OCR Text |
Show to pass the title in fee simple, or such mixed bloods, upon application, shall be entitled to receive a patent in fee for such allotments." This legislation was opposed by the Indian Office on two grounds: First, because any indiscriminate drawing of a blood line between two classes of citizens seems to me opposed to the spirit of the Con-stitution and American ideals generally; and, in the second place, because, altho many mixt-blood Indians of the White Earth Reser-vation are competent to manage their own affairs, many more are not, and the proposed law seemed to hold out a perilous suggestion to un-scrupulous persons to take advantage of Indians and procure their lands for less than value. These fears of the unwisdom of the legis-lation mere early realized. On July 18 a leading newspaper in Min-neapolis pnblislied an article charging that disgraceful conditions existed at Detroit, Minn., where land speculators were plying the Indians with liquor in order to secure deeds or mortgages to their lands for small amounts; that the town had been filled withdrunken Inaians since June 21, when the act became effective, and that 250 allotment mortgages had been filed at Detroit and many more in Norman County. The Office at once telegraphed its agent at White Earth to investigate the matter, and he answered by telegraph on July 19 that many of the mixt bloods had taken advantage of the provisions of the act to sell or mortgage their lands; that some of them were squandering the proceeds for intoxicants; but that this was true of only a limited number, and that no case had come* under his observation where an Indian had first been plied with liquor to secure his consent to dispose of his land. Tho not so bad, therefore, as indicated by the newspaper publication, conditions. were bad enough to justify the stand taken by the Office while the legislation was pending. I am now making such an investigation of individual cases where sharp practise is charged as will enable me to turn over the facts to the local prosecuting officers for such action against the wrongdoers as the law may warrant. BLACKPEET RESERVATION. A bill for the opening of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana was past at the last session of the Congress, but failing to receive the approval of the President, did not become a law. CABSON SINK. The condition df the Pah Ute band of Indians, who have been al-lotted lands in Carson Sink, Nevada, has been before the Office con-tinuously ever since attention was first called to them by Special Agent William E. Casson on October 3,1903. The 195 allotments made to this band cover approximately 30,000 |