*CHAPTER V. VANDALISM AND FRIGHTFULNESS

SECTION 49. MALICIOUS ARREST OF FATHER DUNCAN ON FALSE CHARGES

Bureau agent falsely swore that Father Duncan committed a crime. Father Duncan's ownership of industrial properties conceded by Government. Motives which caused arrest of Father Duncan. Beattie sought to avoid his own arrest. Circumstances leading up to arrest of Father Duncan. Statement of Thomas Hanbury. Bureau plotters seek by false allegations to avoid censure. Proceedings after the arrest. Jones' sworn complaint utterly false. Complaint and warrant altered to screen Bureau plotters. Bureau agents alarmed at failure of their outrageous plot. Public indignation aroused by arrest of Father Duncan

BUREAU AGENT FALSELY SWORE THAT FATHER DUNCAN COMMITTED A CRIME

After William G. Beattie, superintendent of schools of the southeastern district of Alaska, had reported, on July 6, 1914, that Father Duncan "should be coerced into leaving", and Charles D. Jones, the Bureau agent at Metlakahtla, had reported, on November 18, 1914, that he believed "the Government could and should immediately force the old gentleman to terms-to the place where he will accept our terms", Jones, with Beattie's encouragement, filed a complaint in the United States Commissioner's court at Ketchikan, Alaska, on January 7, 1915, in which he, Jones, solemnly swore that Father Duncan had committed "the crime of threatening to assault and shoot" him.

In that complaint Jones further solemnly swore that he "has reason to fear and does fear" that this aged Christian missionary "will carry out the said threat", and thus do violence to him-that big, burly, strong-arm man of the Bureau of Education.

William G. Beattie, superintendent of schools of the southeastern district of Alaska, appeared on the scene to assist in the prosecution on behalf of the Bureau of Education. The assistant United States district attorney was called upon by the Bureau agents to prosecute the case.

On this complaint, concocted by the conspirators to "coerce" Father Duncan and "force the old gentleman to terms-to the place where he will accept our terms", this venerable missionary, whose conduct had been void of offense toward God and man, was at the demand of Jones taken into custody by a United States marshal—and a malicious prosecution was conducted in the name of the American Government!

On the day that he was arrested, Father Duncan was haled to court and pleaded "not guilty." The Bureau plotters and other intriguers were present, evidently with the intent to have Father Duncan thrown into prison on the false charge.

*NOTE.-See pages 18481 to 18507 for excerpts from legal opinions on the Metlakahtla case.

When Father Duncan stood at the bar of the law and faced his accusers, they were unable to produce a scintilla of evidence to support their false and malicious accusations.

Upon the motion and representation of the attorney in charge of the prosecution that he needed time to procure and examine witnesses for the Bureau agents, the case was repeatedly postponed, from January 8 to January 16, 1915, when, unable to proceed because no evidence could be produced against Father Duncan, the case was dismissed on the motion of the assistant United States district attorney, whose services had been invoked by the Bureau of Education.

The history of this wicked and malicious prosecution by the Bureau of Education against an ambassador of the living God, and the causes and circumstances which induced and led up to it, may be stated, as follows:

The self-serving representatives of the Bureau of Education, for the purpose of enlarging their own authority, had already, through false and misleading representations and faked so-called petitions, induced the Secretary of the Interior to order the establishment of an unneeded Government school at Metlakahtla and thus put an end to Father Duncan's leadership and his mission school. They had also caused the Secretary to appropriate the larger portion of Father Duncan's mission grounds and the mission buildings thereon, and to seize and confiscate his water power pipe line.

Not being satisfied with the powers gained for themselves through thus embarrassing Father Duncan and crippling his Christian mission, these schemers cast covetous eyes upon his industrial properties, including a warehouse near the cannery, and sought by further illegal seizures and confiscations to get possession of these industrial plants and gain complete control over the people and the affairs of Metlakahtla.

FATHER DUNCAN'S OWNERSHIP OF INDUSTRIAL PROPERTIES CONCEDED BY GOVERNMENT

However, these schemers were confronted by the fact that Father Duncan's ownership of these industrial properties, including the warehouse, had been practically conceded by the Department of the Interior, and their confiscation could not, therefore, be justified.

Through the failure of the Bureau of Education fully and truthfully to inform him as to controlling facts, Preston C. West, then Assistant Attornney General for the Interior Department, was misled into stating in his opinion rendered April 16, 1914, that—

* Even if he [Father Duncan] advanced the money for this enterprise [the water power pipe line], he evidently dedicated it to the public and would not be recognized by the courts as having any right to destroy it

However, Assistant Attorney General West said further in that opinion:

The cannery and general store have both apparently been carried on as a private enterprise by Mr. Duncan. Such things are not public utilities and hence the same rule would not be applicable.

In other words, the Secretary's own duly constituted legal adviser had, in effect, already held that the cannery, warehouse, and other industrial properties belonged to Father Duncan, and were, consequently, beyond the control of the agents of the Bureau of Education.

Again, Father Duncan's ownership of the warehouse and other industrial buildings was, in effect, conceded by the Interior Department when A. A. Jones, its First Assistant Secretary, and the Commissioner of Education gave consideration in the fall of 1914 to the advisability of the Government's purchasing this property from Father Duncan and turning it over to the native Metlakahtlans. They even went so far as to have an inventory and valuation of that property made for that purpose.

In his letter of December 12, 1914, to Lopp, the Commissioner said:

Jones, First Assistant Secretary of the Interior, is giving earnest consideration to Metlakahtla situation. He desires definite information regarding property which Duncan claims as his own. Have sent you the following telegram: "Instruct Beattie or Jones to send me list of all things Duncan claims as his at Metlakahtla, with some idea of real value of each."

On December 23, 1914, Commissioner Claxton wrote Lopp as follows:

Your telegram in regard to the inventory has just been received. I did not expect a detailed inventory, but only such an inventory of the property included in the cannery, sawmill, and store as would enable us to form some estimate of the cost of taking over these properties for the use of the natives. Without such estimate it is practically impossible to decide whether we could attempt to do this at all. Cannot Beattie or Jones give approximate values of (1) buildings and (2) machinery? Some statement as to the repair of buildings and machinery would also be helpful.

That the Secretary of the Interior himself recognized Father Duncan's ownership of the warehouse and its contents, which included, among other things, a quantity of iron pipes such as had been used in installing the water power pipe line, is shown by the following quotation from a letter written by Beattie to the Commissioner of Éducation on January 14, 1915:

Today I received your wire, as follows: "The Secretary has asked Father Duncan to let us have the use of the warehouse and of his pipe. * * * when you next see Father Duncan, ask him if he will let you have the use of the warehouse. If you cannot use it, put up a temporary warehouse for the cement and other building materials."

In that letter Beattie stated further:

Of course, if the Secretary has asked Mr. Duncan for permission for us to use the warehouse, that is an admission on the part of the Government that Mr. Duncan owns the permanent property in Metlakahtla.

MOTIVES WHICH CAUSED ARREST OF FATHER DUNCAN

With these conclusive facts in mind as to Father Duncan's ownership and absolute right to control the use of the warehouse and the supply of water pipes therein, we may now turn understandingly to the incidents and circumstances, as well as to the motives, which led up to his wicked arrest.

These plotters of the Bureau of Education saw that so long as Father Duncan's ownership was recognized, their powers of control must be limited to the property already seized and confiscated, and to the management of the Government's school; and they furthermore knew that while Father Duncan was permitted to remain in the village he would continue to have and exert an influence over

the natives which would prevent these schemers from dominating the people and the affairs of Metlakhtla.

They and their coconspirators had already strongly, but without success, suggested the seizure of Father Duncan's cannery and other industrial property, and had also earnestly urged his removal and banishment from the reserve; and so it was they saw that something more drastic must be done to provoke a stronger antagonism to Father Duncan in the mind of the Secretary of the Interior and so far bring him into disrepute among the natives as to make it easier to wean them away from him. To accomplish this they falsely charged him with a crime and caused his arrest and arraignment.

As already shown, through the culpable negligence of Jones and other representatives of the Bureau of Education, the water power pipe line, after being illegally seized and while under their control, was permitted to freeze, resulting in the bursting of some of the pipes.

To replace the water pipes thus destroyed, instead of purchasing the new pipes at the expense of the Bureau of Education, Jones, with Beattie's sanction and encouragement, and without offering to purchase them from Father Duncan, undertook forcibly to seize and appropriate the pipes then stored in the warehouse, which the Secretary of the Interior had conceded to be the property of Father Duncan.

BEATTIE SOUGHT TO AVOID HIS OWN ARREST

When we remember that Beattie himself, only a short time before Father Duncan's arrest, had unlawfully and ruthlessly taken possession of Father Duncan's warehouse after breaking and removing the lock on its door, it does not seem strange that he, Beattie, should have authorized and encouraged Jones' high-handed and outrageous attempt to seize and use Father Duncan's pipes; or that he, Beattie, should have been present and actively assisted in the wicked prosecution of this aged and blameless servant of the Lord on the false and malicious charge that he had committed a crime against the laws of the land.

Beattie's desire to sustain Jones' wicked charge, and secure the conviction of Father Duncan, was doubtless born of the anxious fear in his own mind that if that prosecution failed and Jones was condemned, he himself was subject to arrest and trial for the grave offense he committed when he unlawfully forced the lock and took possession of Father Duncan's warehouse.

This fear on the part of Beattie was shown in letters he wrote to the Commissioner of Education and Lopp while he was in Ketchikan aiding in the prosecution of Father Duncan.

On January 14, 1915, and while Father Duncan was still under arrest, Beattie wrote the Commissioner as follows:

Yesterday I was surprised to get the following message from you: You have charge wharf, water system, and new school building, but not of warehouse." * * If Mr. Ingersoll [Father Duncan's attorney] today knew of this, I would likely yet have to stand trial [for] forcing open the warehouse door-as I probably will have to do as soon as such word reaches Mr. Duncan or Mr. Ingersoll. *

Three days after Beattie wrote that letter to the Commissioner he again voiced his fears when he said in his letter of January 17, 1915,

to W. T. Lopp, the Bureau of Education's Chief of its Alaska Division:

I may yet have to face trial for opening that warehouse, since the Secretary has gone back on the matter,

*

You see, the Secretary-or the Washington authorities, at any rate-has made me the "goat" in the case * * *, and Ingersoll, Duncan, Stackpole, and Michener, the Methodist minister here, would like to deepen the breed of the "goat" a little bit.

Beattie's great desire to secure Father Duncan's conviction caused him to make a hurried trip to Juneau, Alaska, after Father Duncan's arrest, for the purpose of conferring with the Governor and United States attorney as to the best course to pursue to that end, as is shown by his letters of January 8 and 14, 1915, to the Commissioner of Education, quoted later.

It was but natural that Beattie should have hoped that the conviction of Father Duncan would draw attention away from his own act of lawlessness and thus relieve him of merited prosecution.

CIRCUMSTANCES LEADING UP TO ARREST OF FATHER DUNCAN-STATEMENT OF THOMAS HANBURY

Showing the circumstances and happenings on the day Jones sought to seize Father Duncan's water pipes, January 6, 1915, the following is quoted from an affidavit sworn to on August 4, 1930, by Thomas Hanbury, an educated native of good standing, who had been a member of the village council:

About the first week in January 1915, I was at Metlakahtla working on the beach and heard loud noises at Mr. Duncan's warehouse nearby, and I ran to see what was the trouble.

When I arrived I found Mr. Charles D. Jones, the Bureau agent at Metlakahtla and his gang making a disturbance. They were shouting and threatening to take Mr. Duncan's iron water pipe from his warehouse by force.

The pipes were laying inside Mr. Duncan's warehouse. Mr. Duncan was standing in front of them holding his hands out like that (arms extened), telling them they must not touch the pipes for they were his own personal property.

That was the first thing I saw and heard when I got there.

Mr. Jones, Mark Hamilton, Rod Davis, and a big stout white fellow who was working on the schoolhouse, and some other enemies of Mr. Duncan, were making a big row.

Before this I heard that Jones and his crowd was going to make trouble and force open Mr. Duncan's warehouse. The Bureau agents wanted to get Mr. Duncan's iron pipes to put in the place of the pipes they had bursted by running water through Mr. Duncan's power pipe line in cold weather and letting it freeze.

Mr. Duncan always cut off the water in cold weather to prevent freezing and bursting, but the Bureau agents thought they knew more than Mr. Duncan did and they would not turn off the water in cold weather. That's why the water pipes were frozen up and burst. Then the pipe line couldn't be used until new pipes were put in.

Well, Mr. Jones was acting pretty wild. He was very rough and shouted loud threats that he would take the pipes; and the big white fellow was shouting: "We are going to take the pipes."

They were getting very excited and talking pretty rough to Mr. Duncan, shouting all kinds of words at him.

Jones made a lot of big talk and tried to make us Metlakahtlans believe that the pipes were not Mr. Duncan's property, but was Government property. Then I said to them: "Everybody knows this building and everything in it is Mr. Duncan's own property."