Mr. BALLINGER. They were? Mr. McDONALD. Of course they were, because in fact they had no legal existence. Now, you will understand why it was that there grew up two factions. The CHAIRMAN. You have two minutes left. Mr. McDONALD. One is the faction that you see represented here, and they were able and willing, and the other is the faction of the real Indians and those people who are opposed to the other crowd. What happened? The General Council of Chippewa Indians, as then constituted, had a legislative committeeman here at Washington, and he found that there was circulating among the Members of this Congress a little pamphlet arguing in favor of making this appropriation of $110,000 to Gus Beaulieu and Mr. Fairbanks and Andrew Sakesik, and so on, right in the face of the fact that the Court of Claims in the Mille Lac case allowed, I think, $100,000 to the atotrneys for the Indians. Gus Beaulieu had a contract with those attorneys that he should receive one-fifth thereof, $20,000, for his services in connection with the Mille Lac matter. In addition to that, this genreal council proposes to have this Congress appropriate $45,000 more to Mr. Beaulieu. The CHAIRMAN. Gentlemen, the time for recess has arrived, and if there is no objection we will recess until 10.30 to-morrow morning. At that time we must finish up all of the arguments in the case. Mr. BALLINGER. Could I make a suggestion? If there is any particular provision in this bill to which any one has an objection, will they not call attention to the provision and the reasons for the objection? The CHAIRMAN. Nobody has done that yet, so far as I can see. Mr. McDONALD. Just one matter, Mr. Chairman. I started in to call your attention to this statement The CHAIRMAN (interposing). The hearing is now ended for the day. We will meet to-morrow morning at 10.30 o'clock. Thereupon at 1 o'clock p. m. the committee adjourned until to-morrow, March 16, 1920, at 10.30 o'clock a. m, WRITTEN STATEMENT BY JAMES J. CAFFEY, OF KANSAS CITY, MO. Hon. W. L. CARSS, M. C., House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. KANSAS CITY, Mo., March 2, 1920. DEAR MR. CARSS: Recently I have received information that on March 8th the House Committee on Indians Affairs will consider the bills introduced by Mr. Knutson and Mr. Ellsworth, of Minnesota, for the purpose of winding up, the affairs of the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota, a great body of the Chippewa Indians affected by the proposed legislation are within your constituency and they look to you for the protection of their interests. I want to state to you on behalf of the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota, for your particular information and which they desire that you submit to the House Committee on Indian Affairs on their behalf, that the proposed legislation has not been submitted to the said Chippewa Indians, and they do not know the provisions contained in said proposed legislation, and that they have not given their sanction to any legislation contained in the proposed bills. That they are opposed to any modification of the present laws which affect their interests, without first having received their sanction. The custom which Congress and the Government have always followed, where a complete change of policy affecting the Chippewa interests are in contemplation, is that the legislation proposed for that purpose shall contain a provision that the consent of each individual adult Indian member of said tribes shall first be obtained before the proposed law shall become valid. In effect the said Indians are required to ratify the proposed law before it becomes effective. But you will observe if you examine the proposed legislation which is intended to change the entire policy of the Government in the administration of the affairs of the said Chippewa Indians, that only those sections of the bill, which the promoters of the proposed legislation can not derive any immediate personal benefit from, they have provided that those sections shall be submitted to and accepted by the General Council of the Chippewa Indians. But as to certain sections which contain provisions which they can manipulate to their benefit they have not made such a provision for the Chippewa Indians' ratification, but those provisions become law arbitrarily when enacted. Without going into details the proposed legislation contains very many iniquitous provisions, and for the particular benefit of those men who are promoting the legislation and their blood relatives. The promoters of the proposed legislation are first of all, Webster Ballinger, attorney at law, Washington, D. C.; Ben L. Fairbanks; Frank D. Beaulieu; John G. Morrison, jr.; Theodore H. Beaulieu. In contemplation of law, these men are not Chippewa Indians of Minnesota, and legally they do not belong upon the White Earth Indian Reservation, but through fraud and iniquitous pressure upon rascally Indian agents their names have been stealthily placed upon the annuity rolls of the Minsissippi bands of Chippewa Indians who occupy the White Earth Indian Reservation. For your information, and those who are interested in equity and justice to the Indians, I will quote the law as to the legal status of the men I have named above, as Indians and as members of the Mississippi bands upon the White Earth Indian Reservation. Treaty entered into between the United States and the Mississippi bands of Chippewa Indians of Minnesota, March 19, 1867 (16 Stat., 719) ratified April 8, 1867, provides in article 4 as follows: "ART. 4. No part of the annuities provided in this or any former treaty with the Chippewas of the Mississippi bands, shall be paid to any half-breed, or mixed blood, except those who actually live with their people, upon one of the reservations belonging to the Chippewa Indians." The mixed bloods and half-breeds referred to in that treaty are Benjamin L. Fairbanks and his ancestors, Frank B Beaulieu and his ancestors, John G. Morrison, jr., and his ancestors, and all of the relatives of those men and their ancestors. At the date of the treaty above quoted, the Fairbanks and the Morrisons and Beaulieus were not members of the Mississippi bands and were not living upon any of the reservations belonging to the Indians, but a number of them lived at the then frontier village of Crow Wing, Minn., on white man's land, and were absolute strangers to the Mississippi bands of Indians. Their occupation was as saloon keepers and small traders at Crow Wing. They were entirely separate and distinct people from the Indians of the Mississippi bands, and they held themselves out as white people among the whites and as mixed bloods among the Indians. Originally they came from Canada, Michigan, and Wisconsin, to Crow Wing. There they held themselves out to the Indians as mixed bloods and made efforts to have their names placed upon the annuity rolls of the Mississippi bands. Generally the Indians were opposed to adopting them into the tribe because of their vicious habits and their abuse of individuals among the Indians. Because of the efforts of the Fairbanks, the Beaulieus, and the Morrisons to be placed upon the annuity rolls of the Mississippi bands, to which the Indians were opposed, when the treaty of March 19, 1867, was entered into between the United States and the Mississippi bands of Chippewa Indians, the Chief Hole-in-the-Day insisted that the provision designated as article 4, which I have quoted above, be made a part of the treaty for the protection of the Mississippi bands from the efforts of the Beaulieus, the Fairbanks, and the Morrisons to get on the annuity rolls of the Mississippi bands of Chippewa Indians. Article 4 of the treaty of March 19, 1867, has never been abrogated either by any act of Congress or by any council of the Indians; article 4 is still a law in the statutes of the United States, having the force of the law made by treaty, and is a statutory pro hibition standing against Benjamin L. Fairbanks, Frank D. Beaulieu, and John G. Morrison, jr., from being carried upon the annuity rolls of the Mississippi bands, who now occupy the White Earth Indian Reservation, where these men are now enrolled under conditions of fraud and contrary to the statute above quoted (16 Stat., 719). This is the status of the men, Benjamin L. Fairbanks, Frank D. Beaulieu, and John G. Morrison, jr., as Indians having any right to participate in the affairs of the Indians. The Indians of the White Earth Indian Reservation have protested every year to the officials of the Indian Department against the retention of these men upon the annuity rolls of the White Earth Reservation, because they are undesirable and are not legal members of the tribe, and because of the statute prohibiting them from participating in the annuities of said Indians. The Indian Office has been extremely derelict in enforcing the law of the United States provided for the protection of the Indians; it is said, for political reasons. It is public property among the Indians in Minnesota, that the political reasons are that Benj. L. Fairbanks and Gus H. Beaulieu were the agents and instrumental by the Nichols Chisholm Lumber Co. of Becker County, Minn., in taking and removing many hundred million feet of Pine timber off the White Earth Indian Reservation contrary to law as provided in the act of January 14, 1889. Under the act of January 14, 1889, that vast quantity of pine timber should have been sold at public sale and the proceeds placed in the Treasury of the United States to the credit of the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota as a common fund. Instead of disposing of it in accordance with the law, agreed upon under a treaty between the United States and the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota, these same so-called mixed bloods, by representing to Congress that they were entitled to additional allotments of land as Indians belonging upon the White Earth Reservation, prevailed upon Congress to enact legislation providing for additional allotments of land to Indians upon the White Earth Reservation, which under existing law should be agricultural land. Instead of allotting agricultural land under existing law, these men with the political pull controlled by the Nichols Chisholm Lumber Co. manipulated the Indian agent at White Earth to negligently allot to these same mixed bloods and their relatives and close friends about all of the valuable pine timber lands upon the White Earth Indian Reservation, contrary to the provisions affecting this identical timber land, under the act of January 14, 1889. The value of the timber taken from these lands in allotments to individuals which are these so-called mixed bloods ranged from $10,000 to $25,000 to each individual; this inlcudes Ben L. Fairbanks, Frank D. Beaulieu, and John G. Morrison, jr., who are legally prohibited from participating in the benefits of the property of the Mississippi bands of Chippewa Indians, who occupy the White Earth Reservation. A few years ago upon the complaint of the Indians of the White Earth Reservation to the honorable Commissioner of Indian Affairs that the Fairbanks, Beaulieus, and Morrisons were on the annuity rolls illegally, the Interior Department sent an inspector to the White Earth Reservation to investigate the status of the men complained of; the inspector, Mr. Thomas G. Shearman, made his report to the department, and upon the statement of facts submitted by him he recommended that these men be stricken from the annuity rolls of the White Earth Agency. Accordingly the names of these men were suspended from the rolls, and at this point of the affair I am reliably informed that the Nichols Chisholm Lumber Co. seeing that their interests were being threatened if the names of the Ben Fairbanks and Gus H. Beaulieus and the others who unlawfully sold the pine timber belonging to the Chippewa Indians of the State of Minnesota in common, which includes Ben L. Fairbanks, Frank D. Beaulieu, John G. Morrison, jr., and the others who were given allotments on the pine lands under the additional allotment act, were suspended from the rolls and entirely eliminated from said rolls, that action would be taken by the Government to recover the value of the pine so taken, and the said lumber company would be liable for the value of the timber so taken. To protect their interests, as I have been informed, Mr. T. Shevlin made a trip to Washington and had a consultation with the honorable Secretary of the Interior, during the very critical time the elimination of the names of Ben L. Fairbanks, Frank D. Beaulieu, and John G. Morrison, jr., from the rolls, were under active consideration by the Interior Department. Shortly after the visit of Mr. Shevlin to the honorable Secretary of the Interior, the department instructed the Indian Office to resume the payment to the suspendees the annuities as theretofore. These men who participated in pulling off this gigantic fraud and received the benefits of $10,000 to $25,000 each from it, Benj. L. Fairbanks, Frank D. Beaulieu, and John G. Morrison, jr., are now before Congress with another bill proposing legislation opening another opportunity for them for another gigantic fraud. These men have apparently used the Congress of the United States for the past 18 or 20 years as pawns are used by a chess player. In other words, they have used Congress to attain a position from which they are enabled to rob and plunder the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota. We have made an appeal to many Member of Congress for protection from the iniquities of these men. When will Congress awaken to the fact that they are being used as mere pawns by these men and create for them further opportunities for plundering the Chippewas of Minnesota? In the year 1906 a provision was inserted in the Indian appropriation bill at the instance of these men, providing for the removal of the restrictions upon the alienation of the allotments of mixed-blood Indians upon the White Earth Indian Reservation. To accomplish that result, they represented to Congress that the mixed-blood Indians on the White Earth Indian Reservation were competent to manage their affairs judiciously, that the restrictions then upon the alienation of their allotments were hampering the progress of the individual mixed blood. Without adequate information as to the truth of the representations of these men, Congress very unwisely, as many of the Members of Congress have since admitted, enacted the law sought by these men, which removed the restrictions from the alienation of the allotments of the mixed-blood Indians on the White Earth Reservation. The immediate result of the enactment of that law was the sale and disposal of the allotments of about 90 per cent of the mixed bloods affected by that act for sums ranging from one-fourth to one-half the value of their lands, which was soon squandered and wasted, leaving them homeless and without land. Benjamin Fairbanks, Gus H. Beaulieu, John W. Carl, Theodore H. Beaulieu, and others of their gang, immediately took advantage of the incompetency of those mixed bloods whom they represented to Congress were competent, and commercialized in the allotments of those mixed bloods for personal profit, as they intended to do and for which they procured the law; Under that transaction Ben L. Fairbanks is said to have cleared as profit about $400,000, Gus H. Beaulieu about $300,000, John W. Carl about $200,000. In his report submitted to the Indian Office of an investigation he was detailed to make covering the Indian situation in Minnesota in the year 1918, Mr. E. B. Linnen, special inspector of the Interior Department, stated that Benjamin L. Fairbanks, John W. Carl, and Theodore H. Beaulieu had actually swindled a large number of the Indians and mined bloods from whom they procured land. Among the white population in Minnesota, wherever the character of the work of Ben Fairbanks, John G. Morrison, jr., and Frank D. Beaulieu are known in relation to procuring legislation affecting Indian matters they receive no support and are turned down cold. I happened to be in the city of Bemidji, Minn., on the 2d day of last October, where I had business with a citizen of that city. I was informed by the gentleman that the Commercial Club of the city of Bemidji, Minn., was then in session, and was invited by him to attend that meeting, which I did. When we arrived at the club rooms the meeting was then in session and Frank D. Beaulieu was then addressing the meeting in relation to the legislation affecting the Indians of Minnesota, and more particularly the proposed legislation embodied in the bills introduced by Mr. Knutson and Mr. Ellsworth of Minnesota, which is up for consideration on March 8 before the House Committee on Indian Affairs. After hearing Frank Beualieu's statements and explanations covering the entire matter, a few questions were asked him by members of the club. The club proposed a vote upon his proposition. Frank Beaulieu then saw his scheme had been laid bare by a question of one of the members of the club, and Beaulieu requested the club not to take a vote on his proposition but to drop it. He stated to the club that if it was rejected some person would undertake to make capital of it; but the club disregarded his request and took a vote upon it. His proposition was rejected by a the entire club and it did not receive the support even of a single vote. The Commercial Club of the city of Bemidji, Minn., is composed of live business men, who have lived many years in the Indian country, the country occupied by the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota. I know from personal observation that certain men members of that club have made a study of different matters in relation to the Chippewa Indians in Minnesota, and they know more about the application of practical business matters to the Indian economic situation in Minnesota, for the real benefit for the Indian, and know as well those matters which are disadvantageous to the Indians than Frank D. Beaulieu or Ben L. Fairkanks and John G. Morrison, jr., including all of the knowledge possessed by Webster Ballinger in relation to the Chippewa situation in Minnesota. Because the members of that Commercial Club are honest, so far as their interests in Chippewa matters are concerned, and they have no axes to grind, and they are not out to swindle the Indians, and they do not propose to lend themselves to any gang of swindlers for that purpose. That is the reason the proposed legislation to be considered by the House Committee on Indian Affairs, on March 8, was turned down and summarily rejected by that Commercial Club, as proposed and advocated by Frank D. Beaulieu, Ben L. Fairbanks, and John G. Morrison, jr. It may interest Congress to note that the Indian Office has, contrary to the best interests of the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota, projected itself into the local affairs of the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota by directing its local Indian agent of the White Earth Reservation, Mr. W. F. Dickens, to act as the chairman of the local council on the White Earth Reservation in June, 1919, to the exclusion of the regularly elected chairman by the Indians, which enabled the Ben L. Fairbanks, Frank D. Beaulieu, and John G. Morrison, jr., gangsters to make a show of control, with the use of the Government police and the sheriff of Mahnomin County, Minn., contrary to the laws of the said local council, and then followed up their object of forcing the matter of seating John G. Morrison, jr., as the president of the general council. The Indian Office instructed Mr. Dickens to act as chairman at the opening of the general council, at Cass Lake last July, which was objected to by the Indians entirely, because such an act was contrary to the constitution of the general council, which provides that the president shall preside. Under the instructions had by Mr. Dickens from the Indian Office, he employed the sheriff and four or five deputies of Cass County, Minn., and placed these officers in front of him where the Indians stood to address the chair or the council. This was done to intimidate the Indians and to suppress them should they undertake to have the regular order of procedure of the general council enforced. This was done to further the ends of Ben L. Fairbanks, Frank D. Beaulieu, John G. Morrison, jr. The Indians would not submit to such high-handed work, so they separated themselves from the Indian Office gang and held the regular general council of the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota. The Indian Office general council was furnished with resolutions prepared beforehand by the attorney, Webster Ballinger, from Washington, D. C., who was on hand for the prearranged occasion, and that is the stuff they now have before Congress for consideration to be enacted into law. As early as the Indian Office received the report of Mr. Dickens, the ursurper, of their transaction in that affair, the Indian Office, very precipitately sent out notices that it had recognized Mr. John G. Morrison, jr., as the duly elected president of the general council, when the fact was that the Indian Office council had but one Indian attending it, and that was Capt. John Smith, who has affiliated with the Beaulieus for years. The others who were at the Indian Office council are those who are in the same status as Ben L. Fairbanks, Frank D. Beaulieu, and John G. Morrison, jr., prohibited from participating in the annuities of the Mississippi bands of Chippewa Indians, as provided in article 4 of the treaty of March 19, 1867. Webster Ballinger was at the Indian Office council officiously arranging and promoting the adoption of the resolutions which purport the approval by the Indians of the legislation now before Congress promoted by Ballinger, Fairbanks, Beaulieu, and John G. Morrison, jr. Mr. W. F. Dickens domineered the proceedings of the Indian Office council as the representative of the Indian Office under his instructions to take charge of the procedure. Kindly submit this matter to the House Committee on Indian Affairs for its information upon the matter of the proposed legislation referred to. Respectfully, yours, JAMES I. CAFFEY, Representative of the Chippewa General Council (Inc.). COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS, The committee met at 10.30 o'clock a. m., Hon. Homer P. Snyder (chairman), presiding. Mr. SNYDER. Gentlemen, we will resume the hearing with Mr. McDonald as the witness, and we have an agreement that he shall have 10 minutes additional, if there be no objection. |