The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-08-28
INDIAN SCANDAL
 WILL BE S|FTED Secretary Hitchcock to Send Special Man for Work
RICH LANDS ARE TEMPTING
Property Is Worth Many Millions and Designing White Men Take Ad- vantage of Red Mans gnor-
 norance of Business.

Washington. August 27.-The determna- ton of Secretary Hitchcock to send to Indian territory d man not connected with the department of the interior to inves- tigate conditions there is understood to be for the purpose of supplementing the work of the secretary himself and of other representatives of the department in that territory Since early last spring the secretary has been giving a large share of his personal attention to the sit- uation in the territory, and a number of the inspectors and other officials of the department have been engaged in the ef- fort to ferret out frauds and protect the interests of the Indians. The following Is an authorized statement of the depart ments attitude toward the situation in Indian territory:
 Tae secretary made a tour of the terri tory in May largely for the purpose of making inquiry regarding reports that had come to him of efforts to deprive the h. dians of their rich land inheritance, and the result of this personal investigation was to confirm the report that there was persistent effort to secure the Indian lands at a price far below their real value.
 Change of Regulations.
 As a consequence of this inquiry he made radical revision of the regulations for the sale of the allotted lands and the departmental reports since that change was made indicate that he has saved the Indians a large percentage over what would have been paid them if the original regulations had stood. The new rules require that all Indian lands which arc for sale shall be advertised and appraised by competent official.
 The secretary has cancelled all sales made prior to the time that the new regu- lations took effect. There were 429 of these deeds, calling for an aggregate pay ment of s969OOO. All these deeds, with the checks, have been returned to the pur- chasers. and the prices since received indicate that under the new regulations the prices paid will exceed the old prices by from 15 to 125 per cent.
 Indians Ignorance Abused.
 Under the law the secretary has con trol of the land sales and is able to throw many safeguards around them for the protection of the Indian owners, most of whom, he appreciates, are entirely ignor- ant of business methods and easily made lHe lODiS Ol dtSitIililS iltil, -Wutlhtl ltdd- CTS of their own race or white men. He however, is not authorized by congress sional enactment to guard the interests of his wards completely in the matter of leases, and persistent efforts to secure control of the lands through the lease process have been discovered In one case he found during his stay in Indian Ter rtory that clerks in the office of an 1n- dian agent had taken upon themselves the responsibility for denying a hearing to their national attorney who represented some 14,O0O Indians The secretary im- mediately provided for the adequate pun ishment of these persons.
 A favorte method for securing the leases is to have the Indians approached by merchants who, by offering their wares in exchange, can secure the most favorable terms from them and the un- derstanding is quite general that when control of piece of land is once secured by means of leasing 1t will be held by some means until it can be purchased at the lessees own figure. The secretary is even under the present leasing law find ing means to protect the Indians.
 Great Temptation.
 The surplus lands belonging to the In- dians in the territory are worth many millions and Secretary Hitchcock and his advisers understand how great a tempt ation they are to designing men. The ter ritory is thought garden spot and far mers are going into it in great numbers. It is estimated that there are now fully half million white people in the terri tory among whom many combinations have been made to control the disposal of the lands.
 Several officials who already have been detected in questionable transactions have been summarily dismissed, while the res ignations of others have been requested. The secretary takes the position that it does not promote the public interest to publish the names of dismissed officials. These dismissals and others took place before the Indian Rights association had called attention to Irregularities in the territory and most of them were the re- suit of personal Investigations of the sec-