E 664 .B2 C81 Copy 1 iiimiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiuiiiimiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiciiiiiiiiiiiiic3iiiiiiiiiiiicg CRAWFORD ON BAILEYISM The Greatest Expose of Political Degeneracy Since the Credit Mobilier Scandal □ I I The Whole Story of the Unholy Alliance I between Senator Bailey and I Standard Oil Sy COL. W. L. CRAWFORD DALLAS. t6'ers representing this trust had been exhausted; when they realized that the majesty of the law had triumphed and that the culprit must submit to its decree; the scene shifts and new characters come upon the stage. Sayers was governor; Tom Smith was Attorney General, and Hardy was Secretary of State. These men had neither studied the questions nor borne the heat and burden of the legal battle that resulted in the conviction and expulsion of the Waters-Pierce Oil Company from Texas. JOE BAILEY. THE AGENT OF THE OIL TRUST. Joe Bailey was a member of Congress and had been since 1 890. He was nol familiar with the affairs of the State of Texas, as he testified in January, 1901, when Senator Decker asked him (Bailey) "Can you suggest any remedy for this anti-trust law?" And Bailey answered: "Mr. Decker, I devote myself to Federal questions and do not consider my opinion on State matters entitled to very great weight." Pierce, the head of the Waters-Pierce Oil Company, applied to David R. Francis, a distinguished politician of the State of Missouri, not a lawyer, but a business man of acknowledged sagacity and power — a successful man of affairs. Before this. Governor Francis had been interested in the great public enterprise of holding the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in the City of St. Louis. In this behalf he had been much about Washington seeking aid from the Federal Government. He had known Bailey prior to this time, but he had become better acquainted with him there. While there Francis had formed specific ideas of Bailey's ability, (for while Bailey in a demagogic way and with loud speech, to be heard in Texas, denounced government aid to the St. Louis Exposition as unconstitutional, he never- the less aided in its passage), Francis knew of Bailey's power to produce results by the use of other men. Fle had learned to measure the man, and so when Pierce asked Francis for an interview and told him that his lawyers in Texas and elsewhere had fallen down in this lawsuit; that he wanted some man who could control the situa- tion and continue the business of the Waters-Pierce Oil Company in Texas, as, otherwise, it would be driven out, and his 600 or 700 per cent of profits greatl> impaired. He wanted Francis to refer him to some man — for what? Not to appeal in any court to redress a wrong done against the Waters-Pierce Oil Company. Not to protect any interest of Pierce in Texas for he had no interest here except to answer a bill of indictment in which he was defendant along with Rocke- feller, Rogers, Flagler and others for violating the criminal laws of the State, and Pierce would not have trusted his safety, in a court house and before a jury, on these indictments to Joe Bailey. Pierce wanted a man who could evade the judgment of the law, already pronounced and final, except only as to execution. By the operation of this Trust he and the Standard Oil Trust were making a million ano a half dollars a year on a capital stock of $400,000. Pierce did not want to be jarred loose from so profitable a proposition as this. No man who worships gold above his country, or his God would give up such a snap as this if any kind of fraud and corruption could circumvent the judgment of the law and enable him to con- tinue his depredations upon the people of Texas. Francis did not hesitate. Of all men in the world of his acquaintance he selected Joe Bailey, and telegraphed him to come to St. Louis at once. He came, and on the day Joe Bailey arrived Francis departed, but left a letter for Bailey to Pierce that brought these men face* to face. One of them was the head of an outlaw trust that had been despoiling the people of Texas from 1882 down to 1900, over a period of eighteen years. 1 he other was a congressman from the State of Texas who had from I 390 lown to 1900 iterated and reiterated to the people of this State his devotion to them and their interests; his opposition to monopolies and trusts. He had proclaimed everywhere and on all occasions his ability, his courage and his purpose to protect their honor and defend their rights against monopolies and trusts. Francis says that he recommended Bailey as "a lawyer," and belie\ed that he was recommending him to perform the service of a law^yer out of which he could earn a legitimate fee. Bailey said it was not a case for a lawyer, but for "political influence." \^hen Bailey and Pierce met, Bailey readily undertook to avoid the force of this judgment of ouster — readily undertook to turn to ashes all the fruits arising from the labor of the law officers of Texas — readily undertook to defeat and circumvent the laws of the people of Texas and to restore this trust to the enjoyment of all the functions of pillage which it had practiced for eighteen years. Bailey said that the proposition involved "influence," for which he could —5— not take a fee, but he did undertake the odious task against the rights of his people, the laws of his State and the judgments of her courts on account alone of his "friend- ship for Dave Francis", who lay very near his heart. My fellow citizens, has true, honest friendship, in the history of this world, ever made such an infamous demand upon a friend? If it has a parallel in the memory of any man, let him speak! This plea, that Bailey inflicted this great wrong upon the people of Texas because of "friendship for Francis", is but an unmanly and an untrue subterfuge. He knew that a confession of the truth would have damned him eternally in the estimation of every honest man. Francis, who has been honored in his own State, (Missouri), and in the Nation, owes it to himself and to decency to publicly state that he never in the name of "friendship," laid any such requisition upon Joe Bailey. Francis telegraphed Joe Bailey at Gainesville to come to St. Louis. Francis had no business with Joe Bailey; he left St. Louis the day Bi.iley arrived there. Bailey was to meet Pierce. They did meet on the 25th day of April, 1900, in St. Louis, beyond the jurisdiction of the courts of 1 exas and then and there entered into the treasonable plot to defeat the enforcement of the laws of 1 exas, to perpetuate the business of this thieving trust in the State, and to further fill the plethoric money bags of Pierce, (whom Governor Campbell has within the week past denounced as "The Pirate of All Pirates") with the hard-earned money of the industrious people of this country. The whole truth of what occurred between Pierce and Bailey at that seance of High Finance and Fraud will never be known to the honest people of Texas. We have, however, found out some things that incriminate both. What right had Joe Bailey to interfere in this matter at all? He was a con- gressman, and the administration of the affairs of the State had been placed in other hands by the people. The truth is, that on the 25th day of April, 1900, Joe Bailey was under financial obligations to Francis on the Gibbs ranch deal, which was consummated about June 24, 1 900, and was then being worked out. Bailey's friends considered that in the Gibbs ranch deal he was getting a property worth nearly a quarter of a million dollars. Bailey says that Francis and Joe Sibley, a Standard Oil Congressman from Pennsylvania, bought the Gibbs ranch for him and paid Eighty Thousand Dollars in each and 2 1 ,000 acres of Pecos land, and allowed him thirty years in which to repay it; the Gibbs ranch was sold to Francis subject to $80,000 of mortgages and liens and for $4,-00 in cash, (which was paid by Joe Bailey,) and for 21,000 acres of Pecos lana, which was conveyed to Gibbs by Francis, according to Fracis' testimony. On this day, 25th of April, 1900, Bailey received from Pierce three thousand and three hundred dollars in cash. And this is "friendship for Francis." Bailey 'concealed the receipt of this money from Pierce from the people of Texas, although it became his duty on more than one occasion to divuLe it. In fact, this transaction was not known to the people of Texas until after Bailey's election to the Senate January 22, 1907. The photogravures of the vouchers which show this transaction and his shameful connection with it were never published until January 21, 1907, and then in the Chicago Examiner, which did not reach Austin until January 23, 1907. It is true that the originals of some of these papers, and, perhaps others, came into the possession of Attorney General Davidson in the fall of 1906. It is true that in response to a resolution passed by the House of Representatives Attorney General Davidson delivered the papers to the speaker, T. B. Love, on the 1 7th day of January, 1907. It is true that on the motion of T. D. Cobbs, a representative from Bexar c unty, (and one of Harriman s lawyers, and one of the Committee of Invps i^^ation, who entertained Joe Bailey at his home in San Antonio as his guest while he was engaged as a committeeman in tryinor Joe Bailev for his crimes against the peoole of Texas, and who resigned his office as legislator rather than surrender his free passes on the railroads,) Joe Bailey and Tom Love retirea to the Speaker's —6— room and examined these papers. On his return to the Legislative Hall Joe Bailey attempted to explain these papers, and his criticism of them, which was published broadcast, would have done credit to the fraudulent ingenuity of Abe Hummel, the New York shyster, now serving a term in the New York Penitentiary for his crimes. Go back and get his speech on that occasion and read it in con- nection with his subsequent admissions and the evidence of his own witnesses." 1 hat paper. The Examiner, contained a photo-engravure of this account: St. Louis, Mo., June 30th, 1900. Waters-Pierce Oil Company, to H. C. Pierce, Dr. April 25th, To demand loan to Joseph W. Bailey on Mr. Pierce's personal voucher of April 25th, 1900. A-C. Texas Cases, $3,300. Approved fr payment, J. P. GRUETT, Secty. Audited, H. Naudain. Entered, V. R. J. P. G. Jr. Received June 1 8th, 1 900, from Waters Pierce Oil Company Thirty-Three Hundred Dollars in full payment of the above account. (Signed). H. C. PIERCE. But some one may ask why did Pierce write upon that paper that it was a LOAN to Joseph W. Bailey? Why, my fellow citizens. Senator J. Ralph Burton of Kansas, convicted and punished for taking a fee from a fraudulent company in St. Louis for the exercise of his influence with the Post Office Department, looked back upon his course through prison bars and said that the mistake he had made was in not "borrowing" the money from the Rialto Grain Company, after the manner of Bailey, instead of taking it as a fee. This is an old dodge, and this paper, in connection with other matters in the same line, but emphasizes guilty knowledge and guilty intent on the part of Bailey and Pierce, too. "When Bailey came to Texas to secure the readmission of the Waters- Pierce Oil Company into this territory, he had $3300 in money from that corporation, through H. C. Pierce, its President, in his pocket, and the vouchers for such money were audited and paid by the Waters-Pierce Oil Company. Joe Bailey says that just after the close of the senatorial contest with Senator Chilton he started back to Washington. He says at St. Louis he met Mr. Pierce, President of the Waters-Pierce Oil Company, who presented him a letter from Da\id R. Francis. He says he told Mr. Pierce that Mr. Francis was a particular friend of his, and that he would be glad to assist any friend of Mr. Francis in so far as it was in his power and proper. He says he then asked Pierce to state what the trouble was, and Pierce said he was being driven out of Texas and wanted to continue his business there; he savs Pierce told him his company was not the Standard Oil trust, nor any part of it. Bailey modestly said to Pierce: "If you can convince me that your company is not a trust, and will agree to come to Texas and take the oath to obey the laws, I will undertake to say that you will have no trouble with the officers of the State. By what authority did he make this statement? Who authorized him to pledge in advance the official action of the sworn officers of the State of Texas. Bailey says Pierce satisfied him that it was not a trust, and that he told Pierce he would return to Texas in a few days and would lay the matter b?fore the Attorney General and the Secretary of State. He says Pierce thanked him for this assurance, and stated that he would be glad to pay him for his trouble. Bailey says that he could not pay him for that kind of service, and Pierce asked him if he was not a lawyer, and Bailey says, "Yes, but I practice law and not "influence." Bailey says that he told Pierce that he did not need a lawyer, and that it would only b° necessary for him to go in person to the Attorney General and Secretary of State and convince them that his company was not a trust and take the oath to obey our laws. Bailey says he tele