destroyed or negligently permitted to go to waste and be ruined—an outrage which should bring the blush of shame to the face of every right-thinking American.

SECTION 57. PROPHECIES FULFILLED

Vincent Colyer prophesies Satanic efforts to overthrow mission. Statemen prophesy attacks. National Geographic Magazine publishes timely warning. Newspapers prophesy attacks on Metlakahtla. Commissioner of Indian Affairs predicts robbery of fisheries

In its religious aspects the underlying cause of the fight waged against Father Duncan is as old as the human race, and the path he followed throughout his long and eventful life is a trail that has been blazed by martyrs in every age.

Not only was Father Duncan entitled to the protection of the Constitution and the laws of the country, but with the pledges made to him by the Secretary of the Interior and the Commissioner of Education, in offering to him the hospitality of America, the Department of the Interior above every agency of the Government owed to him the special duty to safeguard him and to see to it that no such attack should be made by agents of the Department that had so sacredly pledged its word to protect him.

As early as May 25, 1898, the Honorable Cornelius N. Bliss, the distinguished Secretary of the Interior then in office, transmitted to the United States Senate numerous warnings against insidious attacks upon the Metlakahtla Christian Mission which could be expected from covetous and grasping outsiders."

Among these documents transmitted to the United States Senate by Secretary Bliss was a communication from Rev. Joseph D. Wilson, dated September 4, 1897, which among other things said:

Let us be on guard and not suffer ourselves to be deceived by greedy rascals who would shrink from no dishonor which would put money in their purse. Let good men scrutinize these tales of fabulous wealth and watch the men who set them afloat. There is some rascality on foot.

Not only did a number of the outstanding citizens of Alaska forewarn the Department of the Interior of the unjustifiable assaults being made against Father Duncan, but, in addition to that timely warning, that Department had been long since forewarned by statesmen, the press of America, and others to be on guard against the plotters who would sooner or later make their appearance.

In attempts to undermine and destroy the husbandmen in the Master's vineyard, the devil and his allies always choose shining marks for the objects of their attacks. Men like Livingstone, Stanley, and Duncan could not expect to escape calumny. From Calvary to Metlakahtla the seeds of truth have been watered by the sweat and blood of martyrs; and it was the Man of Calvary himself who said:

If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.

Remember the word that I said unto you: The servant is not greater than his lord. If he have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. John 15: 19-20.

S. Doc. No. 275, 55th Cong., 2d sess.

VINCENT COLYER PROPHESIES SATANIC EFFORTS TO OVERTHROW MISSION

The place of Father Duncan and his Metlakahtla Christian Mission in the program for the evangelization of the world has been recognized by eminent authorities from an early date.

One of the outstanding authorities on the advancement of civilization among the Indians in America was the Honorable and Reverend Vincent Colyer, United States Special Indian Commissioner, and for many years a member of the Board of Indian Commissioners under the Department of the Interior, who said in his letter of November 3, 1869, addressed to Father Duncan:

The fame of your mission has gone all the way up and down our coast, and everyone said to me: "If you want to see what can be done with the Indian you must visit Mr. Duncan's mission."

Well, I have seen it, and you well deserve your hard-earned reputation.

I trust that you feel encouraged and that you will not allow anything to turn you aside or discourage you in your glorious work. I know from sad experience how weak is the flesh and how easily Satan can use it as a power to overturn any good work which he hates. He has had his own way for so many years over the poor Indian that he must hate your mission-and seek to turn you aside or discourage you in it.

Brother, in our blessed Redeemer's work, don't allow it. Hold fast to Christ and His service. You have been led by Him to do great things. Be assured that He will lead you on to still greater triumphs-for His glory. The Indians all over this continent are to be redeemed and saved, and your mission is one of the beacon lights amid the surrounding storm and gloom. Don't let it go out, lest the hopes of thousands and tens of thousands expire.

STATESMEN PROPHESY ATTACKS

The Congressional Record of September 16, 1890, gives the debate upon the amendment by which Annette Islands Reserve was set aside "for the use of the Metlakahta Indians, and those people known as Metlakahtlans" who had recently emigrated from British Columbia to Alaska.

Senator Manderson introduced the amendment because he thought it "no more than a decent and a proper recognition of the great influence that these people" were "exerting over all the Indians of Alaska", and also because he feared that without some such protection they might "at anytime be disturbed by those who would go upon the island under many pretenses, claiming that it was mining land", etc.

In support of the proposed amendment, Senator Dawes, chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, said that these Indians, who had exhibited more common sense "than any Indians I ever saw anywhere", had settled on an island "which is good for nothing except for the wild beasts that are in the mountains and the thousand acres perhaps * upon which they have planted their town, * * *. Nobody wants it now, except there may turn up at some time somebody who desires to plunder them."

*

*

When a few years later, the hands of greed and avarice were thrust out to clutch and defile this sanctuary set aside by Congress for the exclusive use and protection of Father Duncan and the members of his mission, two other Senators came to the front on the floor of the Senate and raised their voices in warning.

Senator Vest, after mentioning a visit he had made to Metlakahtla, told of the wonderful success of Father Duncan's missionary efforts, and declared on March 4, 1898:

I interested myself on my return here to secure for him lands within the domain of this Government upon which he and his people might live and worship the Deity as they thought proper. So in 1891 both branches of Congress passed a law creating a reservation upon Annette Island, where these people today are

*

Now, Mr. President, I take occasion to say this more readily because I have before me two bills, one a House bill and the other a Senate bill, pending before committees, proposing to throw open this Annette Island on the allegation that valuable gold mines are being discovered upon it-the old story, as old as the Indian history in this country, when mines are discovered in order that the whisky peddler may go amongst the Indians and destroy all that this self-devoting missionary, Mr. Duncan, has accomplished in more than 20 years.

Mr. Duncan thought, I thought, and others interested in this matter thought when he had taken this secluded and uninhabited island, Annette Island, in the southern part of Alaska, off in the ocean, upon which no white man had ever settled, and placed his people there, that they would be safe from the greed and the avarice of our people.

Senator Carter, following Senator Vest, said:

I wish to add to the very interesting observations of the Senator from Missouri a statement to the effect that Mr. Duncan appeared within the last week before the Committee on Territories. He had made the long journey from that distant island apprehensive that some legislation interfering with the peace and possession of that island might be passed by Congress. He stated that he had been 40 years engaged in this work. The venerable man's face was a veritable benediction; it could be painted as a fair representation of Christian charity and benevolence. No member of the Committee on Territories who heard his statement hesitated for one moment in stating that under no combination of circumstances would the members there present consent, directly or indirectly, to any invasion of the rights of that tribe or of the settlement over which Mr. Duncan presided.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE PUBLISHES TIMELY WARNING

In an article entitled "The Metlakatla Mission in Danger", published in the April 1898 issue of the National Geographic Magazine, Dr. William H. Dall referred to the efforts to destroy the reserve, mentioned by Senator Vest, and said:

But an attempt is now being made to induce Congress to bolster up a speculation in these undeveloped leads by rescinding the reservation act, so as to cut off from the colony its water works, its mill, and cannery, and to a large extent, its fishery rights, and thus leave the people without resources and open to the vices of the mining camp and rum seller, to the inevitable destruction of all that has been hitherto accomplished.

The bare statement of the facts carries its own commentary. The friends of justice, and of the Indian's right to work out his salvation, and eventually to take his place among the citizens of our common country, should make themselves heard before it is too late.

NEWSPAPERS PROPHESY ATTACKS ON METLA KAHTLA

Twenty-eight years before the Secretary of the Interior authorized the illegal seizure of Father Duncan's mission in Alaska, the press of the country had forewarned and predicted that this very thing would sooner or later happen.

The following excerpts are quoted from several of the many newspapers which prophesied these attacks years before this terrible stain was placed on the escutcheon of our Government:

[Rochester (N. Y.) Express, June 20, 1887]

We hope sincerely that he [Father Duncan] will not meet with disappointment; but if he were to study the dealings of this country with the Indians he would find many things in it to give him pause. This country has never hesitated to violate the solemnest obligation to an Indian tribe, moral and legal, to carry out either a policy or whim; and if in considering the hardships of the people of Metlakahtla, we learn to amend our own ways toward the Indians, this new Acadian persecution will be fruitful of good results.

[Truth, June 23, 1887]

Whether the Metlakahtlans would fare any better under the rule of the United States-as exemplified in the average Indian agent-than they do at present is, however, a debatable question.

[Alta California (San Francisco, Calif.), July 10, 1887]

* Indeed, it must be a dark exigency that brings the Indian to the United States Government for protection, as a tender regard for his rights has never been one of its conspicuous traits.

* * **

[New York Tribune, Sept. 4, 1887]

Their final recourse is rather pitiful. They fly from one persecutor to another. In a word, they seek permission to settle upon American land in the Territory of Alaska. No doubt they will be allowed to change masters and tyrants, though it is unhappily not possible to look forward with much confidence to their future under the Stars and Stripes. Perhaps Alaska is safer than any other part of the country, being less attractive to land hunters; but some day, unless our policy is radically changed, white men will covet the holdings of the Indians, and they will have to move on.

[Portland Oregonian, Aug. 28, 1887]

*

The new settlement will retain the old name of Metlakahtla, which they think properly belongs to their people and not to the collection of empty houses they leave behind them. It has in it the promise of great things to the other natives of Alaska, for the good influence of this people has for years been felt all along the northern coasts, and if no untoward accident happens, here at last may be worked out the great Indian problem.

[Albany, (N. Y.) Times, Dec. 5, 1887]

The first chapter of the history of the Metlakahtla Indians on American territory is worth writing down, because in a few years the land they have chosen may have become valuable and be wanted by white settlers, and the Indians, plundered worse than they were by Her Majesty's subjects, may turn upon the whites, and then there may be loud cries of an Indian "war", and troops will be demanded to exterminate the bloodthirsty redskins.

*

* Let there be no driving this people away from their homesteads at the instance of any land ring or mining speculators. Let the native Indians, it they will, have the glory of founding the most flourishing and Christian settlement in Alaska.

The following is quoted from a letter from Judge Thomas N. Strong, published in the Boston Transcript, January 4, 1888:

I expect, however, to hear him [Father Duncan] accused of all kinds of wickedness. A man who starts what is practically a cooperative store in Alaska, who allows the cost book to be open for the Indians' inspection, and who makes his Indian salesman charge only a reasonable profit, is ipso facto the natural enemy of almost every trader in Alaska. His prices fix the price all along the northern coast, for an Indian family will just as readily go two or three hundred miles shopping as ours will go downtown. They love to

wander and barter and buy and sell, and time is no object to them. If they can get twelve and a half pounds of sugar at Port Chester for $1, no other trader need offer them any less, for otherwise to Port Chester they will go.

Besides, Mr. Duncan is the resolute enemy of the whisky traffic, and when he catches up with a few whisky smugglers you will probably hear a cry go up that will astonish you. His position at the southernmost extremity of Alaska is a very unpleasant one for the whisky dealers, who have lately become very bold and enterprising. Mr. Duncan will stop this, if any man can, but of course will get into hot water doing it. Young Mr. Beecher, on Puget Sound, caught some forty or fifty thousand dollars' worth of contraband opium in Alaska, and ever since has by newspaper and affidavit been charged with all manner of crimes. Verily, verily the devil is the father of lies.

COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS PREDICTS ROBBERY OF FISHERIES

A number of years later, Francis E. Leupp, a former Commissioner of Indian Affairs and for some time secretary of the Indian Rights Association, made the following prediction in his book In Redman's Land, published in 1914, p. 124:

But one day-and let the younger generation who read this prophecy mark it for future reference-there will come a clash between the natives and the whites over the fisheries. When the full value of these is realized, the whites will insist on regulating them by law; and the natives, owing to their lack of acquaintance with such methods, will fail to get their fair share of the privileges dispensed by lease, license, or otherwise.

In the face of these warnings it is inconceivable that officials of the Government could have been so unmindful of their sworn duty as to accept without question the falsehoods concocted by conspirators and to permit the vandalism and frightfulness which has characterized the administration of the Bureau of Education at Metlakahtla.

SECTION 58. GRAND JURY RECOMMENDATION IGNORED BY DEPARTMENT OFFICIALS

At the May 1917 term of the District Court for the District of Alaska, Division No. 1, sitting at Ketchikan, the Federal grand jury made the following report in open court:

DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF ALASKA, DIVISION No. 1, AT KETCHIKAN, MAY 1917 TERM

REPORT OF GRAND JURY

To the Honorable ROBERT W. JENNINGS,

Judge of the above Entitled Court:

We, the grand jury, summoned to attend the May 1917 term of the United States District Court for the District of Alaska, Division No. 1, having completed our labors for the said term and concluded the business brought before use, now beg leave to report to the honorable court as follows:

We also believe that the treatment of Rev. William Duncan by the Bureau of Education is a subject for considerable criticism, and we believe it should be looked into by the proper authorities.

By order of the court, the following communication was forwarded to the Department of the Interior by the clerk of the court, enclosing a copy of this report of the United States grand jury,