While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
I was Principal Law Clerk of the Mississippi Choctaw
Legal Department at the time the case of Scott S. Dumas et al. as MCR 4006
was decided and at that time I directed Charles M. Wrigley, one of the law
clerks in my dept. to write a decision in said case, but first to prepare
a brief of the evidence offered by the applicants for the purpose of
proving an attempted compliance on the part of their ancestors. This brief
I submitted to Mr. P(?) B. Hopkins, Chief Law Clerk of the Commission, and
suggested that it was the opinion of Mr. Wrigley and myself that the
applicants had made a fairly good case on the point of an attempted
compliance and in our opinion should be given the benefit of a doubt and a
decision written in their favor, but that the records failed to show that
any persons bearing the names as borne by their ancestors had ever
attempted to comply. My instructions from Mr. Hopkins at that time was to
write a decision denying applicants if their ancestors did not appear on
the records as having complied or attempted to have complied as the
(Dawes) Commission was adverse to identifying parties who could not trace
their descent back to someone who had so complied or attempted to comply
and had their names of record as having done so. This matter had been
submitted just before my leaving for the state of Mississippi on
Commission business and I turned the matter over to Mr. Wrigley with
instructions to write the decision as suggested by Mr. Hopkins and myself.
This was done and upon my return said decision, with a few minor changes
made by me (part of which were suggested by Mr. Hopkins), was submitted to
the Commission, and as I understand, signed by them (I having left the
service prior to said signing). At the time the matter was submitted to
Mr. Hopkins first I took it from his conversation that the Commission did
not care to identify these people upon testimony proving an attempted
compliance and that if the Department saw fit to overrule the Commission
in this view it would be better than for the decision to be written
identifying parties in the first instance. The above is about all that I
can remember now of any conversation between myself and Mr. Hopkins.
About the same kind in substance was had between myself and Jus. Bixby
except that he did not see the brief of the evidence, only taking my
statement as to what that was. Mr. W. O. Beall who is, and was then, Chief
Clerk of the Choctaw-Chickasaw Enrollment Division never had an official
consultation with me in regard to this case but did say this was too a lot
of people to let go in on such testimony.
Charles von Weise (signature)
There was a general rumor among those who were
writing decisions in Mississippi Choctaw cases at this time that the
Commission considered this too large a case to identify on testimony
proving attempted compliance where parties were not of record and that a
decision denying applicants would be written as it was considered best for
the Department to decide that matter.
Charles von Weise (signature)
Second statement
Transcribed by Kitty Garber
from photocopy she personally made of original handwritten testimony
submitted by Charles von Weise two months after the decision of the
commission on May 15, 1903, which denied the application. Presumably, this
document was part of the subsequent appeal. Original is in the Scott S.
Dumas et al. (MCR 4006) file, Mississippi Choctaw applications, National
Archives, Washington, DC.)
