Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-12-21
INDIAN DRINKERS.
How they Manage 10 Make Goo
l.1vfnR.

How they Manage 10 Make q GOos
Living.
The United States Grand Jury yester
day made the following special report Il
the United States District Court, E. M
Ross, Judge:
We, the Grand Jurors of the United
States, respectfully beg leave to make {
special report to your Honor, on subject
Of great public Importance and the cor
rection of what we believe to be serious
and growing evil. The matter has refer
~ence to prosecutions in this Federal
Court of violations of Section 2,139, RS,
providing against the selling, giving OF
disposing :of liquor to Indians, but par.
ticularly to prosecutions Of such offenses
alleged to occur in San Bernardino. The
United States Attorney has presented to
us for our consideration twenty cases
arising under the above named section,
and occurring in San Bernardino city
and its environs. We recognize that our
duty does not require US to in
quire into the laws which are
upon the statute books of the
Federal Government, nor does it permit
US to determine whether any of such
laws are framed in wisdom, nor the pur-
pose of such legislation, but we feel sure
that it is not amiss for us to call your
honor's attention to such facts as we
have developed by the examination of
numerous witnesses in the cases we
have referred to. First. we find that
without exception, the Indians to whom
the liquor in such cases is alleged to
have been sold, or for whom it has been
procured, are worthless, idle and thor
oughly good for nothing set either wo-
men without virtue or self.admitted
drunkards, pleased to confess that thew
would rather obtain liquor, even if such
indulgence of their alcoholic appetite
necessarily involved deprivation Of lib.
erty by incarceration. Second. we find
that in all of the numerous cases referred
to the witnesses are generally the same
that is to say, confined to these certain
drunken Indian men and the
same number of Indian females
prostitutes of the lowest order-and
that the witness fees paid such Indians
amounts to such large sum of money
as to make it matter of great consider
alton for them to entrap others in pro-
curing liquor for them. By thus doing
they succeed in gratifying their taste for
strong drink, as we'll as finding a most
occupation by getting mileage
per diem as witnesses in the numerous
cases.
Third, we find that the Government
is put to great deal of expense in the
prosecution of such cases, to say nothing
OF the modification which must result to
The United States Attorney in being COM
PEELED to prosecute cases more properly
belonging to some local police court, or
The police jurisdiction of the Bureau of
Indian Affairs, than to the District
Court of the United States. We
are disposed to believe from our examin-
alton into this subject that it is an evil |
Of which the local courts OF the city and |
county of San Bernardino should take
and we are informed by the |
United States Attorney that the State |
statute is in substance sufficient for all |
purposes for prosecution and the temp
tation for excessive mileage and fees |
would thus be done away with. We be- |
live that if the matter must be noticed |
by the Federal officials, the section re-
|erred to, should be 80 amended as to |
make the Indian buying, equally punish
able with the person selling. So far as |
our examination has gone, and it has |
been thorough, we find Indians eager to |
buy the liquor aud equally eager to tes-
lily as to their own willful violation of |
The law. We find that they each know |
they are the direct instruments of break
ing the law, and are anything but loath |
10 testify to their own turpitude and that |
of fhoir TOOLS in bo v>rav,,;rac