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priation of the funds of the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota in the Treasury of the United States a sum sufficient to pay said fees and expenses which may be found and agreed upon by the president and the executive committee of the general council."

That was six months before the time he says he employed me.

Mr. BURTNESS. Was he present at that meeting?

Mr. BALLINGER. He was present, as shown by the official record, and voted for the resolution. Were you present at that council in July?

Mr. COFFEY. That council that you refer to as having employed you had no existence before that. This that you refer to was on the Indians in secret council; the council or commission which you refer to as having authorized we did not know anything about. The only thing we have known aboutThe CHAIRMAN (interposing). He is taking up your time.

Mr. BALLINGER. I can not let him take up any of my time. He says that his crowd represents the full-blood element of the Indians of that country. When they are talking about the full-blood element, they are talking about a misnomer. On the White Earth Reservation 7,000 Indians were allotted in 1913. There was a classification of those Indians into mixed bloods and full bloods. There was found to be 156 of the 7,000 that were full bloods; that is, enrolled as full bloods. If he represents the full-blood faction, he represents 156 out of 7,000 on the White Earth Reservation. Mr. COFFEY. Will you let me explain?

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Ballinger has the time.

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Mr. BALLINGER. He came here as a delegate in the fall of 1917, as a duly accredited representative, one of the legislative committee of the general council. He had no sooner gotten here than he commenced to play double with his ⚫ colleagues. They found it out, and they wired to President Morrison to come here, and Morrison came to Washington. Morrison sent for him and told him that if he did not play the game on the level he would be removed. Thereupon Coffey resigned. He went to Minnesota and organized what he calls this other council in 1918. Benjamin Caswell was elected the president of that general council that was organized in 1918. I have here a photolithographic copy showing the scheme that Coffey and Caswell have been trying to work out since the organization of that council. This is a photolithographic copy of a letter signed by Banjamin Caswell and addressed to the Nichols-Chisolm Lumber Co., Frazee, Minn., dated December 5, 1918, three or four months after that council was organized. I will read the paper, because it is the most startling proposition that has come to my attention. It is as follows:

CASS LAKE, MINN., December 5, 1918.

The PRESIDENT NICHOLS-CHISOLM LUMBER CO.,

Frazee, Minn.

SIR: This letter is addressed to you for the purpose of submitting to your company and through you to others who would be similarly affected by my contemplated action.

I have a good selected case with the intention of bringing the same for action in the proper court against the constitutionality of the whole of the socalled Clapp Act. The Morrow decision as to taxes of the said Clapp Act gave me absolute encouragement of taking the case to court for a final conclusion, but the events have transpired which lead me to make the proposition I am going to make for your consideration. The full bloods for whose sympathy inspired me for the contemplated action have been paid a large sum of money as additional consideration for the lands and timber they have attempted to convey, this in a great measure is righted what I personally thought was injustice to the full bloods; that my success in the contemplated action would benefit almost entirely the mixed bloods who needed no aid of any kind in their personal allotted land deals; that my health is not what it might be and that I longed to have a peaceful rest; that the case in the contemplated action would inevitably take a long time to conclude, for the foregoing reasons, I make the following propositions:

That I drop forever of the contemplated action against the constitutionality of the Clapp Act for the consideration of

1. That you and others give $100,000 in cash to me in hand immediately or as soon as consistent to good business.

2. That you have your attorney, Mr. R. J. Powell, member of the Chippewa Enrollment Commission, to place on the White Earth Reservation status roll the following allottees as full bloods:

0-369 Me ge zeence,

0-2488 Ay dow ah cumig o quay,
0-2489 Aun-je gah bow e quay,
0-2490 Nay nah we ge shig,

0-2491 O gub aince,
0-377 Stephen Caswell,
0-375 Jane Caswell,

0-374 Benjamin Caswell,

0-370 Lewis Caswell.

I further agree to see to it that none of the foregoing take any action against your company on timber deals and land deals, if any, you have made in good faith with them.

If I do not hear from you in a few days I will consider my proposition rejected. I will add that if I once start the action, it will be impossible for me to call off the action as it will become a tribal case then.

Yours, truly,

BENJAMIN CASWELL.

Mr. Chairman, when that came to the attention of Mr. Morrison, president of the general council, and Ben Fairbanks and other officers of the council, they said they would have nothing to do with those scoundrels, and since that time they have never permitted one of them to be elected to any office even as a ɖelegate to the general council. Let me go one step further to clear it up. The CHAIRMAN. That will be about the last step.

Mr. BALLINGER. In 1919 this man Coffey came here to Washington, claiming to represent the general council and represented to the department and Congress that he represented 90 per cent of the Indians in that country. The regular general council, through John W. Carl, then a member of its legislative committee here, took the matter up with Commissioner Sells, and Commissioner Sells sent for James I. Coffey, John W. Carl, and William Lufkins, who claimed to represent another faction, had a conference with them in the Indian Bureau, and there was then signed up an agreement by which an election was to be held in that country under the supervision of departmental officers. The official order that went out was dated June 2, 1919. It was signed by Cato Sells, commissioner, and approved by John W. Carl, representing the regular general council; William Lufkins, representing somebody out there that he claimed to represent; and James I. Coffey, representing the Caswell council. Mr. BURTNESS. Is that the same conference Mr. Meritt has referred to in his testimony?

Mr. BALLINGER. Yes. That telegram was sent to every superintendent in the Chippewa country. I will not read it, but I want to include it in the record. The CHAIRMAN. Just that one sheet.

(The telegram referred to is as follows:)

DICKENS,

Superintendent, Detroit, Minn.:

JUNE 2, 1919.

After conference here with representatives all factions Chippewa Indians it has been decided to adjourn the selection of delegates of both factions, proposed to be held to-morrow, June 3, until Tuesday, June 17, 10.30 a. m., when delegates will be selected to the general council to be held at Cass Lake Tuesday, July 8, 10 a. m. Said delegates shall be elected on the basis of 1 delegate for each 100 Indians or fraction thereof on each reservation and ceded reservation. You will notify immediately the Indians of your reservation of this action and direct them to be governed accordingly. The adjourned place of election on the White Earth Reservation shall be held in the pavilion at Pinehurst. You are also directed to be present on the day of election and see that it is conducted fairly and honestly. CATO SELLS, Commissioner.

Approved by:

JOHN W. CARL.
WILLIAM LUFKINS.
JAMES I. COFFEY.

Mr. BALLINGER. That was followed the following day by a letter from the commissioner giving positive instructions in detail to every superintendent in the Chippewa country as to the elections. The elections were regularly held in that country at the appointed time. No contest was made by that alleged fullblood faction on any reservation except the White Earth Reservation. The election was there held under the supervision of Indian Agent Dickens, and I want to ask Mr. Meritt if they ever had a man in the Indian Service who stood higher than Agent Dickens.

Mr. MERITT. He was a very capable superintendent.

Mr. BALLINGER. Wasn't he an honest superintendent?
Mr. MERITT. I think so.

Mr. BALLINGER. The elections were held under their supervision, and at the elections held on the White Earth Reservation the regular general council prevailed about 3 to 1. The delegates elected to the general council received credentials certified to by the Government officials. The general council was thereafter held in July, at Cass Lake, and present at that council there were Agent Dickens and Dr. Michael, an inspector representing the Secretary's ofThis man Coffey came to fice. The council was regularly held at that time.

the council with what he calls a contesting delegation, and the officials of the United States refused to seat him. Then he proceeded to go off and hold what he called another general council. Following that he applied to the secretary of state of the State of Minnesota for the incorporation of their council, and the papers were isuued. Thereupon suit was filed by the regular general council to enjoin this man, and I have here a copy of the injunction of the court, enjoining this man Coffey and each and every other person connected with that general council from holding themselves out, themselves or their servants or their agents, as a representative of the general council of the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota. The following is the injunctive order:

[State of Minnesota, County of Itasca. In the District Court, Fifteenth Judicial District.] John G. Morrison, jr., et al., plaintiffs, v. The General Council of the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota (Inc.), a body corporate, Benjamin Caswell, John Broker, William Morrell, Louis R. Caswell, William Potter, John S. Smith, Joseph Goggleeye, Frank Pequette, Wah De Shah Go Bay, David Boyd, and James I. Coffey, defendants.

Upon consideration of the verified complaint of the plaintiff in the aboveentitled cause, and on motion of Frank D. Beaulieu, one of the attorneys for said plaintiff,

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It is further ordered that until the determination of said application for said injunction the defendants, The General Council of the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota (Inc.), a body corporate, Benjamin Caswell, John Broker, William Morrell, Louis R. Caswell, William Potter, John S. Smith, Joseph Goggleeye, Frank Pequette, Wah De Shay Sheence, George Shah Go Bay, David Boyd, and James I. Coffey, its or their officers, agents, servants, attorneys, and any and all persons acting by, through, or under it or them and each of them are hereby restrained and enjoined from using the name of the general council of the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota, or the seal, or facsimile of the seal of the general council of the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota, or from in anywise or in any manner exercising or attempting to exercise any function as an officer, committeeman, agent, or representative of said corporation or doing or performing any act or thing in its name, or from holding themselves out as officers, agents, or representatives of "the general council of all the Chippewas of Minnesota."

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JOHN A. ROESER, District Judge.

The above temporary restraining order remains in full force and virtue to-day. The defendants have prevented the case from being finally heard. When James I. Coffey appeared before this committee and held himself out as the attorney for the general council he did so in violation of the injunctive order of the court.

He was never president of any general council among the Chippewas, and when he stated that he was he stated a pure fiction.

I want to put in the record also the letter of Commissioner Sells after the report made by Supt. Dickens and by Special Inspector Michael, acknowledging the regular general council to be the general council of the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota.

The letter of the commissioner to Morrison, is as follows:

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

OFFICE OF INDIAN AFFAIRS,
Washington, August 28, 1919.

Mr. JOHN G. MORRISON, Jr.,

Red Lake, Minn.

DEAR MR. MORRISON: I am in receipt of a copy of the minutes of the meeting of the general council of Chippewa Indians of Minnesota, held at Cass Lake, Minn., July 8, 1919; also reports from Supt. Walter F. Dickens and Supervisor L. F. Michael, who attended this council at my request. I have given this matter very careful consideration and hereby recognize your election as president of the council, Paul H. Beaulieu as secretary thereof, and the organization effected thereby, under the constitution and by-laws of the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota.

I exceedingly regret, however, to note from the record that the factional differences among the Chippewa Indians were not adjusted at this council and a compromise effected so that this election would be an expression of the entire Chippewa Tribe.

Sincerely, yours,

CATO SELLS, Commissioner.

Ever since that time this man has been around here making indiscriminate charges of bad faith against the officers of the general council, some of whom are dead. Even the Indian Office is sick and tired of him. They know him to be a man utterly unworthy of belief. He was enrolled as a member of the Fond du Lac Reservation. The Indians up there will not let him come back to his reservation. He then moved to the White Earth Reservation and lived there and the Indians there repudiated him and practically drove him from that country. He is now in the city of Washington.

The CHAIRMAN. I am sorry to have to advise you that your time has expired. I think we ought to call the matter closed now so far as you are concerned. I think you have had a splendid opportunity to represent the principal points at issue.

Mr. BALLINGER. There are some matters particularly with reference to my services on the swamp land and other matters.

The CHAIRMAN. I think the committee would have no objection to your filing a brief with regard to the matter.

Please do not go over anything you have already testified to in the evidence. The record is going to be very voluminous in this matter up to the present time.

Mr. SEARS. I just notice in this case he referred to that the name of John G. Morrison appears to run throughout all of the cases as president of the general council.

Mr. BALLINGER. He was and is president of the regular general council. When I first filed the suit I filed it in the name of the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota, by John G. Morrison, their president, and a demurrer was filed to the bill on the ground that the tribe had no suable status. Therefore, I changed it so that the suit was brought in the name of John G. Morrison, for and on behalf of himself and all other persons similarly situated.

Mr. SEARS. The reason I mention that is you cite that as a case that the general council was back of.

Mr. BALLINGER. The original bill shows that it was filed in the name of the general council.

The CHAIRMAN. If there is no objection, Mr. Ballinger is permitted to present, to be filed in the record, a brief covering the case to the extent of rebuttal he desires to make in addition to what he has already put in the record this morning.

Mr. BURTNESS. It is understood to be limited to rebuttal.

The CHAIRMAN. Limited to points he has not covered this morning.

(The brief referred to is as follows:)

MEMORANDUM SUBMITTED BY WEBSTER BALLINGER, COVERING REBUTTAL MATTERS NOT COVERED IN ORAL ARGUMENT.

For convenient reference in my reply to the various matters that have been raised, I desire to here recapitulate briefly some of the matters heretofore covered. I do this so that in my reply I can refer to them and thus save constant repetition.

RECAPITULATION.

1. The cause of the present complicated conditions of the Chippewa estate: By the agreements entered into in 1889 with all the different bands of Chippewa Indians in Minnesota (H. R. Ex. Doc. 247, 51st Cong., 1st sess.), pursuant to the act of January 14, 1889 (25 Stat., 642), all of the reservations were ceded to the United States in trust, except so much of the White Earth and Red Lake Reservations, as were necessary to make and fill the allotments authorized by the agreements. The lands ceded were to be classified. All lands containing stands of pine timber were to be classified as "pine lands," and all the remaining land was to be classified as “agricultural lands." The pine lands, including their timber, were to be appraised at their true value and sold at public auction at the highest price obtainable, but in no event at less than their appraised value. The agricultural lands were to be disposed of under the homestead law at $1.25 per acre. The net proceeds received from the ceded property were to be deposited in the Treasury of the United States to the credit of all the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota, and was to bear interest at the rate of 5 per cent per annum. Three-fourths of the interest annually accruing was to be paid in cash to the Indians and onefourth was to be used for establishment and maintenance of a system of free schools in and amongst the Indians. At the expiration of the trust period the principal fund was to be divided and paid in cash 'to all of said Chippewa Indians and their issue, then living, in equal shares."

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The Government accepted the ceded lands under an express trust. (Minnesota v. Hitchcock, 185 U. S., 373, 394-5; United States v. Mille Lac Indians 229 U. S., 498, 509-10.) The United States, the trustee, was not at liberty to make any other disposition of the land than that authorized by the trust.

Ea.ly in my investigation of the Chippewa situation, and in the fall of 1916, I discovered that the department in administering upon this estate had dealt with it as though it were an ordinary Indian estate free from any restrictions or limitations, and that Congress had enacted many laws disposing of large areas of the lands as though they were the property of the United States and it possessed unrestricted power over them. I found that under two resolutions of Congress a large body of the pine lands on ceded Mille Lac Reservation had been taken and opened to homestead entry in violation of the terms of the cession. The validity of these two resolutions of Congress was determined in the case of the Mille Lac Indians v. the United States. The court held, in a decision rendered June 9, 1913, that the acts of Congress were in violation of the terms of the cession, and gave judgment against the United States and in favor of the Indians for about $800,000. (United States v. Mille Lac Indians, 299 U. S., 498.) That decision, in my opinion, taken in connection with the decision of the Supreme Court in Minnesota v. Hitchcock (185 U. S., 373) established the right of the Indians to recover for every acre of the ceded lands disposed of to the loss of the Indians and other than as the trust provided.

2. The illegal disposition of the estate:

I found that the trust estate had been illegally disposed of in the following respects:

(a) Approximately 600,000 acres, largely valuable pine lands, had been conveyed to the State of Minnesota mistakenly under the swamp land donation acts, and applications were then pending for a large additional acreage. Not .9 a dollar had been paid the Indians for this land.

(b) Approximately 500,000 acres had been taken and included in the Minnesota National Forest Reserve under the acts of June 27, 1902 (32 Stat., 402403), and May 23, 1908 (35 Stat., 268). Under these acts the Indians were to receive compensation for the timber as cut, 5 and 10 per cent to be left stand

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