Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1891-08-15

letters 10 the bureau can give Dut Ialnb
idea of the enormity of the offences of
the bureau. continued through nearly
two years offences which have been
patiently endured until forbearance is
no longer virtue. Regarding the mat
ter of the refusal of personal inter
view with the bureau officers, the Com
missioner Gays no discourtesy was in
| tended. He simply preferred to have all
that was said on the subject in writing,
for which, he says, he gave every oppor-
tunity.
The Commissioner says that the posi-
ton that the bureau is not to be held
responsible for the action of its employees
or attaches, unless the actions are Off
cially endorsed by it, is not considered
tenable by the office, and the position of
the Bureau in declaring that private
grievances of officials should not in any
case be allowed to stand in the way of
the due administration of public bust
ness entrusted to their charge" will
hardly stand the test of reason. The as
saults upon his personal character could,
he says, have hardly been pleasing, but
when they went forth under the sane
ton of a great bureau, styling itself
Christian, when some of them were EN-
bodied in an official communication. and
sent in the name of the bureau to the
United States Senate-which document
lies before me as | write-others hurled
at me in an official letter, and all accom-
panied by severe denunciations of the
entire administration of Indian affairs,
they certainly cannot be regarded as
merely triflIng personalities, personal
griavences, as the bureau is pleased to
} call them. Many of them were laid
| IL L., H. 10 ,1c
bishops, and made the basis of demand
for the removal OF the Commissioner OF
Indian Affairs"
The Commissioner insists tina. he had
been maliciously misrepresented and
misunderstood, He has not now and
never had the slightest antipathy towards
} the Catholics and was glad to count
among his choicest friends members of
that communion. His attitude towards
the Catholic contract schools. he insists,
is sufficiently evinced by the largely-in
creased amounts conceded to them for
next year. The great advance in appro-
priation for Indian education, the in
creased efficiency of the service, the
hearty support accorded his adminis.ra-
ton by the President, the Secretary and
the public generally, the Commissioner
says, is q sufficient refutation of the
charges. He is prepared, he says, as a
government official, to submit his ad
ministration of the office to the closest
scrutiny and to bear with equanimity
the Misrepresentation inseparable from
public life, but he says that he cannot be
expected to MAINTAIN harmonious rela-
tons with great bureau subsisting upon
the bounty of the government, whose
work it antagonizes and misrepresents,
and whose officers it defames.
ALL HANDS MAKING MONEY,
The most damaging testimony comes
from E. w. Lighter, Washington cores
pondent of the Pittsburg Dispatch, said
to be reliable man. He says that " fat
contracts are at the bottom of the whole
trouble, that all the churches are making
money out of the Indian contracts,
claiming the Catholic Indian Bureau
made clear profit last year of S175, 900.
Rivalry and jealousy among religious or
ders always creep in where money makes
an opening. Hesays that German was dis
missed from the Commissioner office
becausehe carried news and falsehoods to
the Catholic Indian Bureau, which then
employed him and which refused to dis
charge him until Cardinal Gibbons in
terfered. and even now 1t is ques-
lApu W htllCi Ait 10 hOt lLClC GU III SOIn6
capacity, as all the Bureau will say is
that he has resigned. His name would
indicate his political proclivities a la
Higgins, and it is charged that in his Of
ficiousness he went to the government de-
partments and made the most prepos-
ferrous and impudent demands, and
growing insulting if his demands were
not complied with Mr.. Lighter claims
that all the denominations made their
Darn particular religion the cornerstone
p of their educational work, and charging
the children that the government was
goddess like the public schools) and I'M
fit to teach them. That itself sounds
familiar in some of the bishops sermons,
Mr.. Lighter concludes as follows -
A CLOSE WATCH on FINANCES.
These profits have been DEVOTED to the
building up of the institutions of the
, churches. The Catholic Indian Bureau
has been very businesslike in their man.
agement of the financial affairs of the
schools. 1t had its agent, who haunted
| the treasury department, and the mo
ment an account was known to be in the
hands of the auditor, pressure would be
: brought to bear to have it advanced
ahead of all other accounts, that the
bureau might gather in the shekels.
From the auditor the account would be
; followed up until it reached the final
accounting officer. and there again it
would be advanced, probably as in the
other cases, by order of the Secretary.
1t is asserted that Secretary Window
never refused to order his subordinates
to advance one of these accounts at the
request Of the agent of the Catholic Blu
reau.
Moreover letters would be boldly
written to the Secretary, telling him that
certain institutions were "hard up, y
and that if he could do anything to hur-
ry the settlement of the accounts of the
Catholic schools his action would be
gratefully remembered. Letters are on
file at the office of the Secretary not only
from members of the Catholic Bureau.
but from men and women Miss Kate
Drexel frequently among the latter in
various parts of the country, urging the
necessities of this or that institution and
begging the hasty consideration of ac-
; counts that otherwise would have taken
their place among the mass of accounts
to be settled.
The history of the proft-makiug con
tracts of the churches with the Govern
ment is indeed a strange one, and one
, Gay when it is written will be almost
beyond belief.
GOOD CONDITION OF INDIAN SCHOOLS
The assistant Commissioner of Indian
{ Affairs, Mr.. R. V. Belt. lately returned
from the West where he had been open
ing bids and awarding contracts for the
t Indians of the Pacific Coast The Balti-
more Sun of July 28th says:
MIR, Belt speaks very highly of the
general condition of the government
schools, both in their intellectual and
] industrial features. He says intellectu
ally that they are in advance Of the con
tract schools, and that with respect to
. the industrial training given to the In
, dams there is no comparison between
the two classes of schools Baltimore
Sam.
70 THE IRISH WORLD RIGHT.
The gratifying announcement is now
S made that Cardinal Gibbons has opened
4 communication with the Commissioner
D with view to finding cut the real cause
and merit of the dispute with the Blu.
/ reau at Washington. and to effect better
= understanding. The wcll-known b51ad
: views and conciiatnry tempeIaineus OF
: the Cardinal makes the annot nceu ent
G OF his having undertaken q pc; aonal in
S vestigation of the matter par ticu iarly
I gratifying. He is universally recognized
I as in thorough touch with American in