Stevens' Report to the Government Concerning the Disappearance of Henry J. Fleischmann, and His Connection with the Scripper Cases.
Pursuant to your telegraphic instructions of May 20, 1904, I proceeded to Los Angeles on the 21st instant, and the next day, as well as the following Monday, was in consultation with Shirley C. Ward, one of the leading local attorneys for the Scrippers, and J. R. Johnston, president of the Cosmos Exploration Company and the Pacific Land & Improvement Company, from whom I gathered much valuable information relative to the sensational flight from justice, in the latter part of 1900, of Henry J. Fleischmann, cashier of the Farmers' & Merchants' Bank, of Los Angeles.
According to Johnston, who was an intimate acquaintance of Fleischmann, on the Wednesday night preceding the decision of Judge Ross on the following Monday in the Scripper cases, and shortly after Commissioner of the General Land Office Hermann had visited the Kern River oil fields, he (Johnston) was sitting near the large open window in the lobby of the W^estminster Hotel in Los Angeles, when Henry J. Fleischmann passed by, accompanied by a female companion. He excused himself to her for a moment, and came inside, accosting Johnston in an excited manner with this exclamation:
"Well, you have been sold out in those cases all around, and you are beaten! There is no show on God's earth for you to win!"
Johnston asked him what he meant, and Fleischmann replied:
'T haven't time to tell you now, and besides, we are exposed to view from the street; but come down to the bank early tomorrow morning, and I will explain everything."
Johnston was ailing at the time this conversation occurred, and that night his condition became rapidly worse, so that he was obliged to retire to his room, where he was confined a week. As soon as he was able to be out, he repaired to the bank and heard Fleischmann's story. In the meantime Judge Ross had rendered his famous decision adverse to the Scrippers.
The first question that Fleischmann asked Johnston was, "Are you a Mason?" Being answered in the negative, Fleischmann continued:
"Well, I've known you a long time, anyhow, but if you were a Mason, I would tell you a great deal more."
He then went on to relate that Judge Ross' decision was read in the private office of the bank at least ten days before it was rendered, to a group of persons consisting of Charles A. Canfield, J. A. Graves (brother to H. E. Graves, whom Judge Ross had named as one of the Conmissioners to drill the test well on Section 4, Township 29 S., R. 28 E., M. D. M.), President I. W. Hellman, of the Farmers' & Merchants' Bank, and himself, and after Canfield and Graves had expressed their approval concerning the salient features of the decision, that Judge Ross had thereupon borrowed from the Farmers' & Merchants' Bank, on his unindorsed note, the sum of $20,000, with which he purchased stock in the Canfield Oil Company at 15 cents per share, and which were repurchased by Canfield immediately after the decison in question had been handed down for 55 cents per share, giving Judge Ross a net profit of more than $55,000 by the transaction, and that the records of the bank would exhibit the whole thing.
Fleischmann arranged the chairs in the room in such manner as to indicate to Johnston where each participant sat during the entire proceedings. He had previously told H. T. Hays, of Riverside, California, and his attorney, Edward A. Meserve, of Los Angeles, all about it, and had intimated that another high Federal official was involved.
Johnston, Hays and Meserve went to Fleischmann in a body and implored him to expose the whole affair in the interest of justice. Fleischmann replied that' if they would throw out a dragnet, as he expressed it, so as to apparently entagle him in its meshes—meaning that if they would have all the different cashiers of the various local banks subpoenaed, so as to make it appear that he was anPage 413
