The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1909-10-15
TO ENFORCE TREATY
SPECIAL INDIAN AGENT BRANDT
DECLARES HE HAS WRITTEN
EVIDENCE.
IS A PENITENTIARY OFFENSE
Mahnomen Raiders Bound Over To
Grand Jury-Case Hinges On
Validity of Indian
Treaty.

Mahnomen, Minnesota. - William
e. Johnson, who led the raid on the
saloons here this week, and nine OF
his Indian service policemen were
bound over by Justice Schulind on the
charge of destroying property malici-
ously.
The applications for the release of
w. B. Johnson and his nine lieuten-
ants, now in Jail at Crookston, Mimi,
will be made by Assistant Attorney
Oakley before the federal court in st.
Paul. Mr.. Oakley will apply for writs
of habeas corpus.
Have Saloon Books.
Minneapolis, MINI Unless the sa-
loonkeepers in the White Earth reser-
vation lie down and be good, quit busi-
ness and clear out, government agents
assert they have ample evidence to
send dozens of retailers, and even
wholesalers, to the penitentiary, and
that they will do it.
J. p. Brandt, special Indian service
officer, with headquarters in Minneapo-
lis, who returned from the White
Earth reservation, driving twenty-five
miles to Detroit, and taking the train
there to avoid arrest, said today that
the government will certainly proceed
in this way unless the law is obeyed
1--WE seized books and invoices in
the Saloons" said Mr.. Brandt. In
the saloonkeepers' own handwriting
we have list of more than $50 In
dams who owe them money. More
than that, we took samples of the IL
quors destroyed and confiscated, and
under the law we can proceed against
the wholesalers.
1--WE were acting under orders from
William E. Johnson to defend oursel-
yes if necessary" said Mr.. Brandt.
after the work was done, arrest was
not objected to. T. E. Brents, another
special officer, and myself escaped it
because Mr.. Brents had some import
ant court work on in Iowa, and didn't
want to be held up. Mr.. Brents led
the raid at Waubon."
Mr.. Brandt said the notice to saloon
ship 1873, expires Oct. II, and that
unless the saloons are closed prompt
~, the federal forces will undoubted-
ly make similar move there"
The treaty of 1856, under which
William E. Johnson, special officer of
the Indian bureau of the United States
interior department, made his raids
and has been tested in the supreme
court of the United States and up
held.
It's constitutionality was brought
into question in 1879 by the late Cush-
man K Davis, when he was United
States district attorney. He had caused
the arrest of man at Crookston for
selling liquor to Indians. The case be-
came famous as the "forty-three gal
Ions of whisky" action.
The saloonkeepers who have been
selling liquor to the Indians claim i'm
munity under a decision of the SUI.
preme court of the United States, in
the matter of Heff, filed April 10, 1905.
This was an action started in the
United States circuit court of Kansas,
following the arrest and conviction Of
John Brown, Kickapoo Indian, for
selling liquor to others of his tribe.
But the supreme court of the United
States held forbidding the sale of Ii
quor to Indians law unconstitutional
because in 1887 the congress enacted
a law providing for the allotting of
lands in severalty to Indians, and this
law distinctly took the Indian out Of
the apron strings which had tied
poor Lo" to the government, and
made him a citizen of the United
States, subject to it's laws, and with
ell the privileges accorded any citizen.