was ever submitted by him or the Indian agent to this Office. The tribal council refuses to sanction his enrollment on the grounds that his alleged relations were not known; and the Indian agent reports that, although he had ample notice to produce further evidence in his case, he failed to submit any. As Moses Plomondon fails to prove his contention, I recommend that his application be denied.

Dora Alexander, Mollie Brooks, Susie Callahan, Sampson Crisp, Jack English, Rosa Jones, Anna Moss, Henry, Oliver, William and William Shattio, jr., Mrs. Ogeal Smith and Maggie and Ogeal Smith, Mrs. Elizabeth Tolliver; Clements, Frank R., Joseph F., Laura, Ogeal, and Royal Wilson:

The application of these persons were submitted by Joseph F. Wilson, attorney in fact. They allege that they are descendants of a negro man and an Osage woman named Ann Davis, afterwards Ann Shattio, who claimed to have been stolen when a girl by whites from the Osages and made a slave in Missouri, and that she subsequently purchased her freedom in 1846 and went to Kansas. This testimony is entirely ex parte, and fails to give the names of the alleged Osage woman's parents or of any of her relatives among the Osage tribe in Oklahoma.

The agent reports that the only one of these persons he knows is Joseph F. Wilson, who is related to the applicants, and is a negro who came from St. Louis, Mo. The national council rejects the applicants for the reasons that they are of the negro race, and "that the tribe did not have but one or two negro families, who both at present affiliate with it" and are not related in any way to the applicants.

As these descendants of Ann Davis have failed to prove that they are in any way related to the Osage tribe of Indians in Oklahoma, and neither they nor their parents have ever affiliated with that tribe or been recognized by it as members thereof, they are clearly not entitled to the enrollment sought. It is therefore recommended that their applications be rejected.

Very respectfully,

C. F. LARRABEE,
Acting Commissioner.

SIRS: In reply to your letter of April 30, I inclose you herewith a report from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs which will give you the desired information.

Very respectfully,

JESSE E. WILSON, Assistant Secretary.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,
OFFICE OF INDIAN AFFAIRS,
Washington, May 2, 1908.

The SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR.

SIR: The Office has the honor to acknowledge the receipt, by your reference, for report, of a letter dated April 30, 1908, from Messrs. Kappler & Merillat, attorneys at law, of this city, who refer to Senate resolution No. 70, for the enrollment of 37 persons with the Osage tribe, and ask certain information for use in connection with the case. Their questions are answered seriatim, as follows:

1. There were many applications pending at the time of the passage of the act of June 28, 1906 (34 Stat. L., 539), known as the Osage allotment act, other than the 37 cases mentioned in the Senate resolution referred to. The attorneys were, on April 30, furnished a copy of a decision of the Department dated April 15, 1907, rejecting the applications for Osage enrollment of 89 persons, including some of the 37 named in the Senate resolution.

2. The Osage bill was prepared by the Osage Indians and was brought to this city by a committee acting on behalf of the tribe. The Office carefully considered the bill as presented by the Osage committee or delegation, and, with some immaterial changes, submitted it to the Congress. The provision therein repealing the act of August 15, 1894 (28 Stat. L., 305), was in the bill when it was submitted by the Osages and was not changed. At the time the bill was consid red the Office believed that the pro

vision for the repeal of the act referred to was included for the purpose of closing the Osage tribal rolls and settling the allotment question without further litigation. It knows of no other reasons why the act of August 15, 1894, allowing an appeal to the courts by applicants alleging to have been unlawfully denied of allotments with an Indian tribe, was repealed.

3. As requested by the attorneys, there is inclosed a copy of the list transmitted August 16, 1906, by the United States Indian agent of the Osage Agency, of the names of 244 persons charged by the principal chief of the tribe with being on the rolls through fraud, such list having been furnished in accordance with section 1 of the Osage allot

ment act.

4. The Office has no copy of the constitution of the Osage Nation which can be furnished the attorneys as requested. They have in person been allowed to use the bound volume of the laws of the Osage Nation, and it is understood that they will make copies of such parts thereof as they may wish.

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5. In answer to their request that they be furnished also with any decisions or opinions of the Department bearing on the subject of the applications of the persons mentioned in Senate resolution No. 70, the Office has to say that they have heretofore been furnished copies of the reports made to the Department on the resolution mentioned and a copy of the decision of the Department dated April 15, 1907, rejecting the applications of 89 persons for Osage enrollment. These letters contain the decisions desired.

Persons charged with being on Osage roll by fraud-Continued.

Persons charged with being on Osage roll by fraud—Continued.

Persons charged with being on Osage roll by fraud—Continued.

Now, when it comes to going back, with the strong inducement that is here, to prove that persons had Osage blood years ago, I think the opinion of the Court of Claims in the case of Whitmire, trustee, v. The Cherokee Nation et al. (30 Ct. Cls., 146) is very apropos. The court said:

The court believes that the roll affords the best evidence which exists or which can be procured. The large amount to be received by every individual complainant—more than $250 for each person, more than $1,000 for every family of the freedmen—the unsettled state of the country, the scattered character of the population, the remote places in which they live, and the remote dates to which the investigation must extendfrom 1866 to 1894- are conditions which offer the strongest inducements to fraud on the one side and to intimidations and discriminations on the other. It may be that the Wallace roll was extended beyond the true number of the persons entitled to be placed thereon, but if it was, the fault was with the Cherokee Nation, who could have contested every name that was placed upon it, and who had the means of exposing every error that may have existed; and the United States spared no pains to make the roll a true exhibit in the case. The court believes that the difficulties in arriving at a true result which existed then will be greatly multiplied now.

If that were true, as stated by the Court of Claims, then how much truer it is of the existing state of affairs here where you have the case of applicants, many of whom are claiming relationship to a woman. who, according to the decision of the Department and the official records, died about 1833 or 1834, where it means from fifteen to thirty thousand dollars to be an Osage, and where, as I am reliably informed, the attorneys who prosecute the case have contingent contracts of 50 per cent of whatever is recovered.

I say that the inducement is exceedingly great, and I say that when the committee comes to consider, as it will consider, the fact that some of these persons who are attorneys in fact for the applicants