Arizona citizen., 1878-02-15
Tine Indian Report.
From the New York rribune.I

From the New York Tribune.
 The Indian Burean has 50 long been
 regarded as nest of frauds and scan
 dals that there is a disposition among
 the people IO hall every official report
 inculpating any of it's officers as step
 toward reform, and To look upon every displaced commissioner, agent. or clerK Gs presumably a thief Thus the re-
 port O! the recent Board Of Invesiiga
 tion appointed by Secretary Schurz 10
 inquire into the conduct of Commis
 siOner Smith and Chief Clerk Galpin
 has been accepted as very honest aad
 cTeditable performance, and the letter
 of the X-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
 1t looks as if an outrage had been
 committed upon respectable officers,
 and dangerous blow struck at the
 purity of the service.
 Commissioner Smith has long been esteemed as a thrOughlv upright and
 wellmeaning man, and is beyond doubt that the Indian Bureau under
 his management, if not made an ideal
 organization, was at least purified of
 many inveterate abuses. The Chief
 Clerk was an able and jealous func-
 tiOnary, of whom, too, the community
 had a high OpIniUA Last Summer
 charges were preferred against Mir
 Galpin by certain persons, whom, as we learn upon good autOrity, he had
 detected and checked in course of. frauds upon the Cherokee Indians of. North Carolina A board of inquiry was selected from attaches of the De- paTtments of the Interior, War, and Justice, which spent seven months investigating not only these specific charges, but the whole management of the Bureau, extending fur back even
 beyond tue term of Commissioner l Smith. MeSSrs. Smith and Galpin demanded the right 10 speak iu their own defense. It 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 of the most disreputaDie men in Washington, " as private letters from an unimpeachabie and dlsInterest- ed authority inform us were in close intercourse with the board and m constant attendance at the meetings. 1 An eXparte examination of this kind Is well enough when iJ IS used like the proceedings of a grand jury, as the preliminary of trial; but when its conclusions are at once incorporated in public report, and made the basis of summary action, it becomes a mon l strOus and scandalOus injustice 10 which no American ought to submit That we have not misunderstood the charaC- : ter of this fraudulent inquiry will bel from the followig passage in | a private letter written by President Seelye, of Amherst, whose familiarity with Indian affairs and the methods of the Indian Ring IS not likely to bel After the Board had 60 been organized, and was holding itsI '' sessions nOminally in secret, this Sc man - wrote me a letter in high '' glee declaring that he had got the, |" commission which he wanted, and '' that he was attending the meetings, '' having things his own way, and that '' he would rip up things generally be- ~ fore he got through. l have little '' dOuOt that the whole, finding of this '' Board of Inquiry was inspired byl " the worst williams in the Indian Ring, '' sO-called, and l cannot but look upon '' IL as very gross travesty upon jus |" tice." And in an earlier letter, to an other person, President Seelye wrote: 60 know so muCI of the adroitness '' as well as uncrupulOusness of these 60 men that l think 1t altogether possi- '' ble that they may carry their point, '' and even delude the commission and ' Secretary Schurz with the idea that most honest men in the Indian 60 Bureau are scamps, and that these 60 rotten wretches themselves are para 60 gOns of good"
 The synopsis of the report, given toI the press last week dealt chiefly with sweeping generalities rather than pre- else facts, and contained few if any charges which we could put to the test of proof Whether its conclusions were just or unjust is not now the point in consideration; the question is about the animus of the investiga- ton and it's methods. We have no hesitation in saying that both these appear to have been as bad as they could be. There was a plain deter imitation to get rid of Commissioner Smith and Chief Clerk Galpin for an purpose and by villainous means. Of this determination MT. Schurz was the author or the tool; and in either case his cloak of Reform has been used to cover transactions as in- defensible as any in the bad record of