In aiding the Department conspirators in building up a false and surreptitious file on Metlakahtla to deceive and mislead the Secretary of the Interior, one of the tricks employed by Marsden was to procure signatures of natives on blank sheets of paper by misrepresenting the nature of the petition for which they were to be used.

Later Marsden would attach to these signatures a heading and text to suit his purposes, the nature of which was unknown to many of those whose signatures he had previously procured.

In some instances the headings of these faked petitions would be attached to signatures cut from other documents and these concocted and faked petitions sent to the Department of the Interior.

Illustrating the extent to which the Secretary's committee lent its aid in defense of the schemes of Marsden, the following statements in regard to one of these petitions is quoted from the committee's report, pages 46-47:

The first action to secure Governmental aid appears to have been taken on January 2, 1908, when a petition signed by 111 Metlakahtlans was forwarded by Edward Marsden to Hon. Thomas Cale, delegate from Alaska to the House of Representatives. This petition while acknowledging Mr. Duncan's great and noble work and expressing thanks therefor, stated that the natives found that they were wanting in education; that they had a school population of 100 young men and women between the ages of 12 and 19 who had no opportunity whatever of obtaining a competent education and that many of their children when sent to different Indian schools away from Metlakahtla, had died from the complete change of diet, habit, and climate, and others had returned broken in health.

The petitioners asked that the usual courses of academic and English training and such industrial training as was adapted to the peculiar conditions of the country be taught. This petition appears to be in the handwriting of Edward Marsden, but there can be no doubt as to the genuineness of the signatures attached thereto, *

*

**

The intrusion of a Government school in the mission village of Metlakahtla was an early step in the scheme of the conspirators to obtain bureaucratic control of the affairs of the Metlakahtlans, seize the water-power pipe line and industrial plants owned and operated by Father Duncan for the support of the mission, and obtain control of the fisheries of Annette Islands Reserve.

The report of the Secretary's committee is in error in its above finding that the first so-called petition for a Government school at Metlakahtla was forwarded on January 2, 1908, the first of these faked petitions concocted by Edward Marsden, the crafty native missionary at Saxman, being dated December 5, 1904.

The report of the Secretary's committee admits in its above finding that the petition of January 2, 1908, appears to be in the handwriting of Edward Marsden, but it adds that "there can be no doubt as to the genuineness of the signatures attached thereto."

After a careful investigation of this petition by Government handwriting experts, the Director of the Bureau of Standards reported: 2. The following petitions

are in the same handwriting as two holographic documents (Apr. 23, 1904, addressed to Mr. William Duncan and Nov. 24. 1916, addressed to Mr. Moses Hewson) signed Edward Marsden.

*

9. The 111 signatures pasted to the petition dated January 2, 1908, are on different grades of paper and on narrower paper than that in the body of the petition.

The fact that the signatures were on paper of a size and quality different from the body of the petition should have at least put the committee on notice that such signatures were subject to question.

The fraudulent nature of this faked so-called native petition, the signatures affixed to which were pronounced genuine by the Secretary's committee, and other faked so-called native petitions have been exposed.

In selecting solely the book of Arctander for its history of Metlakahtla in Alaska, in preference to scores of standard books of reference available to it, the Secretary's committee stated in its report, pages 7-8:

It is asserted in the Brief on the Law that Mr. Arctander's book, which is an eulogy of Mr. Duncan, did not receive the unqualified endorsement of Mr. Duncan, and that fact has not been lost sight of in giving weight to matters averreá exclusively in this book. Going further, however, counsel for Mr. Wellcome have sought to discredit the book by a reference in their brief to the fact that, following the World War, Mr. Arctander was disbarred from the pratcice of law for activities found to have fostered resistance to compulsory military service and contrary to the plain duty of attorneys at law during that emergency.

The committee does not deplore the penalty paid by Mr. Arctander, but does deplore the fact that other counsel deemed that penalty pertinent to the veracity of a book written more than 10 years before the extraneous matter

arose.

It is the view of the committee that Mr. Arctander's account of the Metlakahtlans and his personal observations concerning Mr. Duncan, his work and characteristics, are entitled to full credibility as such.

As the Secretary's committee was not impressed by the fact that Arctander was disbarred from the practice of law by the supreme court of the State of Washington for conduct subsequent to his pernicious activities at Metlakahtla, it should be stated that previous to these activities he was also suspended from the practice of law by the supreme court of the State of Minnesota for falsifying public documents. (In re John W. Arctander, 26 Minn. 25–28, decided on Mar. 28, 1879.)

The notorious character and pernicious activities of John W. Arctander, adopted as an authority by Cragin and the Secretary's committee, as previously shown.

The contents of the report of the Secretary's committee do not substantiate its claim of diligence when it stated (pp. 3-4) that—

The seriousness of these charges prompted this committee to make an exhaustive research throughout its files and caused it to give careful scrutiny to all papers, petitions, showings, and representations made by Mr. Wellcome and his counsel throughout their entire connection with the Metlakahtlans, in order that no evidence in substantiation of the charges made by them might be overlooked.

The unreliable and fictitious nature of the report by the Secretary's committee and the serious injustice this committee has done to the Government and to the Metlakahtlans have been sufficiently exposed.

In the departmental reports on Metlakahtla and in the documents therein cited there is no instance where any allegation reflecting upon Father Duncan is supported by oath or affirmation, or where

the author of such an allegation was subjected to cross-examination.

It is an astounding fact that the property of Father Duncan and his mission was seized on a record made up of ex parte statements incompetent as evidence and unsupported by any sworn statement, except the untrue and misleading affidavit of Edward Marsden, which was attached to the Logan report and falsely alleged that Father Duncan had stated to him (Mardsden) that he "had made up his mind fully and without reserve, to turn over to the United States Government, all of the industries that he was interested in at Metlakahtla."

That the charges against Father Duncan contained in the previous departmental reports on Metlakahtla, and later incorporated in the report of the secretary's committee on matters pertaining to Annette Islands Reserve, Alaska, are false and slanderous, is officially admitted in the following statement contained in a letter written by Philander P. Claxton, Commissioner of Education, to counsel for Dr. Henry S. Wellcome, on July 6, 1917:

No evidence reflecting on Mr. Duncan's honesty has ever been submitted to the Department or to the Bureau of Education

The departmental reports on Metlakahtla, including the report of the secretary's committee on matters pertaining to Annette Islands Reserve, failed to disclose to the Secretary of the Interior that these erroneous conclusions and misconceptions in regard to Father Duncan's full and complete rights as a beneficiary of Annette Islands Reserve originated with the Lopp report, and were later formally incorporated in an unsigned so-called legal opinion based on a misquotation of the act creating the reserve, in which words were deleted to make it appear that Father Duncan was a trespasser on the

reserve.

The records of the case show that the seizure and present illegal custody by the Department of the Interior of the property of Father Duncan and his mission are based on a misquotation of the act of March 3, 1891, which created Annette Islands Reserve, the erroneous opinion of H. S. Cragin, a temporary clerk in the Department and slanders which have been refuted, all of which the report of the secretary's committee concealed or negligently failed to disclose.

The preposterous report of the secretary's committee on matters pertaining to Annette Islands Reserve was never approved by any Secretary of the Interior.

SECTION 81. ADVICE TO SECRETARY OF INTERIOR BY FALSE FRIENDS

Pretended friends give color to untrue and secret charges. Condit appeals to Secretary of Interior to aid plotters. Pratt's slanderous and misleading letters. Pratt jealous of Father Duncan's success. Pratt associated with Bureau's plotters. Begining of Pratt's pernicious activities to harrass Father Duncan. Marsden entertains Pratt on Alaskan fishing trips. Pratt's continued pernicious activities in affairs of Metlakahtla. Pratt's vilification of Father Duncan. Unfavorable comment on Pratt's system. Dixon transmits to Secretary of Interior slanders concocted by Marsden.

PRETENDED FRIENDS GIVE COLOR TO UNTRUE AND SECRET CHARGES

Aiding the plotters was a small group of men who at critical times visited or wrote to the Secretary of the Interior, sponsoring or lending color to the false and secret charges concocted by Marsden and

agents of the Bureau of Education, which reached the Secretary of the Interior through official channels, and upon the basis of which action against Father Duncan was sought.

So far as the records disclose, these supporting attacks came mainly from friends of Marsden or his dupes, including a few who made a pretense of being friends and admirers of Father Duncan.

Among these pretended friends, who were actuated by self-seeking motives or animosities, were Dr. James H. Condit, an ordained minister of the Gospel, and Gen. R. H. Pratt, who was for many years in charge of the Government's nonreservation and nonreligious Indian school at Carlisle, Pa.

Dr. Condit, who was supervisor of Alaskan mission stations of his church, not only resented Father Duncan's condemnation of sectarian methods in missionary efforts, but envied his success and cast such covetous eyes toward Metlakahtla that he was later instrumental in having his denomination establish a church in opposition to Father Duncan's church in that village, with Edward Marsden, whom he had whitewashed, as its minister.

General Pratt's animosity and opposition were aroused by Father Duncan's well-known contention that Indians should be educated in their own communities, and not be sent away and subjected to outside hurtful influences at nonreservation schools, such as the one at Carlisle, Pa., over which General Pratt presided until finally dismissed as superintendent of that institution during the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt.

The Red Man and Helper, published by General Pratt at the Government Indian school at Carlisle, was employed from time to time to exploit Marsden and further the propaganda of the plotters against Metlakahtla.

At a critical juncture Rev. John Dixon, D. D., transmitted to the Secretary of the Interior one of Marsden's concocted and scandalous writings impunging the honesty of the venerable missionary.

CONDIT APPEALS TO SECRETARY OF INTERIOR TO AID PLOTTERS

Records will now be disclosed which show the activities of Dr. James H. Condit at the time the Cragin opinion was being prepared to deceive and mislead the Secretary of the Interior into ordering the seizure of the property of Father Duncan and his mission.

On January 15, 1915, one week after the Bureau plotters had failed to coerce Father Duncan into leaving Metlakahtla by causing his arrest on false charges, Cragin, a temporary clerk in the General Land Office, with a salary of $60 per month, began the preparation of his so-called legal opinion, which Secretary Lane was deceived and misled into believing had been "subjected to careful scrutiny by legal officers of the Department of the Interior."

Although Father Duncan and his friends were given no information in regard to the pendency of this so-called investigation, and were given no opportunity whatever to refute this vicious report, agents of the Bureau of Education were collaborating with Cragin in Washington, D. C., and communicating with their confederates in Alaska in regard to the progress of this nefarious work.

That the plotters looked to the Cragin report to furnish a way to drive Father Duncan from his mission field is indicated by the fol

lowing statement in a letter written by Marsden to Dr. Condit on February 12, 1915, while that secret report was being prepared: There need be no formal entry at Metlakahtla. We do not want any trumpets blown. But we do want our interests safely looked after.

Two days after Cragin, assisted by agents of the Bureau of Education, began the preparation of his report, William G. Beattie, superintendent of schools of the southeastern district of Alaska, who had broken into Father Duncan's warehouse and had been active in the prosecution of the venerable missionary on framed-up charges, became alarmed and made plans to leave the Government service.

On January 17, 1915, Beattie expressed his fears by writing to Lopp that the case before the United States commissioner (based on false charges against Father Duncan) "has not yet been dismissed" and that

I may yet have to face trial for opening that warehouse

*

When it became known that Beattie was determined to leave the Government service, Dr. Condit began activities to hold the organization of Bureau plotters intact.

On April 23, 1915, when the Cragin report was nearing completion, Dr. Condit wrote two letters to officials of the Bureau of Education, protesting against the retirement of Beattie.

In one of these letters, written to Lopp, Condit said:

I have had it in mind for some time to drop you a line relative to the proposed resignation of Professor Beattie.

The reasons for my not doing so were first, because I have thought that his decision was final; second because I do not want to appear in the light of a missionary "buttinski."

But in recent conversations with Mr. Beattie I think I have discovered that the reason underlying his resignation is a feeling that he did not have the support of the Washington authorities in carrying out the Metlakahtla policies

*

** * *

Personally, I look upon his proposed resignation as a calamity just at this time. We might get another competent man, but no man, however competent and willing to do the work, could command the situation, as Mr. Beattie does, for years * *

In the other letter, written to Philander P. Claxton, Commissioner of Education, Condit said:

It is with regret that I learn of the proposed resignation of Prof. W. G. Beattie, as district superintendent of native education in southeastern Alaska.

Personally I look upon his proposed retirement as a calamity and wish to voice my protest to the acceptance of his resignation if in any way he can be prevailed upon to remain.

On the same day that Condit wrote to Lopp and Claxton in regard to Beattie, he also sent the following letter, which reached the Secretary of the Interior almost at the same time the Cragin opinion was laid before him:

Hon. FRANKLIN K. LANE,

JUNEAU, ALASKA, April 23, 1915.

Secretary of the Interior, Washington, D. C.

SIR: I have wanted to say a word in re Metlakahtla controversy but have hitherto refrained.

"But in view of the agitation looking toward the discrediting of the native claims (concocted by Marsden and his confederates) I am now impelled to say that from personal knowledge of some 18 years in connection with my work