The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1908-03-04
INDIAN SALOONS
MAY Be CUT OUT
ON ALL Reservations
Supreme Court Decision In Regard
to Ncz Perez Is One of Much
Interest.

in the country was when 81 saloons
in Nez Perez and Idaho counties in
the panhandle of Idaho, southeast of
Spokane, were put out of business
through a decision handed down a
few days ago by the supreme court
of the United States, affirming the
judgment of the federal court of Ida
no in the case against George Dick,
an Indian, convicted on the charge
of selling liquor on the Nez Perez
reservation and sentenced to serve
q term in the penitentiary.
The decision is sweeping and may
be interpreted to mean that saloons
on other reservations in the North
west are to be put under the ban.
1t means a loss of $4,000 year in
revenue to the two counties and in
wolves the question as to whether the
treasurers can be forced to surrender
part of the license fee, fixed at $3.50,
for the unexepired term. Saloons
in these towns, within the geograph-
ical limits of the reserve, doing bust
ness under licenses issued by the
county commissioners, are affected.
Orofino, Spalding, Fort Lapwai, Reu-
bens, Sites, Kooskia, Ferdinand,
Lowe, Greer, Peck, Clifford and Look
out.
Dick, at the time a resident of the
town of Cul de Sac, was arrested by
federal officers two years ago for in
PRODUCING liquor on the Nez Perez
reserve. 1t was proved he bought
whiskey in saloons at Cul de Sac
and disposed of it to his fellow tribes
men. He was tried before Judge
Beatty in the United States district
court at Moscow in May, 1906, and
convicted, punishment being fixed at
81 months, most of which sentence
he has already served.
Counsel for the defense obtained
a writ of habeas corpus from the
peals, sitting at San Francisco, and
the prisoner was released. Mean
time the government carried the case
to the supreme court, which held in
a lengthy opinion that the court OF
appeals had no right to issue the writ.
The case was again taken before the
upper court, which now declares that
the government has jurisdiction in
the regulation of the liquor traffic
on the reservation.
In a treaty made with the Indians
in 1866 the United States guaran-
teed that liquor should never be nj
Il oduced on the reservation. Sever
al townsites have since passed from
Indian ownership, the government
first purchasing the land from the
Indians and then transferring it to
white settlers. While these town
sites are within the geographical
limitations OF the reservation it was
argued by Dicks attorneys that even
though they were surrounded by res
ervations, they had passed out OF
control of the government by sale
and entry.
The case was carried through the
eoults at the instance of saloon men
who spent thousands of dollars in
fighting the governmental control,
but the decision of the supreme court
is interpreted to mean that the gov
ernment not only has right to ex-
elLde saloons from the reservation
towns. but is morally bound to do so
under treaty right made many years
ago.
The Mex Perez reservation figures
prominently in military history It
was the stamping ground of Chiefs
Looking Glass, White Bird and
Ioseph and their fighting men and
was the scene of pitched battle 80
wears ago, with Gen. o. o. Howard
and his command on one side and
the painted warriors, led by Looking
Glass, on the other The earliest au-
thentic records of these people were
given 10 the world by Capt. Meri-
wether Lewis and Capt. William
Clarke, who stopped there on the
way through the Oregon country to
what is now the city of Portland.
PRESBYTERIAN missionaries, Jesuit
fathers and settlers had their strug-
.les ,he-e among the semi-barbarics
in the carly part of the last century,
when the sites of score of prosper
Gus towns and farming communities
and mining and lumber camps were
yeritable wildernesses. Where the
naughty red roamed in search of big
game and white mems scalps less
than four decades ago are today well
kept farms and orchards and mills
for the reduction OF commercial uses
of the tall pines at the foothills and