“It is a matter of history that Hole-in-the-Day was opposed to the admission of the mixed-bloods to this reservation and that he was killed at their instigation, and there has been irrepressible friction between these Indians ever since.” ----- Footnote 8: Three Years Among the Comanches; Albany, 1859. Footnote 9: Hearings before a subcommittee of the Committee on Expenditures in the Interior Department, House of Representatives. House Resolutions, 103, March 6, 1912. Footnote 10: Name omitted. CHAPTER V. THE LEGAL COMPLICATIONS AT WHITE EARTH—THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE Judge Marsden C. Burch, representing the Attorney General of the United States (Department of Justice) before the Committee on Expenditures in the Interior Department, House of Representatives, went into modern Ojibwa history at great length. The hearings began July 25, 1911, and continued through March 27, 1912. The testimony lies before me, and it fills 2,759 pages. It would be well nigh impossible for readers to consult this enormous bulk of evidence submitted by several hundred witnesses. He found, as have others, that they moved into Minnesota from the head of Lake Superior some seventy years ago. About 1868 the White Earth reservation was established, and the following bands were located at White Earth, Leech Lake, Red Lake, and Cass Lake in Minnesota: the Mississippi; the Otter Tails; the Pillagers; and a few Indians still claiming they belonged to the Lake Superior band and the Fond du Lac band. The White Earth reservation consisted of thirty-six townships, or 829,440 acres. The population in 1909 was 5,300; about 700 full-bloods and 4,600 mixed-bloods. Those who have traveled over it will agree with Judge Burch’s statement. “I have never seen a more beautiful stretch of territory than that embraced in the present White Earth reservation. It contained lakes and streams, prairies and forests, timber enough of white pine originally there to build all the elegant buildings that might have been needed for centuries to come, of the most valuable character—timber which now converted into lumber would be worth in the open market, ranging by various grades, from $35 to $110 per thousand feet, board measure. It is hard wood, ample for fuel and all kinds of purposes. There were marshes and lakes wherein they could fish, and whereon they could hunt and gather wild rice for their sustenance; and the richest of prairie lands imaginable, high, rolling, healthy—everything that could be desired for the last stand of a great race.” On January 8, 1912, Judge Burch made a longer speech which reviews the entire political and Departmental history of White Earth.[11] Some readers may wish to know a little concerning the legal procedures by which Indians are dispossessed. We will, therefore, take White Earth as an example, and omit the discussion of similar troubles elsewhere. I present about a fourth of his address. [Illustration: