Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1878-01-17
From the New York Tribune
The Indian Report.

The Indian Bureau has SO long been re-
garded as nest of frauds and scandals
that there is a disposition among the
people to hail every official report incul-
pating any of its officers as step toward
reform, and to look upon every displaced
commissioner, agent, or clerk as presum-
ably thief. Thus the report of tho re-
cent Board of investigation appointed by
Secretary Schurz to inquire into the con-
duet of Commission Smith aud Chief
Clerk Galpin has been accepted as very
honest and creditable performance, and
the letter of the ex-commissioner which
we print this morning will perhaps have
little effect upon the public mind. Even
boards of investigation, however. are
sometimes wrong, and in this case it looks
as if an outrage had been committed upon
respectable officers, and dangerous blow
struck al the purity of the service.
Commissioner Smith has long been es-
tesmed as thoroughly upright and we'll
meaning man. and it is beyond doubt
that the Indian Bureau under his manage
ment, If not made an ideal organization.
was at least purified of many invetera,e
abuses. The Chief Clerk was au able
and jealous. functionary. OF whom, too,
the community had high opinion. Last
Summer charges were preferred agains,
Mr.. Galpin by certain persons, whom, al
we learn upon good authority, he had de.
tected and checked in course OF frauds
upon the Cherokee Indians of North Car.
DINA. A board of inquiry was selected
from attaches of the Departments of the
Interior, War, and Justice, which spent
seven months investigating not only these
specific charges, but the whole manage.
ment of the Bureau, extending far back
beyond the term of Commissioner
Smith. Msssrs. Smith and Galpin de-
manded the right to speak in their own
defence. 1t was refused them. They
were not permitted to see the testimony
or to know what was said against them,
while their accusers and a number oil
1.-THE most dlsrsputable men In Washing
ton." as private letters from an unimpeach.
able and dsinterested authority inform
us were in close Intercourse with the board
and in constant attendance at the meet.
ings. An exparte examination of thi.
kind Is well enough when it is used, like
the proceedings of grand jury, as the
preliminary of trial; but when Its con.
illusions are at once incorporated In pub.
lie report, and made the basis of summa.
ry action, it becomes monstrous and
scandalous injustice to which no Ameri
can ought to submit That we have moi
misunderstood the character of this fraud
ulent inquiry will be apparent from the
following passage in a private letter
written by President Seelye. of Amherst
whose familiarity with Indian affairs ant
the methods of the Indian Ring is NO
likely to be disputed; after the boarc
'had been organized, and was holdine
sits sessions nominully in secret, this mar
g wrote me letter in high glee de
"claring that he had got the commission
(which be wanted. and that he was at
tending the meetings, having things hi
Town way, and that he would rip vi
'things generally before he got through
al have little doubt that the whole find
ling of this Board of Inquiry was in
"spired by the worst villains in the India,
"Ring, so-callee. and / cannot but loo]
upon it as very gross travesty upo
''justice." And in an earlier letter, t
another person, President Seeyle wrote
81 know so much of the adroitness AZ we
las unscrspulousness of these men that
"think it altogether possible that they ma
"carry their point, and may even delud
''the commission and Secretary Schur
with the idea that the most honest me
Gin the Indian Bureau are scamps, an
"thxt these rotten wretches are paragon
"of good"