For several years since their emancipation from heathenism our people have enjoyed a peaceful and prosperous life. Under wise and patriotic leadership they have identified themselves with the progress of Christianity and civilization in that country. No other native people in all Alaska are more loyal to the American Government than the New Metlakahtla people.

While I admit, sir, the existence of certain minerals on Annette Island, yet I wish to say that if the bill referred to above should become law, its effect would be damaging to our people. Therefore it is to the interest of Christianity and Civilization that the New Metlakhtla people be protected in this stage of their progress

*

*

I have the honor to be, sir, your most humble and obedient servant,

His Excellency WILLIAM MCKINLEY,

President of the United States, Washington, D. O.

EDWARD MARSDEN.

A few months before Marsden arrived at Saxman he made the following reference to Father Duncan at the commencement exercises of the Indian Industrial Schol at Carlisle, Pa., on March 2, 1898 (The Red Man, March 1898):

I am very glad indeed to have the pleasure of sharing with you these interesting exercises, and to have the privilege and honor of sitting on the same platform with one [Father Duncan] who gave his life for our salvation.

I emphasize the fact that the documents I have just cited show that peace existed at Metlakahtla and that there was unanimous approval of Father Duncan's leadership at the time Marsden began his pernicious activities in cooperation with the Bureau of Education at Saxman, in the vicinity of Metlakahtla.

BUREAU OF EDUCATION PARTICIPATES IN FOMENTING TROUBLE AT

METLAKAHTLA

The records of the case show that in disaffecting some of the weaker members of Father Duncan's mission colony Marsden was aided by agents of the Bureau of Education in a crafty, cunning, and unscrupulous campaign which the schemers conducted against this venerable missionary for many years before they finally accomplished their purpose of deceiving the Secretary of the Interior into invading Father Duncan's mission and seizing his property.

During many years Bureau of Education agents aided Marsden by persistently carrying on false propaganda among the natives of Father Duncan's mission colony to deceive them into believing that Father Duncan had defrauded them and that his property and that of the mission belonged to the natives.

To disaffect the natives of Metlakahtla special appeals were made to those who had been reproved and held to account by Father Duncan for wrongdoing, and inducements were offered to them in the way of financial benefits and positions and employment under the control of the Bureau of Education.

By these seductive methods a small minority faction was built up which served the purposes of Marsden, the Bureau agents, and their confederates in disrupting the Metlakahtla community.

Father Duncan having taught the natives to honor and respect the officials of the Government, these Bureau agents were doubly

culpable for the impositions and deceptions employed by them in alienating the weaker members of his mission colony, who more especially needed Father Duncan's care and training to elevate them to the high standards of conduct and living which already had been attained by the Metlakahtlans as a community.

If there had been an iota of truth in the aspersions of his maligners, the natives would have found it out in the beginning, and it would have been utterly impossible for Father Duncan to carry on his work among them for so many years, to exercise such marvelous influence over them, and successfully to lead the vast majority of these natives in the establishment of his exemplary, law-abiding, and Christian community, noted far and wide for its high standards of truth and honesty.

SECTION 15. VICIOUS PROPAGANDA FROM PLOTTERS' HEADQUARTERS AT SAXMAN

Saxman missionary deceives his hearers by fictitious claims of success. Statements of Marsden arranged in parallel. Marsden's mission boats and his propaganda in religious publications. Marsden's crafty methods. Artful propaganda to procure mission funds. Mission boats operated for personal profit. Marvelous adventures. Bureau agents use Marsden's mission boats and further his propaganda in official reports. Primitive egotism of the Saxman missionary. Statement by Dr. Henry J. Minthorn. Insidious propaganda to deceive and mislead Government officials.

From his headquarters at Saxman Marsden carried on extensive propaganda, alleging marvelous success in his missionary work. That his claims of success were false is proved by Government reports, the statements of missionaries, and by his own subsequent admissions."

SAXMAN MISSIONARY DECEIVES HIS HEARERS BY FICTITIOUS CLAIMS OF SUCCESS

After Marsden had been stationed at Saxman for 4 years and had made a complete failure of his work, he visited the East with glowing but fictitious accounts of what he had accomplished at that place. Among his many speeches in the East, where he completely deceived and captivated his hearers, was one under the title, "A Model Missionary Talk", delivered at the Indian Industrial School at Carlisle, Pa., and recorded in The Red Man and Helper of May 30, 1902. This address was a marvelous but misleading story of his alleged success, in rescuing the natives of Saxman from heathen customs and tribal conditions; in educational work and industrial training; in church services, prayer meetings, Sabbath schools, Bible readings, singing, and conversions to Christianity; in the introduction of a "number of blacksmith shops" where "now we forge iron"; and in the establishment of a sawmill running "day and night."

Rev. S. Hall Young, for many years a representative in Alaska of the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions, states in his Autogiography, pp. 173-174:

"The natives fairly outdid themselves in their efforts to impress the white visitors with their earnestness in accepting the 'new way.' But we had already acquired sufficient experience and met with enough disappointments to know that most of this was, as one of the chiefs expressed it, 'sugar talk; but it did the natives good and sounded well in the reports of the doctors of divinity."

His address continued: "We have sailboats and rowboats and steamboats. So as a necessity we have introduced the building of boats, and we have turned out good boats

Describing Saxman, he said:

Saxman is a small place. When I went there there were only about 45 people; now there are 200. It is growing all the time and we are trying to attract the surrounding tribes into a Christian community

In this and in other addresses and writings, Marsden, while pretending to describe conditions at Saxman, was in fact depicting and appropriating to himself the wonderful achievements accomplished at Metlakahtla by Father Duncan, whom he was secretly scheming to discredit and to displace.

That Marsden's false propaganda as to his alleged industries at Saxman was accepted in good faith is shown by the following excerpts from the minutes of the general assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, 1901, pages 255-256:

* Mr. Marsden, realizing the necessity of industrial education for the natives, has led them to various industries, the principal ones being a sawmill and salmon cannery, which it is hoped will become a source of profit before long. he has interested the young men of the community in a brass band, has secured the necessary instruments and has taught them, so that their music enlivens the services.

* * *

The truth is that the sawmill referred to was not at Saxman, but was an enterprise established by natives of Metlakahtla at North Saxman, a different village, and for which enterprise Marsden was in no way entitled to credit.

The fact is, as will be shown later, that the Metlakahtlans who established and operated this sawmill proposed changing the name of North Saxman to Port Dundas because of the disgraceful conditions that had developed at Saxman during the time Marsden was in charge of that station.

The boat building claimed by Marsden at Saxman was mainly carried on by native Metlakahtlans who had been trained by Father Duncan.

The claim that Marsden had established a cannery at Saxman was also pure fiction, and all of the successful native brass bands in southeastern Alaska had been taught by Metlakahtlans trained under Father Duncan.

STATEMENTS OF MARSDEN ARRANGED IN PARALLEL

The ultimate failure of Marsden's alleged industries at Saxman is shown by Marsden's own statements:

Statement of Marsden (The Red Man and Helper, Jan. 3, 1902, p. 2):

Statement of Marsden (The Assembly Herald, July 1907, p. 332):

66

* * As it is we have almost nothing here [Saxman] to depend upon for a daily living. Our people go where there is work to be found

"This mill [sawmill] employs many men and it turns out several thousands of feet of sawed and planed lumber every day." The untruthfulness of Marsden's propaganda in his claims that he had uplifted the people of Saxman is shown by comparing a former statement with one made 6 years later, when he was seeking to

induce the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions to transfer him from Saxman to Father Duncan's mission village at Metlakahtla:

Statement of Marsden at the Christian Endeavor convention at the First Presbyterian Church, Seattle, Wash., July 12, 1907:

་་. * * The work of the Presbyterian Church in Alaska has resulted in the doing away with many of the heathen customs; some of these customs among our native Alaskans were very strong, and they had become so very old, being handed down for many years, that when the Gospel of Jesus Christ was first preached it was hard for them to understand and to give up the customs of their people. But the Gospel of our Lord has won many of the tribesmen away from their heathen practices, for when they come into the Presbyterian Church they make a solemn promise never to engage in these customs, never to practice these heathen beliefs again. You do not know what this means to them, for many of their customs are very wrong and very dreadful.

*

"When the home board first sent me to a place called Saxman, this liquor habit was a part of their lives and they would drink, and they must drink all the time. Today if you would come into that little place you would find a great change. You would see a church there, and would find that those who live in that place know that it is against the Presbyterian rules to drink

MARSDEN'S MISSION BOATS AND HIS PROPAGANDA IN RELIGIOUS
PUBLICATIONS

For years the propaganda of this man was widely published in religious periodicals and newspapers, the publishers being unaware that his statements were untrue and unreliable. The files of the Assembly Herald, later called the New Era Magazine, show that for a period of 20 years, beginning in 1899, this official organ of the Presbyterian Church was grossly deceived and misled by the false claims of this crafty and cunning native.

As a result of this propaganda and in absolute good faith, the Presbyterian Church helped to provide Marsden with mission boats, one of which he called the Good Tidings.

It now develops that during all those years Marsden was using his boats to meet and personally conduct prominent visitors, Government inspectors, and others visiting Metlakahtla, utilizing such opportunities to carry on his vicious propaganda. It also appears that these boats, provided for mission work, were used by Marsden for commercial purposes and his personal profit.

In a letter to William T. Lopp, chief of the Alaska Division of the Bureau of Education, dated June 16, 1917, Marsden wrote:

It will not do for me to dispose of my gasboat any time even if I am offered what is considered a big sum. She is very useful to me and I simply cannot get along without her as long, I suppose, as I am in this northern country. But if Mr. Smiley [an official of the Annette Island Packing Co.] wishes to hire her this or next summer she can be hired all right. She is a staunch and very well built vessel as you yourself can testify. * * *

The following excerpts from a few of many available documents of a similar character, arranged in parallel columns, are selfexplanatory:

MARSDEN'S CRAFTY METHODS

ARTFUL PROPAGANDA TO PROCURE MISSION MISSION BOATS OPERATED FOR PERSONAL