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 INDIAN RIGHTS 
 ASSOCIATION 
 
 AFRESSES DELIVERED 
 AT THE TWENTY- SEVENTH 
 ANNUAL MEETING OF 
 THE INDIAN RIGHTS 
 ASSOCIATION
 
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 V ; , 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 FRIES 3000. 
 
 ADDRESSES 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE 
 
 Twenty-seventh Annual Meeting 
 
 OF 
 
 The Jndian Rights Association 
 
 Thursday Evening, December 17, 1909 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 OFFICE OF THE INDIAN RIGHTS ASSOCIATION 
 
 709 PROVIDENT BUILDING 
 
 IQIO
 
 ADDRESSES 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE 
 
 Twenty-seventh Annual Meeting 
 
 OF 
 
 The Indian Rights Association 
 
 Thursday Evening, December 17, 1909
 
 ADDRESS OF REV. CARL E. GRAMMER, S. T. D., 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE INDIAN RIGHTS ASSOCIATION. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen: According to the general rule of 
 presidental addresses on such occasions it becomes my duty 
 to give you a brief outline of the work of our Association 
 for the year. It will be also well that I should rehearse in 
 passing once more some fundamental articles in our belief, 
 and if possible make plainer and therefore more effective 
 some cardinal principles in our philanthropic efforts. I 
 shall omit much for the sake of brevity, but I shall some- 
 what enlarge on principles because we have the great 
 pleasure of having with us the Commissioner of Indian 
 Affairs, the Honorable Robert G. Valentine, who will I 
 doubt not compliment us by telling us with frankness of the 
 situation in his great department, and of the way in which 
 in his judgment such associations as ours can best help 
 him in his work, and I am anxious that he should know 
 exactly how we. ourselves conceive our work, that we may 
 have the benefit of his criticism and of a frank interchange 
 of views. 
 
 When we met at this annual gathering a year ago, we 
 were occupied with the confinement in an Arizona prison 
 of Byalille and Polly with their six companions, on an in- 
 definite sentence, without any previous trial by any court, 
 martial or civil. Our application for a writ of habeas 
 corpus was pending. Later on, as you know, it was 
 refused by the court of first instance, but this decision was 
 reversed by the Appellate Court in a unanimous decision 
 of the judges who took part in the trial of the case. Notice 
 of an appeal was given by the Government, and Mr. John 
 G. Johnson, whom we asked to represent us, in case the 
 
 3
 
 appeal was carried to the Supreme Court, generously 
 agreed to do so gratuitously. We awaited the result with a 
 confidence that had always been strong, but was made 
 even greater by the great weight of Mr. Johnson's opinion 
 that the decision of the Appellate Court was good law and 
 ought to stand. The government, however, finally aban- 
 doned the appeal, and this Association has thus vindicated 
 the important principle that the Indians are not under the 
 personal control of the agent to such an extent that he 
 can deprive them of liberty without due process of law, or 
 incarcerate them indefinitely until he is satisfied that they 
 are sufficiently tamed by his lawless force to be regarded as 
 law-abiding characters, who can be safely turned out on 
 the community. By our action, the Indian has been given 
 a striking proof of the power of the law, since he has found 
 that it carries a shield for the oppressed, as well as a sword 
 for the oppressor; and the Indian Department has had the 
 great principle clarified that in its efforts to safeguard and 
 further the public welfare it must move within the circle 
 drawn by the law; that it cannot ride roughshod on its 
 way "law or no law" but that there must be law and 
 not lawlessness in the Indian Office. It is good to know 
 that these principles have been accepted by the present 
 administration, and enjoy the approval of our present 
 Commissioner. It is a matter for grave concern that the 
 Territorial judge should have so little legal insight, or such 
 an inability to criticise the party to which he owed his 
 appointment, that he could not recognize the true principles 
 at issue. It is also a subject of regret that such a champion 
 of ethics and of the courts as "The Outlook" should have 
 endorsed this imprisonment, and quoted the lower court 
 as supporting its view; but should have failed to record 
 the reversal of the case, and have given us only the most 
 limited opportunity to state our view of the situation. 
 Can it be that this great weekly, that aspires to fill the high 
 office of a prophet of national righteousness, has lost its 
 vision, and like the old prophet in the Book of Kings, 
 who dwelt in the capital of Jeroboam and enjoyed the
 
 king's protection, has become a dangerous counsellor to 
 younger prophets? There is some similarity in conditions. 
 The favor of the authority in capitals has ever been apt to 
 dim the vision of the prophets. "The Outlook's" course 
 in this case reminds us that we must try the prophets, if 
 we are to retain the vision. 
 
 Shortly after this success in the case of the Navajos, we 
 met with a technical reverse in the confirmation of the 
 appointment of Mr. Dalby as Indian Inspector. Largely 
 through the great influence of our Honorary President, 
 Hon. Joseph H. Choate, we were given a hearing before the 
 Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, and a number of the 
 members of our Executive Committee, headed by Mr. 
 Herbert Welsh, went to Washington and stated the grounds 
 of our opposition. Mr. Dalby had, however, behind him 
 the immense weight of a new administration, whose recom- 
 mendations the party managers were desirous of carrying 
 out, if possible, and our statements were not given the 
 weight that would normally be given to assertions that a 
 certain agent did not so enjoy the confidence of the public 
 that his reports would carry conviction. It seems to have 
 been the understanding that a merely technical victory 
 should be won over us, for shortly after his confirmation 
 Mr. Dalby retired, and I shall be much surprised if we hear 
 any regrets from Mr. Valentine, who has so frankly spoken, 
 at Mohonk, of the great difficulty of securing intelligent and 
 trustworthy inspectors. Still, I regret that we did not 
 gain our case before the Senate Committee, and I wish to 
 protest here against a policy of compromise, which is very 
 seductive to those involved in the difficulties of adminis- 
 tration, but is really so dangerous to the moral foundations 
 of society. When serious charges are made, for example, 
 against an agent, of slack administration on his part, under 
 the pressure of wealthy men who have political friends high 
 in authority, it is for the Indian Office, in the line of the 
 least resistance, to suggest to the agent and his friends 
 that if he will slip out and so put an end to a situation that 
 has caused trouble, he will be given clean papers and his
 
 administration will not be officially blamed. This avoids 
 any unpleasant exposure of profitable exploitation of politi- 
 cal influence by party leaders in any section, and does not 
 excite any deep animosities. Yet it is a course that only 
 makes the way of the wrong-doers easy. If the exploita- 
 tion of the Indian is to be stopped, the Department must 
 not merely alter as rapidly as possible the conditions that 
 make such aggressions difficult to prevent; it must also 
 have the courage to stand up against the lawless greed of 
 the white men, must brand their ill-gotten gains as illicit, 
 and must tear from their faces the mask of legality. It 
 must also strengthen the conscientious public servant in 
 his fidelity by refusing an honorable discharge from the 
 service to the inefficient and slack. It must resist the 
 temptation of publicly rebuking an Association like this, 
 as a society of impractical visionaries, and then privately 
 getting rid of the men to whom we object. There is abun- 
 dant precedent for this treatment of reformers. It has 
 always been an attractive by-path, close to the highway 
 of righteousness. The Earl of Shaftesbury, who made that 
 great title, once associated either with political intrigue 
 or sentimental speculation, a synonym for practical philan- 
 thropy and wise reform through legislation, again and 
 again asserted in his biography that his associations were 
 frequently deprived of the full fruits of their successes by 
 the unwillingness of the public, and especially of the govern- 
 ment, to give them due credit for their achievements. 
 Not that the great Earl wanted praise. A man who had so 
 despised contumely could do without praise. It was not 
 that; but he wanted the acknowledgment that the moral 
 principles on which he had based his reforms had proven 
 safe guides, so that those principles and their advocates 
 might have their weight in the future, when fighting 
 against the prudential expediencies of administration. He 
 wanted the banners of victory, as well as the more sub- 
 stantial fruits, that he might be able to enlist more recruits 
 for the service. I believe that I express the mind of this 
 Association when I say that we sympathize with Lord
 
 Shaftesbury in this matter. If we are wrong, let the Depart- 
 ment refute us vigorously ; it will be a wholesome discipline 
 and teach us accuracy and sanity ; but if we have proven to 
 be helpful to the cause, let us have the frank assurance of 
 that helpfulness. A recreant prophet may be thrown 
 overboard to still the storm, but the true prophet should be 
 approved. 
 
 But I must turn to the work of our agents. Mr. S. M. 
 Brosius went out west during the summer on his annual 
 trip of inspection. On one of the reservations he found a 
 drunken and inefficient farmer in charge, and his representa- 
 tions resulted in the removal of this bibulous character 
 from his post. He also interested himself actively in the 
 Yumas, who had been given by Congress five acres apiece 
 of the irrigated land on their reservation. The allotment 
 had not yet been made, and Mr. Brosius helped to bring 
 about a suspension of the allotment till Congress should be 
 given an opportunity to reconsider its action. Mr. Brosius' 
 appeal for ten acres is supported by clear and strong 
 arguments, and I believe will prevail. I understand that 
 the present Commissioner favors this more liberal allot- 
 ment. Mr. Brosius has also done good work in advocating 
 the protection of the Pimas in their use of surface water for 
 agriculture. He has endeavored also, though without 
 success, to reach Chitty Hargo, or "Crazy Snake," and 
 persuade him to entrust himself to the courts. His most 
 important work, however, has been in studying the ques- 
 tions that gather around the protection of the Indians in 
 their allotments, and the restriction of their right of sale, 
 so that they may not be allowed to deprive themselves of 
 their land till they have made a full trial of agriculture as a 
 means of livelihood. Better than reform of abuses is 
 their prevention by wise legislation. Mr. Brosius has spent 
 about fourteen weeks in all in the field, and has brought 
 back much knowledge and numerous suggestions that 
 deserve our careful consideration. 
 
 Mr. Sniffen has also gone, as our agent, into the west 
 and, with the entire concurrence of the Commissioner, has
 
 8 
 
 been on the Crow reservation, in Montana, from which he 
 was once ejected. Every courtesy was shown him in 
 gathering information, and when the Government resolved 
 on the very course that we had been so long vainly advo- 
 cating, and sent out Mr. Holcombe, their Chief Supervisor, 
 to investigate that reservation, this same mischief -making 
 Mr. Sniffen, this dangerous character who was put off the 
 reservation in Commissioner Leupp's day, was requested 
 by Mr. Holcombe to go out again and aid the supervisor 
 by his unofficial services. Mr. Holcombe is with us this 
 evening, and as he has not rendered his report, I suppose 
 that I must not enter in that matter. Much of the evidence, 
 however, is already in our hands, and we are looking with 
 interest to hear what Mr. Holcombe thinks about the 
 digging of that great ditch across the reservation without 
 any authority from Washington, and without any check 
 from the agent. Mr. Lincoln used to tell the story of a 
 temperance lecturer in Texas who rode up on a hot day to 
 a tavern, where the host was stirring a bowlful of cooling 
 and fragrant mint-julep. "Won't you have some?" 
 said the host. "No," said the traveller, "it's against my 
 principles," and he took a glass of water. "Better take 
 some of this," urged the host. "No," said the traveller, 
 "I can't do it, but but but I wouldn't mind if you 
 could put some in this glass unbeknownst to me." Some- 
 times agents don't mind if things are done unbeknownst. 
 But a watch-dog that can't see or won't bark should surely 
 be discharged from keeping guard. 
 
 I have left till the last the most important occurrence 
 of the year. Shortly after the inauguration of Mr. Taft, 
 Mr. Leupp resigned, and the present Commissioner took 
 his place. Towards the end of his Commissionership Mr. 
 Leupp had lost all patience with this Association, and 
 regarded us as chronic fault-finders, and we had lost that 
 trust in Mr. Leupp's balance, wisdom and open-mindedness 
 which we had given him when he entered his high office. 
 At the time of his retirement I took it upon myself, as 
 your president, to say in an interview that was published
 
 in the "North American," that we regarded Mr. Leupp's 
 resignation as a relief. Among other criticisms upon 
 him I stated that he had made it more difficult for the 
 Indians to leave their reservations by the issuance of a 
 complicated set of regulations. In a private correspondence 
 with me Mr. Leupp has disowned these regulations, and 
 claims that they existed in Commissioner Jones' day, and 
 were not continued in force or reissued by him. I find 
 that he is correct in saying that these regulations date back 
 to the previous Commissioner. I desire, therefore, to 
 modify my statement so far. But Mr. Leupp has not 
 furnished me with proofs that justify any further retraction. 
 The Indian Office in Washington does not appear to know 
 that these regulations are no longer in force. In a contro- 
 versy of this kind, where the former Commissioner calls 
 on me to support my statements by proof, the exigencies 
 of the case demand similar proof of his averments. This 
 he has not supplied. All, therefore, that I wish to do on this 
 occasion is to state, in justice to Mr. Leupp, that he dis- 
 avows that the Indians were kept in undue restraint by the 
 agents, and claims that he allowed them much increased 
 liberty. I accept Mr. Leupp's statement of his inten- 
 tions; but I cannot admit that he made those intentions 
 effective in the service. Of this no satisfactory proof has 
 yet been afforded me. It will be of interest to Mr. Valen- 
 tine to know that his predecessor states that rule No. 
 586 has been repealed. It reads as follows: 
 
 "The practice of bands of Indians making or returning 
 visits to other reservations is deemed injurious to both the 
 visitors and the visited, and must not be encouraged; but 
 where a few Indians, who have by meritorious conduct 
 and attention to their work earned the enjoyment of certain 
 privileges, desire to make short visits at seasons when it 
 will not interfere with any important interest, there will 
 be no objection, provided always that the consent of the 
 agent of the tribe to be visited has previously been obtained. 
 In all doubtful cases the consent of the Indian Office must 
 first be asked for and obtained."
 
 10 
 
 I should be glad to have some documentary proof of 
 such repeal ; that is to say, a copy of some order annulling 
 its restrictions. 
 
 It is a great source of gratification to us that Mr. Valen- 
 tine has spoken out so strongly, at the Mohonk Conference, 
 of the conditions in his branch of the service, and acted so 
 promptly in ordering the investigation of the Crow reserva- 
 tion. I must not stand much longer between you and him. 
 Yet before I present him to you, I must say a few words 
 on our relation to his great department. 
 
 It has become an axiom in the administration of our great 
 institutions, where large powers of control over others are 
 placed in the hands of officials, that the interests of these 
 officials and of their wards require that there should be 
 unpaid and disinterested inspectors to oversee and keep 
 watch against the growth of tyranny and against the de- 
 generation of sloth and routine. The keepers of our jails, 
 our almshouses, our hospitals and our reformatories must 
 be made to feel that their wards have stronger voices than 
 their own to plead their cause, if they are wronged. The 
 Indian service is in charge of over a quarter of a million 
 wards, and has great and necessary, though often ill -defined, 
 powers. We are not anxious to curtail these just powers 
 and render the department ineffective, but we are not so 
 ignorant of mankind as to believe that large powers can 
 safely be bestowed without the exercise of great watchful- 
 ness over the guardian and his ward, and the infliction of 
 prompt and public punishment for the abuse of such power. 
 We are not able to persuade ourselves, in the light of our 
 own history and the history of the conditions in the Indian 
 service, that the official visitors who are appointed by the 
 President are sufficient to insure the necessary criticism 
 and impartial scrutiny. While their services should be 
 recognized, and wholesome benefits they have secured 
 for the Indians should be gratefully recorded, still they 
 themselves recognize the value of voluntary associations, 
 unconnected in any way with the government and whose 
 trumpet is not muffled by official courtesies. The field
 
 II 
 
 is so large and the problems so difficult that the more 
 minds enlisted in the service, the better for the cause. 
 
 In addition to this problem of guarding the exercise of 
 great discretionary power in the hands of agents, who are 
 far distant from the supervising authority, we have the 
 additional task of trying to uplift a backward race, sur- 
 rounded by a population that resents its presence. "The 
 trouble with South Africa," said an Englishman to Booker 
 Washington, "is the presence of the black man." He 
 regarded the black men as intruders down there. In the 
 same way many of our people, particularly in the west, 
 regard the Indians as intruders in America and are ready 
 to resort to any methods to oust them. This temper of the 
 whites is just as much part of our problem as the laziness and 
 barbarism of the Indians. Thejoppression that results from it 
 we regard it as our duty to point out. Indeed the chief prob- 
 lem of the Indian Office is created not by the size and com- 
 plexity of its machinery and the toughness of the material 
 on which it works; but by the pressure upon that whole 
 machinery of the immense weight of the masses of white 
 population, who want what the Indian has and want to 
 secure it on their own terms. We are not engaged in the 
 vain task of trying to keep back the advancing tide of 
 civilization. It is not the contention of this Association 
 that the Indian ought to be stirred up to hold on to all his 
 property, and to gain in this way an unearned increment of 
 value that will support him and his in idleness forever. We 
 are in favor of giving him his land in severalty, as rapidly 
 as can be done, and of introducing him into the rights, 
 responsibilities and perils of other persons in this land. 
 But we believe that in such allotments the Indian should 
 be given a fair chance to make good, by securing for him 
 a sufficient allotment; that he should not be embittered 
 by fraud in the purchase of the remaining land; that his 
 properties should not be exploited by people with political 
 influence; that he should not be carried out into the jungle 
 and torn in pieces by the wild beasts, which, if recent 
 realistic fiction is not utterly false, and recent utterances by
 
 12 
 
 one who wears the judicial ermine are not utterly untrue, 
 ravages out beyond the Alleghenies just as we know from 
 personal experience it ravages up and down these streets 
 of Philadelphia. The Indian needs to be protected against 
 this beast of the jungle, as Judge Lindsay has well named 
 it; and the agent needs to be warned against it. In cases 
 where we have reason to believe that the agents are in 
 close combination with parties whose interests, in a narrow 
 sense, are opposed to the rights of the Indians, we believe 
 that we help the department in pointing out such relations, 
 and that we benefit the public service by emphasizing their 
 perils. The inspector of arms in the army must not be 
 concerned in the manufacture of arms, nor the boon com- 
 panion of the manufacturer whom he is paid to watch; 
 and the Indian agent who has no warmth of feeling for 
 the Indian, and is the close business associate of the people 
 who are using Indian properties, is an agent who does not 
 gain public confidence. 
 
 There are many problems in the elevation of the Indian, 
 I know educational, sanitary, legal, and economic; and 
 we are interested in all of them, but not one of them will 
 succeed unless we can protect this aboriginal people from 
 the unscrupulous graft of our money-getters, as well as 
 from the fiery potages and the seductive vices of our com- 
 plex civilization. Righteousness is needed in ourselves, 
 as well as in the Indians, if they are to be saved and exalted. 
 
 But I have spoken sufficiently on our work and our aims, 
 and it gives me much pleasure to present to you our dis- 
 tinguished guest, the Hon. Robert G. Valentine, who has 
 risen, through his efficiency in the Department, to the posi- 
 tion of Commissioner of Indian Affairs.
 
 ADDRESS OF HON. R. G. VALENTINE, 
 
 COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. 
 
 Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: I wish I could get 
 into a few words all I feel when I say I am glad to be here. 
 Perhaps it would be better for me to put before you what 
 I came here to say without reference to one or two points 
 in Dr. Grammer's remarks which you might be interested 
 in having me speak to you about, leaving those to come up 
 afterward in any questions which you might like to ask. 
 That will perhaps save time. 
 
 Your invitation to me to speak at your annual meeting 
 would in itself be a compliment, for this is an occasion 
 when the collected data and thoughts of a year are natur- 
 ally being gathered into orderly array, and so one in which 
 your own minds are most sensitive to the impressions of 
 the past and most prolific of plans for the future. It is 
 an occasion in which there must necessarily be much that 
 is still tentative, much that is balancing on the edge of 
 judgment. It is, therefore, an occasion when it is particu- 
 larly kind of you to invite a stranger within your gates; 
 for unless he come in full recollection of his presence as a 
 guest, he is likely to introduce a jarring element thought- 
 lessly, though not of course intentionally, and so interfere 
 with the clarifying of the situation in your minds. 
 
 But your invitation is even more kind than this. You 
 have coupled with it in response to my query as to what 
 subjects would interest you most, the further invitation 
 for me to state my views as to the good that can come from 
 co-operation between the government and an association 
 like yours. I accept this invitation and shall keep, in 
 intention at any rate, within the spirit of the courtesy with 
 which it was offered, at the same time that I pay tribute
 
 14 
 
 to the sincerity of your courtesy by speaking with absolute 
 candor, in the belief that should my views not meet yours, 
 you will tell me why and in what way. 
 
 And in this connection I shall hope by being brief enough 
 not to tire you, to leave time at the end for full questioning 
 and informal discussion. I always feel in answering ques- 
 tions at the end of an address that I am then sure of in- 
 teresting at least the questioner. I shall, therefore, cover 
 certain parts of my subject rather broadly and suggestively, 
 leaving the discussion later to fill in the details. 
 
 Before I take up my views of co-operation, it may be 
 useful for us all for me to sketch in briefly the main out- 
 lines of Indian affairs as I see them, that we may all have 
 the larger elements of the picture clearly before us, get its 
 perspective true and become fully aware of our point of 
 view, that point of view and in this I yield to none 
 common to all who have the best interests of the Indian, 
 and only those, at heart. 
 
 The geography of the picture is clearly on this map 
 behind me. The yellow areas indicate the regions where 
 many of the Indians live, in these the reservation being 
 still a dominant issue in the problem. But nearly half of 
 the three hundred thousand Indians in the country to-day 
 live in regions not clearly shown here, one hundred 
 thousand, for example, in the eastern part of Oklahoma, 
 many thousands scattered through California, and many 
 more in Michigan, and smaller groups scattered through 
 others of the twenty-six States in which the Indians live. 
 The total area of this Indian country, were it grouped into 
 one solid mass, would be about twice the State of New 
 York in size; and it is really very much larger than that 
 because of the difficulty of transportation within many of 
 these regions, where, oftentimes, a large section of country 
 is accessible only by trails. We all know how the good 
 wagon road, the railroad and the automobile road have 
 played tricks with the geography of our youth. 
 
 To this great physical size of Indian affairs is added a 
 bewildering complexity of content. It is perhaps best
 
 illustrated by the fact that the tribes within these areas 
 speak something like two hundred and fifty fairly distinct 
 dialects, and these dialects are but one evidence that the 
 variety of thought, action, and human qualities generally, 
 makes our work heterogeneous in character. You will 
 pardon me for telling you many things which you already 
 know, but I find it often useful to review these facts in my 
 own mind. The Blackfeet are as different from the Hopi, 
 the Sioux from the Navajo, as are the nations of Europe 
 from each other, and each must consequently be dealt 
 with in his own peculiar way. In many of these regions 
 the tribal relation is still almost as powerful as of old; in 
 others it has almost disappeared. As a whole the problem, 
 either from the point of view of what does exist or will 
 soon exist, has become one in which the individual Indian, 
 whether closely bound in tribal customs or entirely freed 
 from them, has become our main work. The govern- 
 ment to-day, with its corps of two hundred men in 
 Washington and five thousand in the field, must do the 
 best it can with three hundred thousand quite separate 
 human beings as its task. 
 
 To these individuals belong many millions of money; 
 tribal funds still on deposit in the Treasury of the United 
 States, individual funds deposited both there and on de- 
 posit in the national banks throughout the country. Also 
 through the country are 400 schools broadly divided into 
 five classes: Non-reservation schools, reservation board- 
 ing-schools, day-schools, religious contract schools and 
 public schools where Indians attend, with an enrollment 
 altogether of about 46,000 pupils. Several thousand chil- 
 dren of school age are not in school at all. About 36 per 
 cent, of the area of this Indian country has been allotted 
 to Indians in individual ownership in areas ranging from 
 five acres in irrigated sections, passing up through eighty- 
 and one-hundred-and-sixty-acre tracts in agricultural 
 country, or even larger amounts in the dry-farming coun- 
 try, to areas a mile square in certain grazing countries. 
 Many of the allotted Indians live on their allotments; many
 
 i6 
 
 do not; some live on them without farming them at all, 
 and some farm them to differing extents. Widely through- 
 out the country unused parts of allotments are leased to 
 the incoming white man, and generally all these Indian 
 holdings are being crowded in upon by the economic, social 
 and political life of our white people, developing with 
 astounding rapidity; Oklahoma City, for example, in 
 Oklahoma, where a few years ago only Indian country was, 
 is to-day a rapidly growing city of fifty thousand inhabitants, 
 with many miles of paving and street railways, where seven 
 or eight years ago hardly a square yard of paving existed. 
 Even the remotest sections of the Indian country are 
 being penetrated by the prospector and the would-be 
 lessee and settler, until there is little of it all that is not 
 to-day more or less under the influence of our civilization, 
 with all its varied forces, good and bad; trade, from the 
 highly developed department store to the outlying trader's 
 post; the saloon, from the gilded bar to the boot-legger; 
 the church, from the beautiful building to the little out- 
 lying mission; the home of the wealthy citizen, to the cabin 
 of the frontiersman. 
 
 I hope I have not wearied you with this canvas, which 
 often seems to me a subject for some modern Michael 
 Angelo to use on some great decorative ceiling, indicating 
 emblematically the millions of acres, the millions of dollars 
 and the millions of human traits involved. 
 
 Politically, this living human problem of three hundred 
 thousand souls has been directly entrusted by the President 
 of the United States, on behalf of the people of the United 
 States, to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs and his force 
 of over five thousand assistants, almost all of whom are 
 to-day under the Civil Service of the United States, I am 
 glad to say. This is a task no one man can hope to handle 
 except in its broadest outline. He must depend for its 
 in any wise successful execution, not only on the sub- 
 ordinate help of his own employees as government officials, 
 but on their equal and co-operative help as fellow-workers. 
 And these are the least part of the forces which work either
 
 for him or against him. In a sense, the greatest body of 
 his fellow-workers in the task are the great body of citizens 
 living on or around Indian reservations who are largely 
 outside his jurisdiction, to a number far exceeding the 
 number of the Indians; and beyond this great mass of 
 citizens are the rest of the people of the United States, 
 themselves knowing more or less about Indians, some- 
 times unorganized and sometimes organized into associa- 
 tions like yours. Standing in the midst of such mighty 
 human currents as these, the only way in which the man 
 who is supposed to handle Indian affairs can move in the 
 right course is by recognizing the fundamental laws of 
 human action. I will, therefore, try to sketch for you just 
 as I have the objective side of the problem, its subjective 
 aspects. You will readily perceive that in such a situation 
 the merely human plans or policies of any individual, 
 clothed with no matter how high seeming authority, have 
 little place ; how, if he would be strong for the purposes of 
 guidance, he must know not plans or policies, but principles. 
 You may think my distinction a fanciful one, but to me it 
 is most healthful. I can perhaps illustrate it and empha- 
 size it in your minds by an illustration from trade. A so- 
 called captain of industry building a great railway system 
 or great manufacturing or commercial enterprise becomes 
 what he is by seeing, as other men do not see, the funda- 
 mental principles of production and commerce. Into his 
 net fall the smaller men who merely had business plans 
 and business policies. So great are the principles of life 
 as opposed to mere plans and policies that even when these 
 plans and policies are concentrated in all the power of the 
 government of a great nation, they do not suffice to buck 
 successfully the simple laws of trade. The government of 
 the United States cannot in any lasting way name the 
 price of boots and shoes. I have therefore said many 
 times in my Indian administration, "I have no plans, no 
 policies"; that in all my words and thoughts I am only 
 trying to express, whether to the people in the service or 
 to the citizens who live near the Indians, the principles
 
 i8 
 
 in the light of which we must live, if we would do good to 
 the Indians. I try to view and express these principles 
 from every possible point of view. A short time ago, speak- 
 ing at Mohonk, I spoke of them from the point of view of 
 health and schools and industries. Here to-night I propose 
 to look at them from another point of view, and lay them, 
 under other names, as clearly as I may before you. 
 
 The first principle of which I would speak is this: That 
 no human power can long stay the land from being put to 
 beneficial use. I am often asked why we cannot keep the 
 Indian in the old reservation life, why we ever need attempt 
 to make him share our civilization why, in short, the 
 Indian may not remain an Indian, with all his customs in- 
 tact. The principle I have stated answers cruelly, if 
 you please, sympathetically perhaps, if you listen right 
 Every acre of the land of these United States must be put 
 to its own greatest productiveness. Oppose the Indian 
 to this and you push him under the wheels of a Juggernaut, 
 which is greater than you or I or all the power of the 
 people's government can stay; because the people them- 
 selves, whether consciously or unconsciously, are bound 
 to make this land blossom. Nothing but an act of God, 
 changing the nature of man, would avail. It is so that the 
 property of the rich man's son, does he fail in his steward- 
 ship, passes into the hands of the man who only starts 
 poor. And so it is with the Indian's money as it is with 
 his land, and so it will ever be as with all human beings. 
 The only hope for the Indian is in teaching him to be the 
 one to make the beneficial use. All of the energies of those 
 who have the good of the Indian at heart should be bent 
 toward teaching him to use his land, and such Indians as 
 can never be made into farmers must be taught otherwise 
 the beneficial use of their moneys, or their hands or their 
 brains in the light of this same great principle of beneficial 
 use which will crush everyone and anyone who does not 
 either consciously or unconsciously obey it. 
 
 In this connection, I would point out a way in which one 
 of the greatest forces which is bound to bear on the Indian,
 
 19 
 
 whether we like it or not, can be turned to his advantage. 
 I speak of the grafter, the man or the community who is 
 trying to get the Indian's land away from him. Grafter is, 
 perhaps, best defined by stating that he is the man who 
 tries to get something for nothing. There are any number 
 of people in the different States, and they are not all con- 
 ^ fined to Indian country at that, who are working on this 
 basis. It is a form of gambling, if you please. Now that 
 isn't the element of the situation to which I would call 
 your attention to-night, but that whether it is in a good man 
 or a bad man, it is this great passion of acquisitiveness 
 which is at the root of the grafter as it is at the root of 
 the greatest philanthropist who ever lived. I want us to 
 look for a moment at this side of the grafter which I think 
 we have never fully grasped. Picture to yourself one of 
 you going to live near the Indian country. You are young ; 
 you are strong; you have a good mind; you are poor, 
 perhaps, but your sound vitality and healthy human in- 
 stincts lead you to make the most and best of all that 
 comes your way. You go down into a rich agricultural 
 land and buy forty acres. Bordering you lives an Indian 
 on one hundred and sixty acres of that rich land with a 
 little garden on only a few acres of it. The seasons roll by 
 and you make the most of your forty acres. You farm 
 every square yard of it intensively ; you get fine crops and 
 a growing bank account. But the years that have seen 
 this advance for you find the Indian still just where he was 
 when you came. You think what you could do if you had 
 some of his land, and in a perfectly honorable way you 
 spread your own domain by buying some of his at a full 
 and fair price. Now this is the spirit of progress in its 
 most honorable form, moving under all the law-imposed 
 and self-imposed rules of a high political and ethical state. 
 But imagine the infinite varieties of this same perfectly 
 normal healthy spirit of acquisition under all the imperfect 
 forms of civilization. Not only you go in, but the adven- 
 turer goes in, and the robber goes in. At the bottom they 
 have, like you, the perfectly healthy instinct of making
 
 2O 
 
 use of what comes their way, but they take as you bought. 
 An average community around an Indian reservation, as 
 right here in Philadelphia, is full of the play of such forces 
 from one extreme to the other, and the bulk of people in 
 one community, as in the other, is fundamentally sound 
 and healthy. It is merely that the looser rein of political 
 and social life gives freer scope here and there for the ele- 
 mental qualities to play. But in the history of the world 
 there never has been a community, whether it were the 
 Pilgrim Fathers of Plymouth or the penal colonies of Aus- 
 tralia, which did not evolve out of itself law and abiding 
 order. It is this great fact to which I would appeal in 
 our Indian affairs. On the one hand, move our forces 
 forward as never before to teach that Indian I have pic- 
 tured for you how to increase his acreage, hold for him all 
 that part of his one hundred and sixty acres which he is 
 using and which, in all reasonable probability, in his life- 
 time he can hope to use. It may be twenty acres, it may 
 be forty, it may be eighty, and so on, but unless it happen 
 to be in some particular case the whole one hundred and 
 sixty, sell that part which he will not in due time come to 
 use as land sell that part to this perfectly healthy in- 
 stinct, stripping it, however, of its guise of robbery or sin 
 to the force that will put it to beneficial use. Stated in 
 abstract terms, the idea is this: The land of almost every 
 Indian falls into two parts, the allotted land I am speak- 
 ing of, that which he will use as land to raise crops, and 
 that part which is simply property to him. Change that 
 at the earliest practicable date for full and fair price into 
 some other form of property. Changed into money, it 
 can be just as wisely administered by him or for him, and 
 the land which before was tied up from beneficial use, 
 which blocked the development of the country, which 
 kept out the taxpayer, the good neighbor and consequently 
 the schools, will serve its true purpose. Then, having 
 removed this great temptation of idle land, I guarantee 
 that you will find proved for you my statement that the 
 bulk of a community in the Indian country is as sound and
 
 21 
 
 healthy at bottom as any other. I know, from careful 
 trips in the Indian country, from talking just in this last 
 month in Oklahoma with over four hundred different men 
 in addition to the main part of my work, which was visiting 
 the Indians in their own homes I know that those men will 
 turn in and help us on the big constructive work before us. 
 They will help us in getting at this health problem, at this 
 tuberculosis problem; they will help us in our campaign 
 against liquor; they will help the Indians not to get a 
 cent of credit in the stores. I talked with some of those 
 men in Oklahoma, and said to them, "If you really have 
 the interests of this community as well as the Indians at 
 heart, when an Indian comes in and hasn't the money to 
 pay for what he wants, if you will say 'you cannot get 
 credit' if you will refuse credit to that child (which he 
 really is) just as you or I would refuse credit to our children, 
 you will help them." I cannot speak too sincerely on this 
 point. Even the wolves among these people will be turned 
 into helpers of the Indian if we go at them right, not in any 
 sense of being friendly to them as being opposed to the 
 welfare of the Indian; but, on the other hand, not in any 
 sense as was the case long ago where an Indian agent 
 often won his spurs in the eyes of Washington by carrying 
 a chip on his shoulder for every white man. It seems to 
 me that the worst way to get a neighborly spirit into 
 existence is to do nothing but talk against these white men. 
 Cut them off of all their graft, but recognize that they can 
 help us and that they are the ones who can do most, whether 
 we wish it or not, to help the Indian. No matter what the 
 government may do, no matter what you or I may do, the 
 welfare of the Indians rests in the hands of those white 
 people among them. 
 
 So much for the principle of beneficial use. Another I 
 will express as follows: The enormous risk attendant on 
 getting something for nothing. In the light of this prin- 
 ciple, I denounce the bulk of all our leasing of Indian lands. 
 I will ask your charity in suspending judgment on this 
 statement until you have thought it over in all its aspects.
 
 22 
 
 It is a somewhat more evasive principle than the one we 
 have just left, and so I ask this suspension rather than to 
 take your time to go into it deeply enough to prove my 
 point at this time. It would lead us back to the question 
 of the Indian's original right to land as we know land, and 
 it would vanish here and there in the light of the fact that 
 to a man who is working hard at one thing and whose 
 character is stable, other things which may come for 
 nothing are but added and helpful tools to his wise useful- 
 ness in the world. But bared of these fringes and pared 
 down to its naked essence, the principle stands that some- 
 thing for nothing is a grave danger. In short, the Indian 
 who is farming a little and at the same time receiving 
 large rentals for a part of his allotment, has every tempta- 
 tion, at least not to increase his farming, and possibly as 
 his rental grows, to decrease it too great a temptation to 
 put in the way of a character not stable, not fortified in 
 the habit of work. I will not here attempt to go into the 
 thousand modified applications of this principle further 
 than to say that I believe the able-bodied Indian, whom it 
 is wise to try to make into a farmer, should not be allowed 
 to lease at all, but that such surplus land should be sold. 
 The question will naturally spring into your minds as to 
 why the proceeds which come from the sale of land and are 
 placed to the Indians' credit in the banks are any more 
 something for something than the half-yearly rentals 
 flowing in from their leased lands. The answer is this: 
 This land on which his lease lies, and from which semi- 
 annually a certain amount of money comes to him, is 
 right there before his eyes, and the money comes in 
 without any regard to anything he does. If we sell this 
 land and put the money in the bank and then do as I am 
 doing to-day in the face of a very vigorous attack all along 
 the line refuse to let him have that money when he is 
 able-bodied and can get work refuse to let him have it 
 for food and clothing, he will find that this money comes 
 to him in response only to an actual need, coming as of the 
 time of the need, or because he needs it for horses or plows
 
 23 
 
 or building a home for some actual investment. That 
 different use of this money makes it, in one case, something 
 for something; in the case of the leasing, something for 
 nothing. For the old or sick, the question of leasing or 
 sale should be decided according to the merits of each 
 particular case. For the children likewise. 
 
 The applications in all their great variety to individual 
 Indians of these two principles throw great light on the 
 vital subject of the issuance of patents in fee. They bring 
 us by irrefutable logic to the conclusion that the patents 
 in fee should be issued to the indisputably competent 
 Indian, but not otherwise ; and in making this statement I am 
 simply leading you to our third great principle by stating 
 this time the concrete fact before I state the principle itself. 
 It is this. Healthy growth can only exist by using our 
 powers to their fullest capacity. The unused arm becomes 
 flabby; the coddled child grows to the insipid man. On 
 the other hand, the thoroughly tired body wakes to stronger 
 activities, the actively employed mind to clearer thoughts, 
 the daring seeker after right (even he who in his seeking 
 makes missteps and gets hard falls) into fortified character. 
 The Indian is in no wise exempt from all this. As I have 
 said elsewhere, burdens must be put upon him to the very 
 limit he can bear, but not beyond that limit. Complete 
 tire must not be allowed to reach the exhaustion which 
 does not pass; the lesson must not be so severe that 
 naught remains with which experience may do better an- 
 other time. The patent in fee is, therefore, at once one of 
 our most useful and one of our most dangerous adminis- 
 trative means for creating Indian manhood. This use of 
 land which I have brought before you to-night would largely 
 diminish the apparent necessity, in many cases the actual 
 necessity, of the issuance of the patent in fee, and the out- 
 coming report will show the way in which we have cut down 
 the issuance of these patents. 
 
 In this part of my subject I think I have gone far enough 
 for to-night. Other principles will occur to you and their 
 application to the vast complexity of Indian affairs fur-
 
 24 
 
 nishes a study unexcelled in human interest. But these 
 others all exist either as impinging on the three great ones 
 I have named, or as applications of them of such vast im- 
 portance that they are really based on modifications of 
 these in the form of minor principles. I have said enough 
 to indicate the subjective complexities of the vast objective 
 problem I outlined at the start. 
 
 I turn now more specifically to the invitation within your 
 invitation to me to come here, the invitation to give you 
 my views of the good that can come from co-operation 
 between us. It may be a relief to you after the attempt 
 we have made to grasp this mighty problem in its entirety 
 and the mighty principles that pervade it, and the conse- 
 quently laborious language in which such matters have to 
 be expressed, if I now throw my subject into the simpler 
 forms of expression which this branch of it permits. As 
 what we are both after is to do the RIGHT thing, I would rather, 
 instead of limiting myself to a statement about your As- 
 sociation alone, or even to a statement about what any 
 association of people interested in the Indians is as a body 
 actually doing or not doing to help in this work in which 
 we are all engaged, state my propositions in the subjunctive 
 form of what would help, and what would hinder. I can do 
 this without in any way blurring the subject by making 
 it less vitally specific. Neither am I afraid in the slightest 
 degree, should I tell you here frankly what I think your 
 faults are, of your taking them in any spirit except that 
 of being helpfully critical. If any of you think it worth 
 while for me to state my view of any specific act of yours, 
 I will do so. But it seems to me that what is frequently a 
 most wise course between individuals is not only unwise 
 but unfair and untrue as between bodies of men; and so it 
 seems to me much more worth our while here to-night to 
 take a ground that is bound to be free from any danger 
 of obscuring what we are all after, namely, the greatest 
 possible light on the road ahead of us ; and in the interest 
 solely of Indians, rather than wasting our time as the seven 
 wise men did who delivered themselves on the elephant, 
 one maintaining, as you will remember, that an elephant
 
 2 5 
 
 was like a rope because he had hold of its tail, and another 
 that it was like a tree because he had hold of a leg, and so 
 on. Let us get off a little, and arm in arm walk around 
 this elephant. An association like yours, then, would help 
 the government or would hinder it if it did the things I 
 will now mention, and you will realize that I must neces- 
 sarily make all these statements tentatively, and as sub- 
 jects rather for debate than as attempting to be dogmatic 
 truths, because I can be of most help to you if I state them 
 to you clearly from my point of view, which is, officially, 
 the government's point of view. I must necessarily know 
 that far better than I can know yours. For purposes of 
 simplicity, I will use the term "you" for all associations 
 like yours and "me" for all Indian commissioners like me. 
 
 You would help me if you would study this subject as a 
 whole and on the broadest possible philosophic basis. It 
 is like a very complicated piece of machinery or like the 
 human organism; one part cannot safely be touched with- 
 out a pretty thorough understanding of all other parts; 
 one function cannot be modified without a foregoing knowl- 
 edge of how that modification will affect other functions. 
 I think it is not necessary for me to interject here that in 
 this point, as in all others I shall mention, I am not pro- 
 nouncing as to whether you are or are not doing this. 
 
 You would help me by being certain that your general 
 view of the work was based on the most thoroughgoing 
 and empirical study of it. To achieve this you would, 
 ideally speaking, every one of you, go into the Indian coun- 
 try, dividing the field into as many parts as there were 
 members of you, and, returning from the field, compare 
 your notes and test your observations by every possible 
 means known to human intercourse. Failing your ability 
 to do this, you would delegate your eyes and ears in the 
 gathering of this material to the very finest quality of 
 agents you could find so that you could be as certain of the 
 accuracy of your material as if you had been on the ground 
 yourself. The arrangement of this material, the marshall- 
 ing of it and the deductions from it you could, of course, 
 make yourself, here in your libraries in Philadelphia, as
 
 26 
 
 well as you could sitting on a horse in the midst of the 
 Navajo desert, and really better; I seldom allow myself 
 to draw any conclusions from my observations while I 
 am on the reservation concerned. Should you ask these 
 agents not only to collect facts for you, but to think for 
 you, they should be not only first-class and impartial ob- 
 servers, but men of fine reasoning powers. I must smile 
 at what I am saying here, as at so much I have said to- 
 night, because I am stating what, of course, to a large 
 extent you all of you know already. But I always feel 
 that the particular usefulness of a speaker is as often to 
 state as clearly as he can what we all know, as it is to try 
 to state new things. In this belief, I will go bravely on, 
 and add that such men should be not only absolutely 
 honest, but above letting any merely personal and the 
 more ordinary human considerations weigh with them. 
 There are a number of important aspects in connection 
 with the work of such agents in the field which I must 
 speak of before I come to the question of your use of the 
 material or thought they furnish you. The main one is 
 that their work in the field should be conducted in such a 
 way that while they should have every facility given them 
 on the part of the government to get information and study all 
 sides of every question, they should not interfere in the 
 slightest degree with the actual running of the govern- 
 ment's administration. This is a matter which it behooves 
 even my own inspectors to pay the greatest heed to. 
 A slip on their part of this kind has always serious conse- 
 quences. How much graver then such consequences must 
 be to the necessary discipline of the service when committed 
 by anyone else! I may be able to show you a little more 
 clearly just what I mean if I say that even when I myself 
 have found conditions at an agency so far from satisfactory 
 to me that I knew I should shortly dismiss, perhaps in dis- 
 grace, the superintendent on the ground, I have while I 
 was present at the agency and conducting my examination, 
 supported the power and the authority of such a superin- 
 tendent in every possible way, and the best part of it is 
 that the Indians understood my actions. I recall one case
 
 27 
 
 where I said to them: "I want you to stop complaining 
 about this agent, or saying to me that you want him re- 
 moved. I say to you this: I am going to make your affairs 
 here go right. If they are not going right now, I shall 
 find it out, and if this man isn't doing right, I shall send 
 you some one who will. But this man, as long as he remains 
 here, you must not forget, is the superintendent in charge." 
 Time and again I have found Indians able to appreciate 
 this attitude, and I have been touched equally by their 
 trust in me and by the way in which my statement led to 
 the cutting out of the vast mass of irresponsible talk which 
 can be raked up on any Indian reservation in the country. 
 Lest you should think because of the office of Commis- 
 sioner I might be able to do this, I will say that one of my 
 most effective acts of this kind was five years ago when I 
 was on a reservation as an inspecting official. 
 
 You may recall that when I was somewhat nearer the 
 beginning of my term of office than I am to-day, I made the 
 statement in a public address that as long as I was Com- 
 missioner of Indian Affairs, I should be enemy to no man 
 personally, but that I should deal with and talk with and 
 seek information from friend and enemy alike. My 
 resolution in this particular has been put to the test fre- 
 quently, and I only wish I had time to amuse you with the 
 harrowings of soul, and the really extremely funny situa- 
 tions which this resolution has thrown me into. So far I 
 have held to it, I believe, unbroken; and all I can say is 
 that if my strength doesn't hold out in this direction, I shall 
 quit the job, for it is a fundamental conception of mine 
 of what a public servant should be. But I had to leave my 
 office the other day and take a good long run in the open 
 air before I dared trust myself. It was because of a par- 
 ticular whited sepulcher of the kind that makes some of 
 us look hopefully toward the Judgment Day, since ade- 
 quate exposure seems improbable in this world. 
 
 In connection with the subject of not interfering in any 
 way with the administration until the time comes for the 
 proper authority to interfere in just the right way and 
 finally, I would call your attention to another phase of the
 
 28 
 
 situation. Unless it be a New England village, I know of 
 no spot on earth more fruitful of gossip than an Indian 
 reservation, and this is only the shore of the ocean of diffi- 
 culty. The deep water into which one may plunge stretches 
 beyond the horizon. You know, I think, that I speak with 
 some knowledge of actual conditions for I have a rather 
 wide knowledge of things first hand in most of the twenty- 
 six States where we have Indians, when I say that I could 
 go on any one of those reservations, and, if I wished, pick 
 up enough apparent testimony to bring exceedingly serious 
 charges against every employee and most of the Indians on 
 it. I could, in many cases, get an affidavit from an Indian 
 on at least two sides of a question; and the affidavit has 
 in many cases become such a pleasantly exciting, interest- 
 ing occupation that I frequently say to a man when he 
 offers to give me an affidavit to such and such a fact, " Oh, 
 please just write me a letter," really feeling that he is 
 more likely to tell the truth when he isn't going to swear 
 to his statement than when he is! The main point I would 
 make here is that rumors and scandals flock to the man 
 who is looking for them; and that it is not by such means, 
 whether in the service or out, that the right inspector gets 
 at the real gist of a situation. And it goes without saying 
 that where such a condition is rife, every accused being 
 should be dealt with in the largest measure of charity. 
 Incidentally, I do not limit that statement to Indian work. 
 I have seen enough of public life to bring me to this re- 
 solve: That a public man is peculiarly defenseless, and 
 that whenever the character or intention of a public man 
 is challenged, I have got to be shown by indisputable 
 evidence that he is wrong before I will believe him wrong. 
 An inspection or an investigation, then, made by one in or 
 out of the service, should be conducted in such a way that 
 the fact that an investigation is going on should be either 
 as little known as possible, or so skilfully handled that the 
 really pertinent facts are not swept over by the mass of 
 irresponsible clutter. One way to avoid such a state is 
 to remember that one bullet in the heart will kill a man as 
 well as forty, and that questions should be taken up in the
 
 2 9 
 
 order of their importance. If it is a big case, the first 
 point clearly brought out will suffice. If it is simply a 
 generally bad administrative condition not in any sense 
 criminal, that can be fairly easily ascertained and such 
 change made as will do injustice to no one. One of the 
 greatest evils lies in the mixing up of these two propositions. 
 There is nothing unwiser, when the question is surely one 
 of mere administrative incompetence, for example, than 
 to load it with a question of guilt which cannot be proved ; 
 for then, in order not to do great injustice to the person 
 concerned, the delivering of the reservation from him may 
 be delayed. Or, if it is not a case where he should leave, 
 getting things running right again would be greatly delayed. 
 Underneath it all lies the fact, too frequently forgotten in a 
 large number of aspects of the Indian business, that the good 
 of the Indian is the real thing to be considered, and that the 
 employee under consideration is only an incident. Here 
 I lay myself open to many grave charges. I am a law- 
 breaker perhaps, but I can only plead that I am doing it 
 absolutely in what I believe to be the interests of the 
 Indians. The other day I quickly relieved a superinten- 
 dent from his task, and he may, I am frank to confess, 
 thereby not go where he belongs, into jail. I did it 
 simply because to have proved the criminal case which I 
 believe to exist against him, would have meant my re- 
 taining him for an indefinite period in charge of those 
 Indians, to their very great detriment. I felt that my duty 
 to them exceeded my duty to the community at large in 
 letting a possible criminal loose among them. If I have 
 been an accessory after the fact, I will take my medicine 
 like a man. 
 
 All I have said applies both to my own inspectors and to 
 anyone else in any way looking into affairs on an Indian 
 reservation; but it of course applies with peculiar force to 
 one outside the service, because there the danger of dis- 
 rupting the administration through an Indian's thinking 
 that there is a dual responsibility is doubly to be feared. 
 As an illustration of that point, consider the impracticabil- 
 ity of having two allotting agents at work at the same time
 
 30 
 
 on a reservation. Many of the Indians always have griev- 
 ances during an allotment, and if there were another head, 
 the recourse to him would be constant, the work thereby 
 delayed and substantial justice not increased. 
 
 I am afraid I have been rather prolix on this subject, 
 but it is one of prime importance, and I want at least to 
 get its many varied aspects before you for your further 
 consideration. 
 
 Having satisfied yourselves as to the actual conditions 
 existing at any given point, and having fully considered 
 them and come to your conclusions, you could help me 
 by letting me have the first chance to avail myself of your 
 findings. In other words, the real point of attack in all 
 your study of Indian affairs should be, not the local con- 
 ditions at any given point, but rather my administration 
 which allows those conditions to exist. I feel that you 
 could be of the most help, in short, by never losing sight 
 of the fact that wherever you may be or whatever you are 
 investigating, you are really investigating, considering me 
 and only me. On that basis, having brought your views 
 to me, if I do not act in the way you think I should, your 
 next point of attack would be the Secretary of the Interior. 
 In the same way you would duly progress to the President 
 of the United States, and thence to the people at large. 
 
 Only one other point occurs to me of sufficient impor- 
 tance in this connection to bring before you to-night, and 
 that is the importance, in all statements, of the most careful 
 substantiation, on the one hand, of any statement made, 
 and, furthermore, of having in readiness before making a 
 statement all the evidence in the case. This is a situation 
 I am frequently confronted with, and probably have more 
 daily training in than most people. I make a statement, 
 for example, to the Secretary of the Interior. I make it 
 in the rush of the daily business, believing that it is ab- 
 solutely true; go back to my office, forget all about it. 
 Suddenly the telephone bell rings; the Secretary sends for 
 me. I go there; find perhaps a Senator or a Representa- 
 tive, possibly accompanied by some important constitu- 
 ents. The Secretary says, "Mr. Valentine, I understood
 
 3 1 
 
 you to say that such and such was the case?" "Yes, Mr. 
 Secretary." Think of the humiliating and contemptible 
 position I should be in had I not my substantiating facts 
 ready. I have had a number of such incidents happen to 
 me, and thanks to the training I long ago got in making 
 statements, I have been able to make good, and have the 
 satisfaction of hearing the Secretary say, after having 
 made my substantiating statements or having produced my 
 evidence, "You see, gentlemen, that apparently settles 
 it." And if a statement which has been made on the very 
 best of authority and belief comes out later to be untrue, 
 there is no more certain road to the permanent harmony 
 between co-operating parties than the most instant and 
 candid retraction. I shall never get over the feeling of 
 shame I have on behalf of certain people in Boston, who 
 said to me some years ago that the United States troops 
 would never be withdrawn from Cuba, making the state- 
 ment together with a number of related ones most damag- 
 ing to the good faith of the Cuban occupation. These 
 gentlemen made this statement not only to me, but to 
 others and publicly in the papers. Nowhere, to me or to 
 other men to whom they made it or to the public at large, 
 have I ever seen those statements retracted. I don't 
 like to recall the incident. 
 
 Many of you will doubtless wonder what abysses of 
 difficulty I must have been plunged in to have made me 
 bring up all these things to-night things so incomprehen- 
 sible to most of us that they should exist in any great de- 
 gree, that it may seem to you that I have given them undue 
 importance. I do not feel that I have, however. Hardly 
 a month passes but what one or more cases which would 
 illustrate every point I have made comes up in the Indian 
 Office. The files of the office contain too many papers 
 which would seriously blacken the character and interfere 
 with the career of many an honest man. I came across 
 some points the other day which made me almost question 
 the act of a certain public man who had always been to my 
 mind beyond shadow of suspicion. I simply had to fall 
 back on the belief which I had always had in the man, and
 
 32 
 
 as the papers did not prove their case, I think I can say I 
 have honestly eliminated their miserable implications from 
 my mind. But for one to be sure that one's mind has not 
 been tainted by such things is a difficult intellectual and 
 moral task. It seems to me of prime importance that 
 an association like yours should be warned of the morasses, 
 the fens and the tainted air into which you, like myself, 
 must go and through which you must pass unharmed if 
 you would help me; for only so can either you or I sift 
 the false from the true. 
 
 Leaving this phase of the subject, I turn now to the 
 happier one of our honest intellectual differences. That is 
 a field which, in Indian affairs, cannot be too widely de- 
 veloped. I welcome the most thoroughgoing difference 
 of opinion and the frankest and kindliest, even uncom- 
 promising if we think the matter of that importance dis- 
 agreement. You could help me most by taking up with me 
 as often as possible any and every subject on which you 
 thought I was going wrong and doing your best to convince 
 me of that fact. In matters of that kind, a sense of pro- 
 portion on the one hand, and a recognition, on the other, 
 that we are all of us very far from perfect, would keep us 
 from ever getting embittered, even were one or the other 
 as a result to be put out of official existence. 
 
 Your name the Indian Rights Association indicates 
 to me, although I do not know your charter, a number of 
 ways in which your particular organization could be of 
 great help to the Government. A very great service to the 
 Indians would be a compilation of Indian laws annotated 
 with the decisions of the courts since the year 1902. It is 
 probably impracticable at this time to codify or greatly 
 condense the existing statutory law by reason of the great 
 number and variety of Indian treaties, but such a compila- 
 tion would form the basis of a future codification and a most 
 valuable legislative handbook, which would go far toward 
 insuring the Indians against the tremendous losses, financial 
 and otherwise, which result from the passage of conflicting 
 legislation. 
 
 Indians having claims, real or imaginary, against the
 
 33 
 
 United States are now paying thousands of dollars for 
 attorneys' fees where part of the services rendered consists 
 in investigations of facts and records in the field and the 
 Office of Indian Affairs at Washington. These investiga- 
 tions usually form the basis for a request to Congress to 
 appropriate the amount of the claim or, where the facts are 
 in dispute, to pass the necessary act enabling the Court 
 of Claims to determine the liability of the United States. 
 It would be peculiarly appropriate if such investigations 
 were made by attorneys and special agents of your Associa- 
 tion. Your recommendations to the Indian Office should 
 be of immense value in reporting to Congress on legislation 
 of the character described, and the Indians would be greatly 
 benefited financially and otherwise. 
 
 But the rights of the Indians are, in their lives as in our 
 own, if dwelt upon out of proportion to other things, often 
 as much a hindrance as a help. Too many members of 
 many a tribe have had their finer activities paralyzed by 
 following some claim against the treasury, just as Haw- 
 thorne's Pyncheons were cursed by that estate in Maine. 
 There is hardly one of us, I suppose, but has in insisting on 
 a right lost a privilege. Indian nature and white nature 
 are strangely alike. While the feet of the Indian adminis- 
 trator must be on the firm ground of right and law, what 
 is chiefly occupying his mind and inspiring his handiwork 
 is the human progress of the Indian. The bulk of my days 
 should, I believe, be devoted to the Indians' schooling, 
 to securing their industrial foothold, and to safeguardng 
 their health physical, moral and religious. 
 
 It would be very gratifying to me if your Association 
 would thoroughly canvass all we are trying to do in our cam- 
 paign against tuberculosis, trachoma and other scourges, 
 and give me needed help in this matter, both in thoughts 
 and works. The. relation both of reservation life and 
 of school life to this campaign of cure and prevention 
 needs the most careful study. 
 
 The moral health of the Indians the development of 
 character in both child and adult is a field too little
 
 34 
 
 explored. I should be glad at any time to take up with 
 you many ways in which you could assist us in our cam- 
 paign against the use of liquor by Indians. 
 
 Paganism itself should vanish from Indian life, but not 
 all that is not only harmless but beautiful and helpful in 
 paganism. We need the most vigorous yet tactful pushing 
 and the wise assistance of all missionary work. 
 
 The conservation of the natural resources in the Indian 
 country is a matter of prime importance. It must be done 
 in a way to bring these into the best use for all citizens, at 
 the same time conserving the Indians' opportunities to 
 draw from them what is to their real good in their progress 
 toward citizenship. This point offers a field hardly touched 
 on yet from a broadly philosophic standpoint. What I 
 would emphasize in your minds is that, in addition to the 
 four great subjects which are made the texts of the con- 
 servation movement lands, minerals, water and forests 
 I am engaged in a fifth task of conservation involving all 
 these the conservation of the Indian. 
 
 And so there seems no end to the things of this sort I 
 might suggest where well-organized study and action on 
 your part would be of the greatest assistance to our over- 
 taxed machinery, and of the steadiest support to us in a 
 task the responsibility for which I can neither shirk nor 
 share. If I may put before you from time to time these 
 matters in more detail and others like them, and if you on 
 your side will put before me any and every matter which 
 occurs to you which you think I should take up and push 
 progressively, I shall be deeply grateful. 
 
 ADDRESS OF HERBERT WELSH, 
 
 CORRESPONDING SECRETARY OF THE INDIAN RIGHTS ASSOCIATION. 
 
 I think, in the case of an association which has had so 
 long a life as we have had, that retrospect has a certain 
 interest and value, as well as prospect. I know I find, in 
 my own case, that the tendency seems to grow toward look-
 
 35 
 
 ing backward and trying to judge from the past as well as 
 considering the immediate present, and endeavoring to 
 look forward into the future. 
 
 In standing here to-night I am thinking of certain phases 
 of the past which seem to me interesting and profitable. I 
 remember the first days of our Association, its life and 
 activities ; and in doing that I have been trying to look into 
 the secrets of two great characters, I think we may justly 
 say, who very largely affected the life and the course of the 
 Indian Rights Association. The first of these was the late 
 General S. C. Armstrong, of Hampton, Va., and the second 
 was our dear friend, Bishop Hare. I would like to speak of 
 some ideas of these two men which were known to me to 
 all of us and which very deeply and positively affected 
 the line of our work. It is interesting and valuable to get 
 these different points of view. We have had two most 
 interesting and (to my mind) instructive addresses to- 
 night, based upon totally different points of view; and I 
 have no doubt that this audience, during the course of these 
 addresses, was mainly impressed with the idea which came 
 to me so strongly, of the value of different points of view. 
 Even where they cannot always be perfectly harmonious, 
 they are extremely valuable ; they teach the great lesson of 
 balance and the value which is to be obtained from it. 
 If we look upon the great conflicts of the past, we learn, by 
 pondering them deeply, to value the contending ideas in 
 them even though they may not entirely represent our 
 individual point of view. What could be more impressive 
 and interesting, for example, than that sense of balance 
 which has come to us here to-night from the presentation 
 given to us by our president, showing our particular point 
 of view of the Indian question in certain of its phases; 
 and then the scholarly and philosophic, carefully balanced 
 and carefully wrought treatment of this great question 
 which has been presented by our friend, Mr. Valentine. 
 And may I say in touching upon this point, before I address 
 myself to the two that I have mentioned, may I say some- 
 thing in regard to our relations with the present Indian 
 Commissioner? I know a great deal about these relations,
 
 36 
 
 and I have been able to look at them from a fairly large ex- 
 perience of Indian affairs, and I can say, without any con- 
 viction of flattery in my inmost mind, that they have been 
 to me, and I think to those with whom I am associated, 
 unqualifiedly delightful. Why? Because, throughout there 
 has been shown to us a courtesy which was without flaw, 
 and fairness of view and real sincerity of spirit which is 
 all that a citizen of the United States has to ask upon the 
 part of a public official. That is leaving out of question 
 any matter of policy that the Indian Commissioner may 
 embark upon. So far as I know his policy, I should say I 
 approve it unqualifiedly. There has not been sufficient 
 time to develop it fully, but certainly we have reason to 
 congratulate this country, and ourselves, that a man 
 stands in that position with the intellectual acumen, 
 training, moral elevation, the courtesy of spirit which have 
 been manifested upon the part of the present Indian 
 Commissioner. 
 
 Now, I wish to say a little about General S. C. Armstrong, 
 and the influence he had upon the formation of our policy 
 or course; it was very strong, indeed. We were just 
 starting in the beginning of our work, full of youthful en- 
 thusiasm, and coming for the first time in fresh, undis- 
 ciplined contact with the great main facts of the Indian 
 question. We were taking these facts, as I believe, fairly 
 and judiciously, and certainly with entire sincerity, and we 
 were doing what had been done to some extent in the past: 
 we were presenting these facts to the intelligence and con- 
 science of the people of the United States. A response was 
 coming in quickly, a strong sentiment was being aroused. 
 Now, it was at this juncture we came into close personal 
 touch with that very great and absolutely unselfish man, 
 Gen. S. C. Armstrong a large man, a man of great ex- 
 perience with the "tinted races," as he used to love to call 
 them ; experience with their weakness, experience with their 
 qualities which needed to be developed, first in the Hawaiian 
 Islands, then in his great work for the blacks of his country, 
 a marvellous work for them, and last, but not least, 
 in his contact with the Indians. Now, what was his con-
 
 37 
 
 ception of the relationship which this society should have 
 with the Government? I can see him now standing be- 
 fore me in all his vigor of life, physical and mental, and his 
 enthusiasm; I can see the very man, and his conception 
 was: constant visits to the Indian country, going out and 
 seeing things with our own eyes, talking with all sorts and 
 conditions of men, and we did that we did a great deal of 
 it. And then, the next point that he had in his mind was 
 this and we have followed that out. This was the cardi- 
 nal point in our work: that we should have in Washing- 
 ton a man who would represent our society and who would 
 carry our ideas and facts to public men. He wanted us 
 to ask nothing more, and we desired nothing more, than that 
 the truth should have its own; to go to Congress and show 
 them with their shoulders heavily laden with all sorts of 
 personal claims that their constituents were bringing to 
 bear upon them to show them the facts in this Indian 
 question. And in numberless cases, as our reports for 
 past years show, we were able to prevent the passage of 
 selfish and unjust schemes for the spoliation of the Indians, 
 and measurably we succeeded in getting good legislation 
 for them. 
 
 But there was another man who also had a very great 
 influence upon the life of our Association, totally different 
 from General Armstrong; different in his mental consti- 
 tution and in the character of the work he was called upon 
 to perform. That was William Hobart Hare, the perfect 
 gentleman, the man of the finest social fiber, of the most 
 delicate and pure spirit, who was drawn into that work by 
 the gross sight which he witnessed some thirty years ago, 
 of a lot of poor Indians being made sport of by whites in a 
 Minnesota town. That, as he told me, was what took him 
 into his great evangelistic work. We feel called upon to 
 pay tribute to the character, to the devotion and to the 
 self-sacrifice which that man, during his long and noble 
 career, poured out for these people. He took that which 
 he had received the highest and he gave it to the lowest, 
 and what was the effect ? All over those Sioux reservations 
 I can testify from having seen it again and again he
 
 38 
 
 and his missionary laborers, and those refined, Christian 
 women who were associated with him in the work, brought 
 out of those humble Indian people, those warriors and 
 savages from the plains, and their children, the exquisite 
 traits of Christian character which they saw demonstrated 
 in these self-sacrificing men and women who went to them. 
 Our friend, the Commissioner, has told us to-night cer- 
 tainly, we applaud it that his interest in these people is 
 in the people themselves, and we ourselves regard that as 
 the broad, true view. He has sought to avoid I do not 
 know that he has avoided it or will the effect of the 
 mere machinery with which he is so closely associated, in 
 his desire to get at the heart and the life of the people. 
 That was what Bishop Hare did through a long series of 
 years ; and one who has travelled with him, who has camped 
 out with him in storm and in sunshine, who has seen him 
 in all the details of his life, who has witnessed the perfect 
 finish of these details and the pure spirit with which his 
 work was done, such an one can, and ought, to bear testi- 
 mony to the greatness of that work. Is it not, my friends, 
 a beautiful thing to see these different men these different 
 workers giving all the finest that they have received to a 
 people who are just emerging from the stone age? I know 
 nothing finer than that; I know nothing better than that, 
 and that our Association has been able to help even to the 
 smallest degree these workers of whom the world is not 
 worthy, that is a delightful thing to recall and to know that 
 it has taken place. 
 
 Now, one word, in closing, as to the future. I anticipate 
 the greatest good coming from the friendly relations which 
 at present exist between the Government's representative 
 of the Indian work and ourselves. My conception of that 
 relationship is very much that which has been depicted here 
 to-night. I do not believe it possible for the leaders of 
 these two forces to take absolutely the same view of what 
 should be done under all circumstances. There must, and 
 there should, be a reasonable amount of difference, but 
 when those differences exist and are handled by men on
 
 39 
 
 both sides who want to be fair and want to be courteous, 
 and who will be fair and will be courteous, then the largest 
 amount of good that you can expect in human affairs from 
 differing men, with their mortal frailties behind them, is 
 likely to take place. What we propose to do is this to 
 follow along these lines: If we see wrong, if we see moral 
 impurity existing upon a reservation and can point that 
 out without any desire to aim an unnecessary harsh or 
 cruel blow at individuals, we most certainly, from our 
 sense of duty our duty toward these people will do it; 
 and I am sure, also, that the Government, on its side, will 
 recognize the justice of that claim and will do everything 
 it can to purify in every way the different reservations where 
 the government work is going on. I believe that will go 
 on steadily in the future, and we shall endeavor to bring 
 into the lines of our Association a larger number of cul- 
 tured, excellent, responsible people thousands and thou- 
 sands of them exist all over this country who might be 
 joined with us in this effort. We will endeavor to enlist 
 their sympathies and to secure their aid, and I have no 
 doubt that in almost every instance we shall try, and be 
 able to bring that aroused public sentiment to support the 
 policies which have been outlined here to-night, or the 
 general principles which have been stated; and we are 
 perfectly confident that not only the soundness of these 
 principles will be demonstrated by the gentleman who 
 represents the Government, but that in all the details with 
 which they are worked out the same general spirit which 
 has been manifested will be carried out. 
 
 May I appeal to you, in closing, to help us in this task? 
 In any association where there are comparatively few 
 people who really have their hand to the plow, we are 
 trying to do our best, with whatever mistakes we may 
 make. Will you help us? Will you come into closer con- 
 tact with us by reading our reports, by judging through your 
 own intelligence and character of the justness of the posi- 
 tion that we take, and then, if we make mistakes, will 
 you help us to get back into the right path ?
 
 40 
 
 From the very beginning the great fundamental idea 
 of our work was this: That it was the sentiment of the 
 American people which must be aroused; that with our 
 people was lodged responsibility for the outcome of this 
 Indian question, and that the people, in order to act upon 
 that responsibility, must have a sense of their responsibility 
 to a power a divine power above that. That has been 
 our appeal from the beginning, and the moment you lose 
 this great fundamental idea of popular responsibility, and 
 then the responsibility of the people to God Himself, you 
 lose the secret of power. This idea must exist for effective 
 action in any moral work. My own belief is that the solu- 
 tion of this question is in the gradual merging of these 
 people with ourselves. Finely was that thought brought 
 out to-night by the Commissioner's address, that anything 
 like separation was an impossibility. The land must be 
 well cultivated, and in order to do that you must have the 
 population living upon that land elevated up to a high 
 state of moral and spiritual life. These forces that are 
 working upon the Indian are working in that direction. 
 There is another great force, and that is the gradual inter- 
 marriage that will take place. I love to recur to the simple 
 illustration which you can gain from the map that hangs 
 before you, where the Indian reservation is marked in a 
 color that differentiates it. Instantly it appears to you as 
 an island in the sea, and that is what it is. Barbarism the 
 island and civilization the sea around about it. Steadily that 
 sea is fretting away the shore of the island. The island 
 recedes and becomes less and less, until, within a short 
 time, it will cease to exist. The sea will be universal, and 
 in order that it shall not mean the destruction of the Indian, 
 the Indian must be made a part of the sea which is to en- 
 gulf him; and to accomplish that it means the fire of love 
 must burn in our heart for the weaker brother, and a de- 
 termination that every force that can work toward his 
 civilization shall be used to re-create him. Having done 
 that, we have acquitted ourselves of the task which has 
 been laid upon our shoulders.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 Form 
 
 ^2002 
 
 *# 
 
 JOSEPH ELKINTON, 
 REV. CAM. E. GRAMMER 
 FRANCIS FISHER KANE, 
 MRS. JOHN MARKOE 
 Miss MARY T. MASON, 
 
 MATTHEW K. SNIFFEN, 
 HERBERT WELSH, 
 MRS. TALCOTT WILLIAMS, 
 EDWARD M. WISTAR, 
 HERBERT S. WELSH.
 
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