USA > Colorado > History of the State of Colorado, Volume II > Part 15
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Gen. McCook arrived July 24th. The question concerning the right to remove Territorial officers having been submitted by Gen. Thomas to the Attorney General at Washington, for his opinion, that officer replied that the Governor of a Territory could only remove such officers as had been appointed by him to serve during his pleasure, but had no power to remove such as had been appointed for fixed terms, or during the pleasure of others, unless an organic law, or in some cases a Terri- torial law, expressly empowered him to do so. Mr. Thomas having established the precedent, and caring nothing for the office, on the 27th of July sent in his resignation, to take effect October Ist, 1874. In the preceding chapter it is stated that Governor Elbert raised the storm which brought about far reaching effects, by the appointment of Mr. Moffat to be Territorial Treasurer. He at the same time nominated to the Council Mr. Levin C. Charles,-a brother of Hon. J. Q. Charles,-as Territorial Auditor. On the 11th of September, Governor McCook issued an order removing both Moffat and Charles, naming George C. Corning of Boulder for Treasurer, and Gen. R. A. Cameron of Greeley, for Auditor. On the 17th of that month Mr. Corning filed his official bond with the Secretary, and on the 19th made a verbal demand upon Moffat for the records, accounts and cash held by him, which was met with a courteous but emphatic refusal. He then presented a demand in writing as follows : "I do formally demand that you, without unnecessary delay, deliver to me the books, files, papers and documents pertaining to said office, and the seal thereof, and that you at the same time pay over to me all public moneys that are now in your hands as late Terri- torial Treasurer."
Again Mr. Moffat declined to surrender until he could do so with
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safety to himself and bondsmen, and by authority of law. No charges had been preferred, no cause for the removal assigned. The Treasurer, like all others appointed by Elbert, stood upon the opinion rendered by the Attorney General,-(written by the solicitor of the Treasury, and indorsed by him) in response to the application of Adjutant General Thomas, which determined the fact that the Governor possessed no legal right to make such removals. Meanwhile, the Treasurers of the several counties being in doubt as to which side was uppermost, discreetly held the public funds collected by them subject to the final outcome.
Financial affairs were further complicated by the action of Auditor Charles, under the following circumstances. Nathan Thompson, Presi- dent, and George C. Corning, Treasurer of the newly created State University at Boulder, made application to Mr. Charles for a warrant on the Territorial Treasurer for the sum of $15,000, the amount appropriated by the legislature in aid of said institution. The application was based upon an affidavit by Thompson and Corning that the con- ditions under which the appropriation was made,-a subscription of a like amount to the erection of a University building by the citizens of Boulder,-had been complied with. Mr. Charles refused to issue the warrant for several reasons,-want of legal evidence that the University had been lawfully organized, and of the legality of the officers chosen, but principally because the bond tendered by Corning did not comply with the statute in such case made and provided. He could neither approve the bond in its present form, nor draw the warrant until furnished with more satisfactory evidence of compliance with all the legal requirements.
Toward the close of October it began to be intimated that Corning would institute proceedings in the courts to obtain possession of the Treasurer's office, but the matter went no further. Both Moffat and Charles retained their offices to the end of the terms for which they had been appointed.
Returning to Federal affairs once more, about the 14th of February, 1875, Amos Steck, Receiver of the Denver Land Office, was
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removed and Major Samuel T. Thomson appointed in his stead. As in all the other cases, this act was wholly unwarranted, except that Steck was not in accord with the McCook regime. He had conducted the business with signal ability in the trial of many important cases, and was popular with all classes,-a valuable officer by reason of his unswerving probity, his thorough knowledge of the laws and regulations relating to the public lands, and extreme affability to all the patrons of the office.
Prior to this event, however, there had been a great deal of con- tention over the judges of the Supreme Court. The McCook faction desired a clean sweep of the existing judiciary, with the exception of Judge Hallett, whom no influence that could be brought to bear would induce General Grant to disturb, but the displacement of Judges E. T. Wells and James B. Belford was persistently urged, while Chaffee insisted as strenuously upon their retention. The President finding it impos- sible to reconcile matters, determined to select two associate justices from persons not connected with either faction, and non-residents of the Territory. The term of Judge Wells was within a few weeks of expi- ration, but Belford had been reappointed the previous winter. As a consequence of the various contentions, A. W. Brazee of Lockport, New York, an able lawyer and a gentleman of exalted character, who had served four years in the army, and for some time as Assistant Attorney for the Northern District of New York, was appointed to succeed Wells, and Amherst W. Stone of Colorado, in the place of Belford. On retiring from the bench at the expiration of his term, Judge Wells formed a law partnership with Major E. L. Smith, which continued until the election of the former to the Supreme Court of the State in 1876.
It is now proper to return, after the necessary digression to other channels, and trace to its conclusion the initial event of all the foregoing disorders, which threatened to destroy Republican supremacy in the Ter- ritory, namely-the connection of Mr. D. H. Moffat's name with alleged land frauds in the county of Bent.
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Upon the charges which grew out of Robinson's report and others brought by Lander, H. C. Alleman, U. S. District Attorney for Colo- rado, a small man with rather extraordinary views of the dignity and im- portance of the position to which he had been elevated, and with a still more remarkable penchant for bringing actions with an eye single to the fees and emoluments derivable therefrom, and who was readily distin- guishable from other attorneys from the fact of his always appearing in court carrying a green bag, brought civil suits against Moffat and the land officers at Pueblo, Messrs. Irving W. Stanton and Charles A. Cook, and also procured their indictment for conspiracy to defraud, etc. It was reported at the time that he produced no witnesses before the grand jury to sustain his allegations; nevertheless, the indictments were found and the accused summoned before the December (1874) term of the District Court at Pueblo, Judge Belford presiding. They appeared, as directed, fully prepared to make answer, but after several ineffectual attempts to have the cause called for trial, the District Attorney was compelled to acknowledge that he could not sustain the indictments and moved that proceedings under them be discontinued, notwithstanding the well known circumstance that he had summoned more than twenty witnesses to sustain the charges. Therefore, but one interpretation could be given to the withdrawal, that the indictments had been pro- cured for "revenue only." Belford's refusal to be a party to the trans- action forced Alleman either to proceed to trial or dismiss the in- dictments. It was this which impelled McCook, seconded by Alleman, to urge upon the President the removal of Belford from the bench.
I have the highest authority for saying, that on a number of occasions Mr. Moffat was approached by parties claiming to represent the District Attorney, with propositions for a compromise. One of these stipulated, or at least significantly suggested, that if within a given time the sum of $15,000 was forthcoming, the suits would be dropped. It is unnecessary to state that the proposal was rejected. But the overtures were renewed from time to time, the sum demanded
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being reduced on a descending scale until it got down to the price of a pair of diamond ear-rings.
Col. E. P. Jacobson, a lawyer and politician of considerable prom- inence, was appointed to assist in the prosecution of the civil suits. They came up again in June, 1875, at Pueblo, but were continued from term to term until December, 1876, when the causes having been trans- ferred to the United States Court, the so-called indictments were quashed and the defendants discharged from the obligations of their recognizances. July 12th, 1878, the civil matters were heard by Judge Dillon, who decided that the entries were fraudulent, but there was nothing to show that the land officers were cognizant of their fraudulent character, nor that they were parties to it. The main point of the decision was, that as the patentees had no existence, in other words, that the names used in the pre-emptions were fictitious, and as no grant or deed could have any effect except there be a grantor capable of making the conveyance, the patents were of no effect whatever, and could not form the basis of any title in Moffat and Carr. This, in effect, canceled all claims and opened the tract to public entry.
In view of the recent agitation on the subject of reservoirs for the storage of water for irrigation, I am impelled to revert to the adminis- tration of Governor Elbert, with whom the movement originated in 1873. Though the necessity for increased water supply had not then attained the importance now accorded, it was made the subject of pro- found study, hence came to be regarded by thinkers as the vital problem in the settlement and development of the country west of the Missouri River. In the interest of united endeavor, Elbert conceived the plan of calling a convention of Governors and other representative men from all the Western States and Territories to meet in Denver for the purpose of taking steps looking to a widely extended system of irrigation, to embrace the entire region where climatic precipitation of moisture was insufficient for the growth of crops. The scheme was very generally indorsed by the persons addressed, and the convention met in this city October 15th, 1873.
12 II.
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The essential features of the movement, as presented in a well con- sidered paper drawn by Governor Elbert, immediately commended themselves to every delegate present. Governor R. A. Furnas of Ne- braska was elected chairman of the convention. Delegates attended from the chief agricultural counties of Colorado, from Kansas, Ne- braska, New Mexico, Wyoming and Utah, and were addressed by Elbert, Max Clark of Greeley, Henry M. Teller, Judge Belford and others. After lengthy deliberation, a memorial to Congress was pre- pared, asking that there be granted to the Territories of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho and Montana, and to the State of Nevada, one-half of all the arid lands, not mineral, within their respective boundaries, said lands or the proceeds thereof, to be devoted to the construction of irrigating canals and reservoirs for the reclamation of such lands ; that the construction and maintenance of such canals and reservoirs be placed under the exclusive control and direction of the several States and Territories as sole owners, and that the legislatures be invested with power to make all needful rules and regulations, including the power to provide by law for issuing the bonds of the Ter- ritory or State for the construction of said canals and reservoirs. A plan for concerted action was agreed upon and an organization effected, but owing to the political changes heretofore recited, no further con- clusion was reached.
The promoters and chief actors in this convention of representative men, thus early forecast the requirements of the future, if the arid regions which they and their contemporaries had settled upon were to be advanced from a state of primitive desolation to the higher plane of pop- ulous and productive commonwealths. The theories and plans thus formulated, were, with the exception of the proposed donations and leg- islative control, substantially the same which, in 1889, by the aid of Con- gress in providing for a thorough examination of the arid regions by a corps of engineers, are calculated to bring about the establishment of a great system of storage reservoirs, without which the limit of agricul- tural development in all the Territories and States named must forever
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be mainly confined to the comparatively small areas now available. The proposal contained in the memorial of the convention for the donation of one-half the barren lands reclaimed, has since been adopted by the State of Colorado for the reclamation of large tracts of its own arid lands.
Many miles of irrigating ditches have been constructed in various sections of the State by private capital, upon the terms named above. This method has been, and will continue to be a source of material wealth to the State. Without water the tracts were worthless. Reclaimed upon the principle of equal division of lands and water, thou- sands of acres of good tillable soil are rendered available for settlement.
But when Elbert called his convention, and even after its close, there were only a few who thoroughly comprehended the magnitude of the benefits derivable from the consummation of the projected enter- prise. A few even went so far as to stigmatize it as a political scheme ; others, with rare perspicacity, discovered a speculative venture, whereby the promoters intended to secure the lands, and when watered, dispose of them for their own personal benefit.
Constant assertion for more than a century of the bounty of a gov- ernment that has invited all the world to come and partake of its opulence of public lands, has been answered by so many millions of industrious people from foreign countries who have come with the con- viction that "Uncle Sam was rich enough to give them all a farm," has so absorbed and covered and diminished the enormous areas which the fathers held to be sufficient for all the discontented of other nations, there is scarcely anything left to be offered, except the arid tracts of the "Great American Desert." Hence, of late years it has been found necessary to look to the waste places, and to devise measures for bringing them under cultivation. As it cannot be accomplished by indi- vidual effort, the nation is now doing substantially what Elbert's con- vention of sixteen years ago declared ought to be done, but whose suggestions, if not actually ridiculed as Utopian or worse, were never- theless set aside, ignored and forgotten. Had the proposition been promptly accepted by Congress, and the same measures which are now
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being perfected set on foot in 1873, Colorado, to say nothing of the other regions involved, would to-day have a population of a million instead of less than half that number.
The second administration of Gen. McCook was worse than the first. His intemperate habits and his virulent hostility to the men who had been intimately associated with his predecessor; his persistent en- deavors to remove Territorial officers and such of the Federal as were not in hearty accord with his programme, kept the people in a state of unrest, without adequate cause. Those who aided him to regain the position, soon discovered that he had no rewards for them. His faculties were constantly weakened and distorted by excessive indulgence in stimulants, and his moral conduct caused public scandal. It was not long before he stood wholly alone, isolated from the respect of good citizens, and entirely shorn of political influence.
In his message to Congress December 3d, 1873, President Grant recommended the passage of an act to enable the people of Colorado to form a State government, urging that the Territory possessed all the elements of prosperous agricultural and mineral wealth, and he believed, had a population sufficient to justify such admission. In the same con- nection he recommended the encouragement of a canal, for the purpose of irrigation, from the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains to the Missouri River. Though opposed to donating public lands for internal improvements, owned and controlled by private corporations, in this instance he would make an exception, because there was an arid belt of public land from three to five hundred miles in width that was perfectly valueless for the occupancy of man, for the want of sufficient rain to insure the development of crops. The proposed irrigating canal would make productive a belt of country as wide as the supply of water could be made to spread over, and would secure a cordon of settlements con- necting the present population of the mountain and mining regions with that of the older States. All the land reclaimed would be clear gain, if alternate sections were reclaimed by the government.
This valuable recommendation which, unfortunately for us, fell
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upon unheeding ears, was incorporated in his message at the suggestion of Governor Elbert, who sent the President a copy of his speech made to the inter-State convention, together with the memorial adopted.
It may also be well to state that a company was actually formed in 1873 to build a canal from the Canon of the Platte River to the Mis- souri, with a capital stock of ten million dollars, but its operations pro- ceeded no farther than the filing of its articles of incorporation.
The attention drawn to our admission as a State by the President's message, soon revived the old frenzy for a constitution. Mr. Chaffee wrote from Washington urging the advantages of both recommendations, -the State and the canal,-and the importance of admission as a rem- edy for political evils. This, be it remembered, was prior to the great convulsion of January 27th, 1874.
During December two bills were introduced in the lower House, one by Representative McKee, which included a degree from Wyoming, and the other by Mr. Chaffee, retaining the existing boundaries. The first was shelved in committee, the latter passed under circumstances noted hereafter.
About the beginning of September, 1873, rumblings of an ap- proaching financial panic began to be heard. When it came a few weeks later, the great house of Jay Cooke & Co., followed by Fisk, Hatch & Co., and many other prominent firms, went down. The im- mediate cause was the awful and unprecedented crash of September 24th, known the world over as "Black Friday," an event that was appropriately termed "a massacre in the midst of financial peace." In August the banks of New York, according to the reports, held from $150,000,000 to $300,000,000 of gold, which was quoted at 131. In addition, the sub-treasury held upward of $80,000,000, which, it had been given out, would not be put upon the market. Jay Gould and his co-conspirators were well advised of the situation, and conducted their operations with consummate skill. They bought cautiously here and there, a few millions at advanced quotations. By the 22d of September, they had obtained control of all the gold in the city except that held by
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the government, and had raised the price to 141. By Thursday, the 23d, they were prepared to spring their cunningly devised trap upon the Gold Exchange. From an account published immediately after the revelation of the principal details of this extraordinary transaction, which plunged the entire country into financial chaos, bankrupted thou- sands, and brought about an epoch of hard times extending over six years, we find that the clique had loaned prior to the 24th (Friday), immense sums at 138.
" The original plan was to make a sudden and peremptory call for the return of the gold, then lock it up and force the bears to settle by buy- ing in under the rule. The Tenth National Bank was to be used to shift the immense sums, but the appearance of the bank examiner put a stop to it. The next movement was to send gold up swiftly for the pur- pose of frightening the bears into immediate settlement. As it was, the bank officials agreed to certify to an unlimited extent, night and day. On Thursday, 23d, it did certify checks amounting to twenty-five mil- lions, and on Friday, notwithstanding the presence of the examiner, to fourteen millions additional. All this time an army of holders in the employ of Gould and his confederates, were buying up all the gold that was offered and using their best efforts to drive the price up to 160, and higher if possible. These efforts were more than successful. Gold mounted to 160, and for an instant touched 165. This was a harvest time for the clique, and while some of his agents were thus keeping up the price by bowling bids for millions at 160, Gould was unloading through a dozen different brokers at far lower figures, but yet at an immense profit to himself. He had, however, pushed the price too far, and when the news came that Secretary Boutwell would sell $4,000,000 of gold, the price fell even more suddenly than it had risen, and general ruin and utter confusion fell upon Wall Street, to a certain extent involving those who had been chiefly instrumental in producing it. Down, down, went the falsely bolstered price. The day was the blackest that ever set in Wall Street. Men knew not where they stood. The confusion and madness were so great that it was supposed that all the
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clique had gone down. Of the times that followed it is impossible to give an idea. There was a run on the Tenth National Bank next day and a million drawn out. The Gold Clearing House kept fourteen millions inextricably locked up. The five hundred millions of clearings demanded in one day of the bank dizzied its incapacity. Gould had not yet done his work. When it became publicly known that only the account of his firm was needed to finish the clearances for Black Friday, and when upon that account fortunes were pending hourly, Gould tele- graphed from his barracks at the Opera House, whither he had fled for safety, and where he was guarded from the mob by the police, not to send it down. The bank went into the hands of a receiver. Then came a crash. Four firms were declared suspended. Then a rumor came that Lockwood & Co., Vanderbilt's brokers, had gone under, the strongest house on the street. The firm actually went down, but Van- derbilt poured in millions and saved it. On Saturday, October 1st, Gould began his clearances, and not till then. The delay of the clique in settling was accountable for the terrible wear and tear of the week that followed ' Black Friday.'"
Few of the living generation that passed through or were stricken by the fearful consequences of this monstrous crime, will ever forget the appalling wreck and ruin created by a handful of intriguers, led by the man who subsequently became the financial dictator of all the country save the United States Treasury. That, thanks to the wisdom and integrity of its managers, has never been touched by his blighting hand, but is about the only institution which has not at one time or another, or in some form, felt the effect of his Satanic power.
The foregoing epitome of Black Friday is given as a fitting prelude to certain interesting incidents associated with the general crash that fol- lowed. During the period mentioned, myself and wife were the guests of Mr. Moffat, then cashier of the First National Bank, at his home situ- ated on Lawrence Street, between Fifteenth and Sixteenth. When the intelligence of the sweeping disasters throughout the country began to be received, it was seen that sooner or later the banks of Denver would
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probably be raided by alarmed depositors, and their managers knew they were not then in a condition to withstand a heavy run. While each had currency. enough in its vaults for all ordinary purposes of business, their reserves were insufficient to meet all the demands of a sudden and frenzied call. The newspapers were filled with dispatches from the sea- board and from all parts of the Union, reciting the terrible effects of the panic, of the failures of banks, commercial and manufacturing firms, that were going down by scores and hundreds, of frantic runs upon all finan- cial institutions, etc. A great many private telegrams from New York indicating the magnitude of the disaster, were shown to me by Mr. Moffat. While there was no such excitement here as prevailed in the East, some large depositors were quietly withdrawing their funds from the banks in anticipation of drafts that would exhaust their resources. While Mr. Moffat realized the gravity of the situation, he manifested no alarm, yet there was a feeling that public apprehension might at any time cause a sudden and overwhelming rush that could not be withstood. One evening after dark when the reports of the fearful storm were at their worst, he explained to me the exact status of every bank in Den- ver. While the First National held large quantities of gold and silver bullion, it was of no more value in this emergency than so much pig iron. Currency was what they needed, and must have at any reasonable sacri- fice, and as every bank in the Union felt the same necessity, it was well nigh impossible to procure sufficient paper money to cover their daily needs. United States bonds of the most desirable issues were as so much waste paper. But Luther Kountze had, at considerable sacrifice con- verted enough of these securities into currency to carry the Colorado National through, and Mr. Chaffee, then in New York, had done the same for the First National. The currency thus provided was en route to Denver by express, but the time between New York and Colorado was five to six days, an eternity to those in momentary expectation of an assault, and whose anxiety deepened with every passing hour. They knew that accidents might occur to delay the precious consignments, and in the nervous strain imagined a thousand causes of detention. At a
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