The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-02-03
EVASION OF
 INDIAN LAW Government AidSSectarian
 Schools. BISHOP HARE'S CHARGES Gives Figures to Support His
 Assertions. xine schools Have Been Favored, ana of TAese Eight He says, are
 Catholic. and oas
 LutAeran.

today prints statement from the Rt. Rev. William H. Hare. Protestant Epls- copal Missionary Bishop of South Da- lsotas in which he charges that the law prohibiting Government aid to secta- rian Indian schools has been evaded. and that money has been paid out to the Catholic mission schools.
 Bishop flares statement is dated Sioux Falls. s. D., January 5. He de- scribes the pecuniary embarrassment and anixety on the part Of the schools following the abolishment of the con- tract system of Government aid. and re- cites his efforts to secure some measure of relief from It's rigid application.
 Tt was urged" says Bishop Hara, that when rations and annuities had reached the Indian country and pa rent who also had child in q mission boarding school consented that that child's fair share of the rations for his family should be turned over to the said mission school, compliance with his wishes could not be fairly held as an appropriation for a sectarian school ventured to present this view of the case to the Commissioner of Indian Anfairs He rejected 1t. I then car ried the case to the Secretary of ths Interior He upheld the decision of the commissioner. I then took the matter up to the President who referred the matter to the Attorney General. Mir. Knox"
 Knox UphoIas others. The statement then quotes Attorney General Knox's reply. upholding the position of the indian Commissioner, and declaring that oficial ''has no au- thority to grant Bishop flares appii-
 
 .sThls opinion,e continues the state sneri. l'was sent me by the President as sfis answer to my appeal This of rsuSse finally settled the case. What ,ats %sseet upon the school work of other mlssioiary societies was, I can only Imagine, in regard to my own board- ing school work, it made 1t necessary 10 Rive up entirely two of the mission boarding schools. namely St. Pauls, Yankton Agency. and St. Johns, chey- enne River reserve, and aggregate up- on the two remaining boarding schools at the boarding school funds that l could command. was ultimately driv- en to sell St. Paurs school for about half it's value and St. Johns for about one-tenth of it's value.
 'The only comfort lay in the fact that the highest executive officer. of the Government seemed to have been driven to a seemingly pitiless act by high and imperative sense of public duty. that public duty being not to use funds In the hands of the Govern ment for denominational schools.
 Imagine my surprise on discovering last September that the same execu- tive oficers who had declared this to be the policy of the Government and had administered the policy with inex- orable suddenness and severity, had la nFa FnW aG conduct of mission boarding schools. Sought to Secure Contract.
 "On the spur of the moment, it seem- ed to me that might ease my pecu- niary burdens by securing such con- tract for my mission boarding schools, and I wrote to the Hon. W. 4. Jones, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, ask ing for information. He replied: These contracts were entered into pusuant to a petition filed in the House by the Indians of the several reservations the expense to be paid out of trust funds now to their credit in the Treasury of the United States
 Tn answer to second letter he wrote me:
 don't think 1t is necessary for you to secure the consent or even have request made for the tribe for the purpose of entering into a contract for your boarding school
 My eyes began to be opened, not to say, to stare. I recalled the whole history of the action of the government in regard to the interdenominationa school as rehearSed above. wrote to three or four Protestant missionary societies, and I learned that their amazement was equal to my own. I next discovered that these contracts numbered in all nine and that eight had been made with one denomination and that of the total amount of the con tracts viz: $102,7s0, all but S4,320 was for the benefit of one denomination.
 Procuring of Petitions.
 ~I happen to have missionaries in the Indian country who have been moving about familiarly among the people there from fifteen to thirty years. addressed inquiries to these and others and learned that the petitions for these contracts were gotten up quietly; that they were entirely unheard of by them. and a large number of Indians for months afteFward and that many of the Indians who signed them did not know what the petition meant.
 I received copies of the petition sent in from different tribes, I found the petitions to be all in practically the same language and language which the natives would not have used. They are signed by women as well as men, About two-thirds of the signers merely attached their marks. The whole number of signers is a very small frae- ton of the tribes concerned. Tn one case 150 signed in a tribe of 5000 Sioux"
 Bishop Hare then appends a list of contracts made by the United States Indian ohice with various sectarian or- ganisations for the education of In- dian children for the fiscal year end ing June 30 next. They are as follows:
 St. Joseph School, Roman Catholic. total for year, S1S.S60.
 St. Louis School, Roman Catholic, Ss,375.
 st Johns School. Roman Catholic. SS,125.
 Immaculate Conception School Ro- man Catholic, $7.020.
 Holy Rosary School Roman Catho- lie. 2i,so0.
 Sa7. .000.
 st Labres school Roman Catholic