New-York tribune., 1878-01-17
THE INDJiN INVESTIGATION"
ACARp FROM PRESIDENT SEELYE.

ACARD FROM PRESIDENT SEELYE.
| TIE "iNVESrGATfoN SIT on FOUr BY CORRUPT
CtAMANTs-wHAr THEY BoAsIED, AND WHAT
| THEY HAVE ACCOMPLIsUED-A GRIM SPECTACLE
| OF REFORM
! To the Editor or me Tribune.
SIR: | have received your request for short
letter for publication concerning the late report of
the Board of Inquiry into the management of Indian
Affairs, request which think | ought rot to refuse.
| thongh the statements which it involves are not
pla asant to make Daring my service i'll the XLlVth
| Congress- was member of the Indian Committee of
the House Of Representatives. and was brought thus
into intimate intercourse with the Indian BuGcan.
! and had c0pou5 opportunity 10 note the character
| and conduct of the Commissioner Of Indian Affairs
and his chief clerk. had no previous acquaintance
| with either of these men. but the evidence soon
arpcarcd and continually grew clearer, that they
| were honest men, vino recognized and StrOve to the
| utmost to be faithful to their high responsible
ties. | could not always approve their mca-
| surcs; | repeatedly differed from them In
! INDICTMENT knowing, however, that they were much
more likely to be right than |. but it was inposSl-
| bic to have such long and intimate relations with
| them, rs had and resist the conviction of their
! unswerying honesty and their slnglc-cyed devotion
to their work. This conviction still retain. | be-
love also, that every member OF the Indian Com
]
know still holds the same opinion as myself upon
| this point.
IT came TO my knowledge before the close of the
Congress that some parties, had sought payment
through the Indian Bureau ont of Indian funds for
| n claim which Mr.. Galpn the chief clerk, discOy-
cred to be fraudulent and whose payment he
promptly checked. These parties ut once began TO
circulate charges against the chief clerk and the
Commissioner, and one of them. on bringing these
TO nv notice, told me that he was going to do just
what has since been done in securing this inycs-
tgation. and bringing on the results which now
appear.
After tho present Secretary had been led to enter
tain these charges and to constitute Board OF In
quiry for their investigation, and after this board
had begun It's socailed secret sessions, from which
the accused party was excluded one OK his accusers
the man who first reported the charges to me, and
who was a close associate of the man whose raudu
ulcnt claim had been stopped wrote me from
Washington in an apparent lnt0xication of glee,
declaring that he was having things his own way in
the Board Of Inquiry, and that | should see if
he did not rip up things in the Indian
Bureau before he got through. This threat seems
to have been accomplished 1t appears also to be
true, though the report OF the Board of Inquiry not
having been published, make this statement upon
other evidence, that the testimony upon which the
board placed chief stress i'll their condemnation of
the chief clerk, was given by the man whom he had
detected and stopped IN an attempt to take $l1 900
from the funds of the North Carolina Cherokecs,
upon papers which were forged.
lido not propose till see the report to discuss its
findings respecting the general management Of
Indian affairs. In this management, ranging over