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Show COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. such contemplated investments were from time to time made, and the whole charge and responsibility connected therewith, which were first concentrated hy the act of 1837 in the Secretary of War, were subsequeutly, by the act of 1849, creating the Department of the Interior, transfemed to the Secretary of the Interior. Those successive investments of moneys, paid by the United States for Indian lands, brought numerous State and other bonds into the cus-tody of the Secretary of the Interior, which were held as a "trust fund" under his management. By a report of the select committee of the House of Representatives, (No. 78, 36th Cong~ess2, d session,) it is shown that an abstraction from the place of deposit of the bonds constituting this fund, and amounting in the aggregate to $870,000, was made during the incumbency of your predecessor. Those bonds have not been restored to the Department of the Interior, nor do I suppose it likely they ever will be. The question then arises, on whom must the weight of this abstraction or defalcation fall? Shall the Indians, who are the dependent pupils and wards of this government, and who have parted forever with the lands for which these bonds were the consideration--shall they be made the sutferers by the delinquency of confidential officers in the Department of the Interior, with whose appointment they had nothing whatever to do? The United States, when they engaged to manage the investments for the Indians, ahsumed all the responsibility which pertains to the offices of guardian and custodian. A great government like that of the United States will not east a shadow upon its dignity h~ a question about that responsibility. Taking it for granted, then, that the fund so taken in trust by the government will be hold to continue intact for Indian benefit, I respectfully recommend that measures be adopted by Congress to insure to the Indians the value of the bonds abstracted; and, fur-ther, that a law be enacted granting power to the Secreta~y of the Interior to dispose of all the State stocks now held in trust by the government, and that the amount for which they were purchased be reimbursed to the Indians by an investment in stocks of the United States for Indian bcnofit. It would also be adv:sable to lovide, in the same law, that all Indian funds hereafter committed to the ~n i t eBi t a t e sf or investment shall be investcd in United States stocks only. On this whole subject I have only further to remask, that besides the manifest justice of the foregoing considerations, the measures proposed commend them-selves in the light of a wise policy. When the Indian is taught to feel that, notwithstanding all that has passed, the government of the United States is inflexibly determined to maintain its good faith with him under $1 circum-stances, the moral effect will soon exhibit itself in consequences most gratifying. The accompanying exhibit indicates the State stocks abstracted, and the tribes for which they were held in trust. In this connection, I beg to remind yon that in preparing eetimates to be considered by Congress at its late called session:this office, then entertaining the views as above expressed, submitted, with your approbation, an estimate for the interest due, and to become due up to the end of the present fiscal year on the abstracted bonds, for the purpose of obtaining an appropriation to meet the interest due on those bonds. Owing to the press of other business before Con-gress, the subject was not entertained, and I beg now to renew my recommen-dation. The estimate will be found in Executive Document So. 1, 37th Con-gress, 1st session, House of Representatives. I also recommend that an appropriation be made by Congress to meet the unpaid interest on those trust bonds of the revolted States yet in custody of the Secretary of the Interior. The interest on these bonds is, in most cases, the principal pecunituy resource of the Indian owners, and the failure to obtain this accustomed supply of means has proved to them a source of great embarrass ment, and to the Indian Department itself one of much unpleaaantness. |
