Mr. Duncan founded and built the Metlakahtla Christian Mission and with his own funds established industries through which he gave employment to his people and supported the mission. The records will show that after the agents of the United States Bureau of Education took charge at Metlakahtla, certain mission buildings were destroyed and Mr. Duncan's water mains, salmon cannery, and other properties were seized. Mr. Duncan was placed under arrest by these agents for opposing the seizure of his water mains and was taken before the United States district court at Ketchikan, where he was exonerated.

I am personally familiar with the water mains in question. They were not installed to furnish water to the community, but for power purposes in connection with his industries. For 20 years previous to the seizure, the community had taken their water from streams which were nearer their homes than the pipe line. The pipe line was not protected against freezing weather and was always cut off to protect it in cold weather, and during the first freeze after the Bureau took possession, the water mains froze and were practically ruined. The seizure of Mr. Duncan's cannery and the following events are a disgrace to our Government. In addition to the canning equipment, there was in the buildings tin plate, seines, and other supplies, all of considerable value, which had been paid for by Mr. Duncan. The Government took possession of all and then proceeded to lease the property to private canning interests. Mr. Duncan had always taken every precaution against fires and would not permit any employee or anyone else to smoke on the property. The day the lessees arrived they proceeded to inspect the property, and it is reliably reported that they were smoking. Shortly after they had passed through, fire broke out and the entire plant, including supplies and equipment, was destroyed. I am reliably informed that the lessees had previously taken out profit insurance covering their estimated profits for the coming canning season and that they did collect a very substantial sum, though they had no investment in the property, while Mr. Duncan's property was a total loss. No doubt additional facts, if desired, would be available through the books of the insurance companies covering the profit insurance.

And so it went-the last of his property, and then his life, with a broken heart. He had been persecuted for many years.

I am sure that the record of the case, including the almost discreditable acts of our public officials and their agents, can be had from the records. The history has been a consistent one, and I do believe that the United States Government can do no other, in order to discharge its moral obligation, than to reimburse Mr. Duncan's trustees and through them, the Metlakahtlans and the Metlakahtla Christian Mission, for these seizures and consequent losses. No act on the part of the Government can reestablish the moral and Christian values which were so firmly established at the beginning of this century. They can, however, make it possible for an attempt to be made on the part of the trustees to reestablish the sort of work that Mr. William Duncan would like to have continued had he been allowed to do so.

THE INDEPENDENT REPORT OF DR. MARK A. MATTHEWS ON THE DESPOILING OF THE METLAKAHTLA CHRISTIAN MISSION IN ALASKA, BASED ON RESEARCHES AIDED BY DR. HENRY S. WELLCOME

FOREWORD

By HARLAN P. BEACH, D. D., F. R. G. S.1

The value of a book chiefly depends upon its authorship, its objectives, and its material. These volumes are unique in all of these particulars.

The book is a story of grievous wrongs inflicted upon the Metlakahtla Christian Mission in Alaska; of the persecution of William. Duncan, its noted founder and devoted missionary head; and of the unwarranted seizure and present custody by the Department of the Interior of the property of Mr. Duncan and his mission, to the creation of which the Government had never contributed a penny.

The book is the product of a labor of love and the fulfillment of a Christian and civic duty on the part of many friends of the late William Duncan, the founder of this remarkable and successful missionary enterprise among the Indians of the North Pacific coast of America.

For many years the material for this report has been patiently gathered and compiled under the direction of Dr. Henry S. Wellcome, a distinguished philanthropist, a benefactor of primitive peoples, a recognized authority in interpreting the mind, achievements, and problems of primitive races. and a humanitarian of whom it may be said that he is "a friend of all the world."

1 Rev. Harlan P. Beach, D.D., F.R.G.S., is an eminent arthority on the history and the theory and practice of missions. He was born at South range, N. J., Apr. 4. 1854; graduated Yale, A.B., 1878, A.M., 1901, and from Andover beological Seminary, 1883; D.D., Amherst College, 1913; Fellow of the Royal Geograp al Society and a member of the Phi Beta Kappa and of the American Oriental Society

Dr. Beach was for 6 years (1883-90) a missionary in CL va. Later, he taught and was in charge of the School for Christian Workers at Springfeld, Mass. For 11 years (1895-1906) he was educational secretary of the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions, during which time he wrote or secured the publication of 32 textbooks for mission study in correspondence classes in 678 colleges and higher institutions of learning in the United States and Canada.

From 1906 to 1921 Dr. Beach was professor of the Theory and Practice of Missions at Yale University, where he built up the Day Missions Library from about 7.000 to over 30.000 entries. During his professorship at Yale, be devoted an aggregate of 3% years of travel and observation in mission lands, and since 1921 he has been lecturer on missions at Drew Theological Seminary.

His

Dr. Beach is the author of a number of books relating to missionary subjects. authorship includes the Cross in the Land of the Trident. 1895: Knights of the Labarum. 1896: Dawn on the Hills of Tanz. 1898; New Testament Studies in Missions. 1899: Geography and Atlas of Protestant Missions, 2 vols., 1901 and 1993; Princely Men of the Heavenly Kingdom, 1903; India and Christian Opportunity. 1904 World Atlas of Christian Missions (co-author). 1911: Renaissent Latin America. 1916; World Statistics of Christian Missions (co-author). 1916); World Missionary Atlas (co-author). 1925: and Missions as a Cultural Factor in the Pacific, 1927. Dr. Beach is departmental editor of the Missionary Review of the World.

In undertaking this task at the solicitation of friends of Mr. Duncan and the mission, in the United States, Canada, and England, Dr. Wellcome had long recognized William Duncan as a genius who created ideals and translated them into practical accomplishments. Other reasons for his truly altruistic work and devotion to the memory of the sainted builder of Metlakahtla and for his desire to see the policies and methods of William Duncan perpetuated as a rightful heritage of benighted peoples, will be evident before the reader has finished the book.

This zealous student of primitive peoples had followed Mr. Durcan's work from an early date. Deeply impressed by the civilizing works of Mr. Duncan, Dr. Wellcome became his friend and adviser, and from time to time visited the mission and made a profound study of Mr. Duncan's policies and methods.

Having traveled widely among primitives and having held over from his boyhood the memory of the labors of his missionary father who devoted his life to ministering to the frontiersmen and to the Indians in Minnesota and Wisconsin, the X-ray of Dr. Wellcome's scientific mind revealed clearly what the human and Christian instincts of Duncan had discovered in 6 decades of constant contact with the raw material of humanity.

To bring the case to the attention of the proper officials a presentation of the facts was made in oral statement before the Secretary of the Interior by Rev. Mark A. Matthews, D. D., LL. D., on August 17, 1926.

Since then this presentation has been extended and annotated to include the array of documentary evidence set forth in this report.

Dr. Matthews is particularly well qualified to present the facts. Living in comparative proximity to Metlakahtla and knowing well. the details of the phenomenal creation of that community, and being intimately acquainted with its devoted creator and leader, Dr. Matthews had been filled with enthusiasm for the Mission and its sainted head.

For many years Dr. Matthews has been pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Seattle, Wash., and leader of what is probably the largest congregation of that denomination in the world, its membership being more than 9,000 according to the latest official records. Dr. Matthews was moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly in 1912.

Moreover, Dr. Matthews is a qualified member of the bar, and in the presentation of the case he has proved himself a lawyer of rare ability, as well as a preacher, having a message of righteousness, which he has proclaimed as fearlessly and authoritatively as he has stated the legal and historic facts in what is destined to become a cause célèbre in governmental and missionary annals.

The book is timely because it deals concretely with things that are fundamental and eternal, both in relation to the great cause of evangelization and to matters that touch the very foundation of morality and civic justice.

The ruthless outrages and wanton destruction carried out at Metlakahtla in the name of the Government will furnish for American history a sad picture of the injustice, wreckage, and chaos that can be wrought when civic authorities intermingle affairs of church and state in violation of constitutional guaranties.

Besides its principal purpose of furnishing a compendium of information, the book is intended to present a larger view of the relations of the Metlakahtla Christian Mission to the missions of the world and to call attention to the far-reaching effect of any precedent that is established.

These other objectives are, therefore, vastly more important than would seem likely, in view of the comparatively small number of human beings which made up the nine tribes of Tsimshean Indians redeemed by Mr. Duncan from savagery and transformed by the power of God, through Duncan's patient and understanding ministry, into Christians.

But it is precisely this transformation, interfered with and halted by the powers of darkness after more than a half century of wise and fatherly guidance, that is emphasized in this record of Paradise created and Paradise lost.

Sixty years of association with Indians taught Mr. Duncan just what the so-called primitive mind is and just what measures are required to bring to it the best and fullest development.

In his threescore years of patient sculpturing, Mr. Duncan had done much to bring a potential Christian Indian to perfection.

But something remained to be done to perfect this striking statue and when this missionary genius wrote his last will and testament, he recorded his plans for completing his masterpiece.

From a missionary viewpoint, Mr. Duncan's last will and testament is of vital importance since it supplies the last section of a plan intended to bring to the full stature of Christian citizenship a race raised from savagery.

The principles underlying Mr. Duncan's successful work of transforming savages to full manhood and Christian worthiness are seen most clearly in his last will and testament, in which he bequeathed all of his earthly possessions to continue and perpetuate his benevolent life work.

Aside from the substantial funds accumulated through the executive and business ability of Mr. Duncan and through his years of frugality and personal self-denial, he has left a still greater legacy to primitive peoples and to these intelligently interested in their uplift, by stating in his last will and testament the secret of his miraculous success.

Mr. Duncan knew the weakness, as well as the strength, of these reclaimed primitives, and he pointed out in his will that "my experience and observation have convinced me that it is necessary in the case of our native races for them to have very careful guidance for some generations at least to secure the necessary self-restraint, selfrespect, and self-reliance and to create in them a spirit of manliness and pride so that they may make their own way and become entirely self-supporting and worthy of the rights of full citizenship."

The loving Duncan, who so well knew his people, provided, with the vision of a prophet, against the inevitable results of racial immaturity and wisely placed the execution of his last will and testament in the hands of competent trustees, with explicit instructions for their guidance in continuing the work in the same spirit and manner "as it has been my aim and endeavor during the past years to carry it on."

Mr. Duncan's last will and testament rightly appears at the very forefront of this volume of commentary, and it deserves the practical study of all persons responsible for the uplift of primitive peoples, and especially of students in training for missionary work.

Appraisals of Mr. Duncan's work are quoted from scores of books and periodicals, and from Presidents and Cabinet officers, Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, Members and committees of both Houses of Congress, Government agents and investigators, naval and military officers, and distinguished travelers and authors. Maj. Gen. O. O. Howard, a man of wide experience in dealing with Indians, relates this incident of an Army officer who was skeptical with regard to the truth of the Scriptures and had little interest in stories of what Mr. Duncan had accomplished, until, with General Howard, he saw Metlakahtla and its inhabitants.

After this officer had seen for himself the results of Mr. Duncan's work among these Indians, he exclaimed, "Mr. Duncan, how did you do it?"

Mr. Duncan promptly replied, "I first learned their language, then I put the Word of God into their minds, and you now behold the results."

After Mr. Duncan had implanted the Word of God in the minds of the Indians, it was ever foremost in his instructions. Indeed, so important did he deem it that his chief objection to the Government schools, which were beginning to be introduced, was that they were forbidden to teach the Bible. This also was his chief reason for wishing to continue at Metlakahtla a school of his own type, in which he combined practical vocational training and character-building religious teaching with instruction in elementary school subjects.

Prof. Franz Boas, a foremost anthropologist, commenting as a scientist, after stating that other efforts of missionaries to Christianize the Indians of the north Pacific coast had been very unsuccessful, declares that Duncan's influence upon them "has been enormous" and that "these results have been brought about by the peculiar method Mr. Duncan applied in Christianizing these Indians." It is important that the widest constituency should learn the lessons of this experiment in civilizing primitives and in aiding the depressed classes of mission fields, which are for the most part of Occidental control, where missionaries of the Duncan type are so much needed.

Duncan's work at Metlakahtla shows in miniature what it is possible to achieve in all mission fields of the world, especially among the most benighted races.

If those who deal with native peoples would study and know the work of this modern apostle, as Britain's agents sent to India were required to learn Indian history and the Indian mind before embarking for that country in Sir William Hunter's day, they would then grasp the significance of Mr. Duncan's outstanding achievement and could not fail to see its possible influence upon the broad fields of missionary effort.

In his book the reader will learn to how great an extent the work of Duncan has contributed to the uplift of millions of natives in distant lands. The material relative to the wide influence exerted by him is most inspiring.