OCR Text |
Show 36 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER Ol? INDIAN AFFAIRS. allottees, whether under the care of an Indian agent or not, shall, for a like period, be suhject to all the laws of the United States prohibiting the sale or ' other disposition of intoxicants to Indians. The United States Supreme Court rendered its decision in the ybove case on February 24, 1908, holding- That the agreement between the United States and the Nez Per& Indians. whereby the Indian lands ceded, retained, and allotted to the Nez PercE Indians should he subject (not without limit as to time, but only for twenty-fire years) to any federal statutes prohibiting the introduction of intoxicants into the Indian conntry, was not liable to objection on constitutionnl grounds. The court further said t h a t The requirement in the agreement of 1893, that the federal liquor statutes protecting the Indian collntry against the introduction of intoxicants into it should, for the limited period of twenty-five years, be the law for. the lands ceded and retained by, as well as the lands allotted to the Nea Perce Indians, was a valid regulation based upon the treaty-making power of the United States and upon the power of Congress to regulate commerce with those Indians. With the question thus clearlv settled, immediate steps were taken to obtain the enforcement of the law, and Special Officer Sam Cone was sent there for the purpose of investigating existing conditions and taking action to prevent further traffic. So well were his plans carried out that after having obtained a large amount of evidence against the violators of the law, he and his assistants on the 3d of last July made a number of raids simultaneously upon the liquor joints in the several towns within the limits of the former Nez Perc6 Reservation, making about a dozen arrests and destroying some $5,000 worth of liquor. Local public sentiment responded promptly. as shown by the press,'to the gobd work of the special service and of Superintendent 0. H. Lipps, in charge of the reservation. Another case of importance tothe Government in the prosecution of this work whichwas determined during the year by the Supreme Court, is that of William Couture, jr., an allottee of the Bad River Reservation in Wisconsin. He was convicted in the district court of the United States for the western district of Wisconsin, of a vio-lation of section 2139 of the Revised Statutes as amended by the act of January 30,1897, his offense being that of introducing liquor upon an Indian allotment of that reservation. The case was carried to the United States Supreme Court, which dismissed the appeal. The effect of this action is to uphold the constitutionality of the act of January 30, 1897 (29 Stat. L., 506), as far as it relates-to allotted lands while the title to such lands "shall be held in trust by the Government or while the same shall remain inalienable by the allottee without the consent of the United States." Under this decision of the Supreme Court it is unlawful to introduce intoxicants on allotted lands of the character above mentioned. |