Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-06-19
| DISPUTE OVER A TAX
Protests of "Outlanders" in
Indian Territory.
MUST OBEY THE. LAW
DELEGATION CooLLY RECEIVED
BY THE PRESIDENT.
Merchants and Other Business Men
Who Refused to Pay for Their
Licenses Are in Milder Mood.
BY VIM. E. CURTIS.

61 w M f. CURTIS.
Special Correspondence Of The Star and the Chicago
Record Herald.
MUSKOGEE, I. T.. June IT. 1906.
For frontiersmen the white people Of
Indian territory are very easily stampeded
They lose their equpose upon very slight
provocation ard can act like silly children
without the slightest excuse For a week
or ten days there has been a teapot temp
est here. The white business men living in
the Creek nation have been boiling with
indignation: holding mass meetings, and
making hysterical speeches and adopting
resolutions (Which they will soon be glad to
retracD denouncing the President. Secre-
tary Hitchcock, Inspector Wright and the
administration generally. Even revolution
and civil war were threatened, simply be-
cause of an attempt to enforce a law which
has been confirmed unanimously by four
different courts
Since they were brought from Mississippi,
Georgia. North Carolina. Tennessee, Flor
Ida and other eastern states, each of the
five civilized tribes has been allowed to
make its own laws and elect its own OFF,
Gals. subject generally to the approval OF
the Indian bureau of the Interior Depart
ment at Washington. In the course of
years several laws have been passed by the
legislative councils to prevent invastons OF
white settlers. and to restrict the rights
and privileges OF those who have forced
their way into the territory with or with
out the consent of the Indians. AS a rule
the whites have been treated justly and
generously. There have been exceptions
and incidntal cases in which injustice has
been done them. The Indian. on the other
hand. has never had any rights which a
white man was bound to respect, and the
United States authorities and courts have
been kept busy trying to protect him
against the avarice and selfshness OF the
white invaders.
The Obnoxious Tax
AS measure of self-protection, on the
same principle that our Congress enacts a
protective tariff law, to protect the naCve
merchants of the tribes in a measure from
being injured by the competition of white
traders, and TO compel white merchants,
who have been allowed to come into the
territory merely by the courtesy of the In
dams, to pay their share of the expense OF
maintaining the tribal government, the
council of the Muskogee nation Commonly
called the Creeks passed law on Novem-
Der ., 1900, which was approved November
- following by President Mckinley, fixing
a rate of license fees, or taxation, upon
foreigners who are engaged in business or
the practice of the professions. 1t is the
only tax imposed upon them, except the
municipal taxes. and provides that all per-
sons not citizens by blood of the Creek ma
ton who shall engage in the sale of dry
goods, groceries, provisions, hardware lum-
Der, drugs, millinery or any other form of
merchandise shall pay an annual tax of
one-half of one per cent upon the first cost
of all goods offered for sale, excepting such
as have been produced within the limits
of the nation. The rate of taxation on
other classes of business is as follows: