E 93 I39a INDIAN RIGHTS ASSOCIATION AFRESSES DELIVERED AT THE TWENTY- SEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE INDIAN RIGHTS ASSOCIATION fl 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. 3 1158 01237 4939