The Land Office Libel Suit
A North Yakima man faces criminal charges after accusing a former land register of orchestrating a fraudulent land claim.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
F. Ashley Wood, of North Yakima, has been arrested on a warrant sworn out by Walter J. Reed, ex-register of the North Yakima land office, charging him with criminal libel. The defendant gave bail in the sum of $500 and is now at liberty. In the complaint it is alleged that the defendant did unlawfully, wilfully and maliciously make, and cause to be published, an affidavit concerning Walter J. Reed, containing false, scandalous and defamatory matter. The defendant on August 5, 1903, filed an affidavit in the land office charging Mr. Reed with attempting to defraud the government by accepting a desert land filing while he was register, knowing at the same time that the claimant, George Sloltz, had a homestead filing in the same office. The defendant, Wood, sought to contest Sloltz's claim to the desert land and among the points set up was that collusion existed between Mr. Reed and Mr. Sloltz to defraud the government. It is asserted that Wood was persuaded by the parties who were handling his contest to make the filing. Mr. Reed said that he had met Sloltz only when he came to make a filing on a desert claim, and further that it was not his business to ascertain whether Sloltz had made a homestead filing. Mr. Reed says he will rush the case to the fullest extent of the law.
“It is asserted that he was persuaded by the parties who were handling his contest to make the filing.”
This case illustrates the high-stakes, litigious nature of early 20th-century land administration, where local registers held immense power over public resources. Disputes over land patents and the integrity of the federal land office were common flashpoints in Western growth, often devolving into the bitter personal feuds seen here.
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