep down.

The samples taken by the engineers of the Denver field division completely exploded such a theory.

That Secretary Work might be informed of these important facts I wrote him on January 25, 1928, briefly outlining what the tests had shown in refutation of the theory expounded to him by the oil company lawyers and experts at the ex parte hearing in his office, on which he based his decision of September 30, 1927. I offered to forward at once a full, detailed report of the investigation results.

I told the Secretary that I felt it to be the duty of the Denver office to furnish him facts bearing on so important a matter as that involved in his decision-the Freeman-Summers case as it was known in the department.

Let me inquire, Mr. Finney, when the case was resubmitted under the supervisory authority direction, were engineers representing the Government heard? Did they testify?

Mr. FINNEY. You mean at the second hearing at Glenwood Springs?

Senator WALSH of Montana. Yes.

Mr. FINNEY. Kintz was there; yes, sir.

Senator WALSH of Montana. Who was Kintz?

Mr. FINNEY. He was a former special agent and special engineer of the department, and a very good one, I have always understood. Senator WALSH of Montana. Anyone else?

Mr. FINNEY. Well, there was a man named Crandall with him, but I don't think he was an engineer.

Senator WALSH of Montana. That hearing, however, took place before this open conference?

Mr. FINNEY. Yes; I am referring to the testimony that was taken at Glenwood Springs in the second trial.

Senator WALSH of Montana. But that testimony was taken before the hearing of December 1, 1926.

Mr. FINNEY. Yes, before the general hearing in December; yes, sir.

Senator WALSH of Montana (reading):

I told the Secretary that I felt it to be the duty of the Denver office to furnish to him facts bearing on so important a matter as that involved in his decision-the Freeman-Summers case as it was known in the department. "This office," said my letter to Doctor Work, "is now in possession of material facts or evidence relating to the Freeman-Summers case which it is believed are not in the possession of the department. I feel that I can not afford to be placed in what would be the utterly indefensible position of possessing evidence which may be useful to the department and not presenting it for consideration."

QUOTED FROM EXPERTS

I summarized and quoted the statements which the oil company lawyers and experts had made to Doctor Work contending that the Colorado oil lands were "mineralized" from top to bottom, without break-the theory which the facts obtained by my office exploded and with it the basis for the Secretary's decision which validated billions of dollars in speculative paper claims held or bought by oil companies, or to which they hoped to secure title.