OCR Text |
Show contracting Indians for their labor in banbig the logs, and the balauce. will remain, for the present, in the United States Treasury to the credit of the tribe, as required by the act of June 12,1890 (26 Stats., 146). It is ascertained as follows: Gross proceeds.. ............................ ..: ................. $27,453.40 Less paid for logging, as above ................................ 8,968.53 18,484.87 One-fifth for uao at discretion of the Secretary of the Interior : for the benefit of the tribe.. .............................. 1. .. 3,696.97 Residue to bear 6 per cent interest. ............................ 14,787.90 18,484.87 Ebnd dqZac Reswvatioa, Me'na.-As mentioned in last year's report, the mktter of alleged depredations on the timber of the Fond du Lac Reservation, in the State of Minnesota, was referred by the Department to the Commissioner of the General Land Office for investigation. Au-gust 4,1891, he directed Mr. Ralph Ballin, late a special agent of the General Land Offlce, to investigate the matter, and Special Agent Robert Pelham, jr., was detailed to assist him in the work. They havecompleted their difficult work most exhaustively and in-telligently. Mr. Ballin has submitted two reports. In one he di~cusses the civil liabilities of the parties connected with the depredations md in the other their criminal liability for participation in the wholesale robbery of the Cjovernment shown to have been cw~i e don at the Fond du Lac Reservation. From these reports it appears that during the seasons of 1889-'90 and 1890-'91, there was unlawfully cut and sold from the timber of the reservation, under the superintendence and direction of the Govern-ment farmer, J. S. Stack, the large quantity of 16,275,792 feet of saw-logs, for mhicll Mr. Stack received the sum of $83,785.09. Beaides this timber a great many telegraph poles, railroad ties, cedar paving, and posts were cut on the reservation, most of which.were sold by Mr. Stack to various parties throughout the country. The plan of operation adopted by Mr. Stack in tlie conduct of the logging was to employ Indiaus and white men to cut the timber and bank it, with the understanding that after it was sold theparty doing the logging would receive his piy. All of the timber was sold by Stack a.t $5 per thousand feet, aud the loggers were paid $4 or less per thousand feet, according to the several agreements between them and Stack, except in one case, where the full price of $6 was paid to the man who cut aud bmked the timber. The difference in the price receivod by Mr. Stack and that paid by him to the loggers, which amounts to a large sum, has never been accounted for by him,-and he is therefore civilly liable for the same, if indeed he may not be held liable for the total sum received on account of the timber sales mad6 by him. |