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Show REPORT OF OOMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. 81 claimsone for 68 head of horses valued at $7,710, the other for 5,000 head of cattle valued at $75,000. While the case was pending, the depositions of several persons were taken in support of the claims, and the Government was put to the expense of employing special counsel and of printing the affidavits made and the depositions taken. On motion of the attorney for the United.States, the case was dis-missed on May 23, 1906, for want of jurisdiction, the claimant not being a citizen of the United States. The claims were then referred to the Auditor for the Interior De-partment, but at the request of this office were returned for admin-istrative examination. After a thorough investigation, the claims and all the evidence were submitted to the department with office letter of February 20, 1907, recommending that they be disallowed. A synopsis of the history of the Indian Territory was given, as gleaned from the annual reports of this office from 1862 to 1866, which showed that during the civil war the country occupied by the Choc-taw and Chickasaw Indians had been so devastated and stripped of all stock, and the Indians left in so destitute a condition, that it was not possible for them to have possessed anywhere near the number of stock they claimed to have lost. The findings of the office that the claims had not been satisfactorily established were approved by the department, and under department instructions were submitted to the accounting officers of the Treasury. The Auditor for the Interior Department, considering both claims as one, disallowed @ern "for the reason that the evidence submitted did not establish the loss of any horses or cattle in the manner alleged.'' The attorney for the claimant took an appeal to the Comptroller, who on July 25, 1907, concluded his findings in the case as follows: Where evidence is ex parte it should be clear and beyond dispute. It should establish the number and value of the stock lost and the circumstances of the loss. In the case under consideration we have the depositions of some of these a5ants and other persons, taken in the Court of Claims. The evidence as to many of the material facts is so Contradictory and so much of it hearsay as to make it of little or no value in establishing the claim. * * * After careful consideration of all the evidence submitted, together with the 5ndings of the Commhsioner of Indian Affairs and the brief of claimant's attorney, I am of the opinion that claimant has failed to prove the facts as alleged. The decision of the auditor is affirmed. The same course was followed in considering two claims of Robert H. Love, a Chickasaw Indian, for $89,050 and the comptroller reached the same conclusion. Bills were introduced in the last session of Congress to pay both the Gaines and R. H. Love claims in full. An examination of the depositions taken in support of the claim of James T. Gaines led the office to the conclusion that if these old |
