The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-06-12
SCHOOLS IN A BAD WAY
Useless Expenditure of Money
Appropriated for Education.
AGENT RAKED OVER GOALS
Grand Jury Charges Him With Fraud,
and Says He Made False Official
Reports--Reindeer Transporter
ton Scheme Failure.

Juneau, Alaska, June g. via Seattle,
Wash, June 1.-THE grand jury of the
United States district court for Alaska
has made sensational report on the
conduct of educational matters in Alas
ka. The report reads:
I'm the hope that it may be able to
effectually reach some remedial power,
or authority, the grand jury desires to
direct attention to the deplorable con-
dition of educational affairs in Alaska
THE blame cannot be justly laid at
the doors of congress Between the
years 1884 and 1897, inclusive, there
was appropriated for educate in Alas
, ka an aggregate of $415,000, a sum
which, had it been judiciously eXpend-
ed, ought to have given Alaska
school system fairly commensurate
with the requirements of out people.
We do not undertake to say that there
has been any dishonest or direct mis-
appropriation of any part of this large
sum of money, but we do aver that
considerable portion of it has been
thrown away in payment of the ex-
penses OF wholly useless summer 1aunts
by the general agent of education to
remote parts of the territory, and in
the establishment of schools at points
where none were needed, unless. In
deed, it be- conceded that the educa-
ton of the children of a people who
BY day catch the ermine
And by night chase other vermin'
Are to be given the preference, over
those of the intelligent white people
who form the advance guard in the
march of civilization into Alaska.
1T believes that a large amount of
money has been uselessly expended,
and, the truth not being made mani
fest, will continue to be expended I'M
der the direction of the general agent
of education in Alaska.
while yet the neglect of our educa-
tional interests is prolonged, the grand
jury would hesitate to refer even casu-
ally to his extraordinary scheme for
revolutionizing the mode of travel and
transportation of mails and supplies in
Alaska by the Introduction of domestic
reindeer from Siberia. But we submit
that his utter neglect of duty for the
performance OF which he is paid q sal
airy and the consequent demoralized
condition of our educational system de-
mands and justifies even a harsher
criticism than that which follows
I'VE charge that this man is untruth-
full and that he has persistently en-
bodied in his official reports statements
concerning educational matters in
Alaska which he knew to be abso-
lutely false. He has charged time and
time again in his official reports that
the clergy of the Graeco-Russian
church oppose the teaching of English
in their schools and threaten parents
| that if they allow their children to
| learn English their boys would be
taken away and put into the Ameri-
can army as soon as they were old
enough to do duty as soldiers, whereas
the truth is that English has always
been taught in the principal Graeco-
| Russian schools. If he has been guilty
| of deliberate falsehood in his official
reports on schools and education in
| Alaska, what reliance is to be placed
on the reports regarding reindeer in
| Alaska?
1.-THE plain, simple truth is, that each
| and every attempt at the use of rein
deer for transportation in Alaska has
| been failure.
| THE grand jury, therefore, earnestly
| protests against any further approprla-
| lions for the importation of domestic
| reindeer and respectively begs and
| prays on behalf of a long suffering peo-
pie that the honorable secretary of the
Interior may in his wisdom see fit tt
relieve Alaska of the incubus of an off
cial who enjoys neither the respect mol
confidence of any considerable portion
| of her people, white or native, whose
| days of usefulness, so far as Alaska Is
concerned, were long since buried