“No machinery for carrying into effect the Clapp amendment was provided therein, and thus it remained to be determined who were and who were not adults of the mixed-blood and freed from restraint as to alienation. The result was that designing persons rushed in and obtained deeds and mortgages indiscriminately; that is, from children of the mixed-blood and adults of the full-blood the same as adults of the mixed-blood. In all of these they were accustomed to recite the competency of the Indian, and attached to the deed in each case they usually secured what purported to be the affidavit of two persons that the allottee was an adult Indian of the mixed blood, which affidavits were ordinarily passed with the deed in making mesne conveyances or in recording in the proper county recording office. In connection with these transactions we shall be able to demonstrate to the committee that every variety of fraudulent schemes and devices which would occur naturally to acute minds was resorted to to defraud the Indians. The taking of these deeds in violation of law from minors of the mixed-blood and from full-bloods eventuated in the action of the Government in requiring the Department of Justice to file about 1,200 bills in equity to remove the clouds from the titles to lands thus unlawfully obtained. “Following upon the sudden acquirement of money by persons in some respects less fitted to handle the same and make proper use of it than white children of tender years, there came a condition of affairs which we expect to demonstrate to the committee as most deplorable and shameful, a stain upon the fair fame of a great and enlightened State. Saloons ran wide open. Cheap and tawdry articles were sold at extravagant prices. The Indians were overreached, and the money they had obtained from selling or mortgaging their lands or timber was coaxed from them in exchange for objects of little or no value, but of supposed utility—such as decrepit horses, defective vehicles, unmanageable sewing machines, and even pianos of little worth. A perfect frenzy of drunkenness characterized many who took their way to the neighboring town of Detroit, and encamped in its vicinity, and practically the same conditions occurred in the hamlets along the Soo Road. The land-shark, passing under the more dignified title of real-estate agent, was everywhere in evidence, and the money-loaning shark, posing under the more dignified business appellation of banker, was engaged in over-reaching the Indian right and left. * * * * *