instead of rations, some good land and a farm school, in ten years they will be self supporting, and in twenty they will begin to pay taxes.

The first difficulty is to find arable land. Water is so scarce in that part of Arizona that the possession of it is wealth, and one man, who owns a spring which waters four acres, clears $2,000 a year by selling vegetables and fruit. The soil is rich when moistened, and the three things necessary to lift the Hualapai into decent living are a piece of irrigated land, a farmer to teach them to use it, and a boarding school for the children, with industrial training.

A petition is to be sent to the Department of the Interior on this subject, which I hope will receive a great many signatures here.

Mr. SMILEY. The United States Government is rich enough to give every Indian an education, and I think it will.

Adjourned at 1 o'clock p. m.

FOURTH SESSION.

THURSDAY NIGHT.

The conference was called to order at 8 o'clock by the president. Prof. C. C. Painter was invited to speak.

THE LEASING OF INDIANS' LAND.

[An address by Professor Painter.]

We were speaking this morning in regard to industries. A great deal is said about industrial training. We go to Hampton and Carlisle and see the Indian work, and then we go to the reservation and make inquiries about him. I was at one a little while ago, and I found three Hampton students. I asked one what he was doing, and he said, "Nothing." I asked the second, and he said "Nothing;" the third, and he said "Nothing." Two of them had been educated as carpenters, and one as a blacksmith. I said to them, "This is a hard story to tell friends in the East." "What can we do?" they asked. "The Government has a carpenter here, and he has an assistant. All the places are full. The same is true of the places for blacksmiths." I was at one reservation where there was a very complete tin shop, with first-class machinery. A Carlisle student had been there, and this was fitted out for his use. But it was not being used. In the warehouse I saw immense quantities of tinware which was made at the Carlisle school. We have men who have gone out from the schools who have learned to make shoes, but we go to New York and Chicago and buy shoes ready made. We have men educated as tailors, and they go back, and we are surprised that they do not set up a tailor's shop, and manufacture clothing for the reservation. But we go to New York, and buy Jew clothing, and send it out; and you will not find an Indian not wearing store-made clothes. And so Captain Pratt is driven to the conclusion that these Indians who go back there after he has trained them to do these things, have no chance to do them. If they are going to do the work that they have learned to do, they will have to stay East to do it; they can not do it on the reservation.

So it comes to us whether we are doing a wise thing, taken as a whole. I doubt it. If we carry out the idea of industrial training, there must be an opportunity for carrying on the work afterwards; and I do not see any solution except Captain Pratt's. It is a very difficult thing. Miss Carter shows us what the Indian women can do at lace making. But the number of people who can buy lace at $10 a yard is limited. That industry will have to be worked up especially, even to the limits within which it can be made profitable. So with the weaving of grass and pottery. The Indians show us that they can do any kind of work. It is the consensus of opinion that the Indian has in himself the ability to adapt himself to all kinds of industries and all positions in life. It comes back, then, to the question of opportunity.

It is the policy of the Government that these Indians shall be farmers. That is the theory on which the lands were allotted, and are held inalienable for them for twenty-five years-no matter whether the allottee is an old woman of 80, a blind man, or a young man who wants to go off somewhere else. There is his land, and he could not, under the law, do anything with it. "You must farm or do nothing," said the Government. Then came the time when Senator Dawes and General Whittlesey and I talked this over, and we drew up an amendment, and Mr. Dawes secured its passage, providing for such leases as we thought should be provided for, in cases where there was disabilty to use the land. That is all that should have been covered by it.

The three provisions of the severalty bill, the three ideas that controlled in the framing of that bill and of this amendment, were, first, that allotments should take place where the people were ready to receive allotments; second, that this land should be held for twenty-five years, until the old men should have passed away, and the

sons and daughters shall be educated to appreciate the value of it, and then dispose of it if they wish, but not sooner; third, that there should be this modification, that in case of inability to use the land it should be converted to their use by leasing it to some one.

Whether these were wise or unwise provisions, this was the theory on which that bill was based; and this was the protection which was deemed wise to be thrown about those who took land under it.

I wish to call attention to the fact that in all three of these particulars the principle of the bill, the spirit and intent of the bill, are being set aside and destroyed. Allotments are ordered, not with reference generally to the condition of the Indian, but to the greed and demands of the white people about the reservation who wish to secure the surplus lands. I could, had I time, call attention to reservations where the effect of allotments has been to set back the Indians for twenty years.

I recently came across the Winnebago and Omaha reservations on which allotments have been made.

I was on the Omaha Reservation soon after the allotments were made, and it was very gratifying to find that the Indians were settling upon their allotments, and in almost every case living in pretty good houses built on their allotments, and with a large amount of land under cultivation. I came back satisfied and enthusiastic, believing that it was the proper thing to do in this case. I came across these reservations the other day, entering the Winnebago near Penda, and going through some 20 miles or more. Almost the entire distance I was passing through large pasture fields or extended cornfields, all used by the whites. Leases were secured from these Indians before the allotments were really made. One syndicate has 47,000 acres at least, leased at from 8 or 10 to 25 cents. The lessees sublet to farmers at from $1 to $2 an acre, making a very large sum out of this arrangement. The present agent undertook to break this up. The agents before him had favored it. The present agent is an army officer. He does not approve the leases, and has attempted to remove the lessees. He was estopped by the district judge of the United States court, but has taken an appeal. The ground of this estoppel is that the Indians are competent as citizens to make their own arrangements.

I went down across the Omaha Reservation and found it even worse still, though they are getting a better price for their land. The Winnebagoes only get enough to enable them to be drunk part of the time, but the Omahas get more. An educated Indian, to whom money was lent to help build a house, rents house and farm, and is living in a tepee on the bank of the river. About eight-tenths of the Omaha men, so Dr. La Flesche told me, are drinking whenever they have an opportunity, and more than one-half of the women. The condition of things is perfectly fearful. These are facts which we must face in considering the question of leases.

The amendment as made by Senator Dawes has been amended by the last session of Congress, by adding the word "inability," enlarging its scope. I have no question at all, if the court holds that they have a right to make these leases, independent of the Government or of the Department, that these white people will never leave these lands. It is their policy, I believe, to debauch these Indians by drunkenness, and unfit them for the occupation of the land which they now occupy and will continue to hold.

Whether or not we should have swept these restrictions all away in the beginning, or should not have thrown this protection about them, is the question now raised by some who have spoken, and is now before us. But, if we commit ourselves to a removal of these restrictions, let us at least insist that it shall be so done that the whites shall be under no temptation to debauch the Indians. I do not know what Dr. Abbott meant when, addressing himself to me, he said, "There are dudes in New York who smoke their cigarettes and live on the rents of their property." We are not trying to Christianize and civilize the New York dude. Perhaps that would be a more difficult thing than we have undertaken. But, if it became our duty to undertake this work, we would doubtless seek to know how this creature was produced, and, if we found that his power to alienate or lease his property was accountable for him, would inquire as to the advisability of limiting that power, assuming that our guardianship over him gave us the authority to do so.

We have reached a crisis. It is the intention of men in the West, and their efforts are being more and more felt in Congress as the power of the West is becoming greater in controlling national affairs, it is the intention of these men to sweep away all these limitations and restrictions which the severalty law put in the Indian's power to alienate his land. It is a question for us to settle whether Captain Pratt and Dr. Abbott are right when they take the same ground or whether we are right. If they are right, then let us seek to bring this about at once, and in such ways that do not involve the demoralization of the Indian as a means of its accomplishment. In some straightforward and legal way, as if by intention, and in such way as to secure his intelligent consent to what is done and with a full knowledge of the fact that he is making a final disposal of what he owns, let it be done, and not by indirection and debauchery.

But if we are not ready to accept this view; if we believe that, having stolen a child from its home and our conscience awakes us to the fact that we are doing wrong, we ought not to drop it at once into the river we are crossing, but must take him ashore and make provision for his care; then we need to awake to the danger which now threatens these children of our care; for children most of them are as yet, so far as ability to cope with the white man for land is concerned.

It is our purpose to defend the integrity of the Dawes severalty bill, and insist that it shall be carried out in its intent and spirit; we need to know that these are dangerously assailed and largely nullified.

Mr. John B. Garrett was invited to speak on the Indians of the Indian Territory. Mr. GARRETT. The dinner bell yesterday cut short the intensely interesting recital of facts which Senator Dawes was giving us with reference to the condition at present in the Indian Territory. The impression left on the minds of the business committee evidently was that the subject was one of too momentous importance to be dropped in that imperfect way. Hence I have been asked to say a word.

My own interest in the Indians of the Indian Territory began as long ago as 1865, when I was asked to accompany a venerable friend of the Indian who will be remembered here with honor-the late Thomas Wistar-to a conference with the representatives of the Indians of the Southwest, embracing a population of about 75,000, then estimated to be about a fourth of the whole Indian population of our country. There were several hundred chiefs present at the time, and the purpose of the conference was to make treaties of peace with those Indians who had been associated with the Southerners in the conflict which had just closed against the United States.

Shortly after that I held a commission from President Johnson, with others, for the location of the Osages in the Indian Territory, and at the time President Grant called upon the religious societies to assist him in the work of Christian civilization of the Indians I naturally enlisted in it. My interest then was again centered in the Indian Territory for the reason that President Grant and those under him allotted to the Society of Friends the Indians of the Central Superintendency as those who should come under our care, so that from my first acquaintance with Indians it has been with those of the Indian Territory.

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We listened with great interest to the intensely sad recital of present conditions which Senator Dawes has witnessed, and which, he gives his testimony to us, are now threatening the very peace and social welfare of our country. He gives us to understand that there is a lack of justice in the relations of the Government and the people, that immorality prevails and outlawry exists. There are about 50,000 Indians to 300,000 whites, or those not rated as Indians. This embraces a very mixed population of native Americans, negroes, and Europeans, engaged in the work of railroads and mining. I should probably take issue with him if I dared to do so with so eminent a student of our political institutions, upon one or two points. One would be as to the right of the United States to have sent recently into the Territory its forces to drive out and to assist the owners of the mines in subduing the strikers. I will not discuss the subject of strikes, but the question of the Government's right to enter the Territory for arresting a strike.

During my tenure of the position of secretary of the Associated Executive Committee of Friends on Indian Affairs it became my frequent duty to go to Washington. On one occasion the superintendent of the Central Superintendency summoned myself and others there because he was very seriously embarrassed by the encroachments upon the Territory of white men from Kansas and other States. As a Friend he did not feel that he could consistently call upon the Army of the United States to assist him, but he did not know how to get rid of these trespassers. We accompanied him to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, then to the Secretary of the Interior. Still we were unable to solve the question which seemed to threaten the very existence of the work we had at heart. From the Secretary of the Interior we were taken to the President and his Cabinet. The question was then and there submitted, and instantly President Grant, with that incisiveness for which he was conspicuous, cut the knot by saying to his Secretary of War, "Send out an order that the Army shall at once expel from the Indian Territory every one who does not hold a permit to be there signed by Superintendent Hoag. So the superintendent, feeling that he himself was restrained from calling on the Army of the United States, had practically the whole power of the United States Government placed in his hands by the simple word of the President that no one was allowed to remain there who did not have the permit of that Friend.

I take it that the Government at Washington, in sending its Army, or a branch of it, into the Indian Territory recently did exactly what President Grant did at that time. The Army was sent there to expel from the limits of the Indian Territory every one not an Indian not holding a proper permit to remain there. If I understand it, only those are entitled to remain who are either married into the tribes or are lessees of Indian land, or who are employed by such lessees.

The 300,000 white people who have come in have come in under circumstances which have made it impossible to exclude them. There are to-day crossing the Territory no less than four main lines of railroad. Mines have been opened under leases from the Indians, confirmed by act of Congress.

Under the conditions that exist, so different from those under which the treaties were made with these Indians sixty years ago, I would like to submit to the conference this question, whether the mutual breach of covenants, as well as the change of circumstances, has not so far relieved the United States that it can deal with this question de novo, and not on the basis of the treaties made sixty years ago. I trust that the business committee, in formulating its judgment, will be able to give some utterance which shall be a guide to the popular thought of the coming year.

Rev. A. E. Dunning, the editor of the Congregationalist, was introduced. Dr. DUNNING. I have visited many of the reservations and some of the schools. I have seen that there are three classes of white people in their relations to the Indians: First, those who regard the Indian as man and brother; second, the Government officials, who regard them as wards; third, their neighbors, who regard them as things to speculate with. Some of these neighbors would exterminate them as they would exterminate wild beasts and rattlesnakes. I remember, on one occasion, a number of Indian scalps being displayed to me, as one would display buffalo heads or the tails of rattlesnakes. I do not know that even religion has done anything for Indians that white men have not speculated with. When Mr. Moody's school for Indian girls was opened I was in the Indian Territory. Some of the white people said it was a satisfaction that Mr. Moody was doing that work, because many of the ambitious young white men were marrying to get head rights" in the Territory, and they were glad to have the Indian girls whom they married have a little more education. The conditions described by Senator Dawes are matters of public notoriety, yet most people appear to be ignorant of them. Nine years ago I spent some time in the Indian Territory, and I think that the conditions were then very muchas now. There were no laws executed by the United States. Law was bought and sold then, as now. I do not quite like the figure that Professor Painter has used of carrying the baby. The river is an ocean without a shore. We shall have to drop him sometime, or carry him always in the water. It would be presumption in me to differ with the general sentiment, but I do feel that the time must come when the Indian must be treated as a man, and when we must expect to make him a citizen here and now, and that this process can not be gone through without suffering, perhaps very much suffering.

I felt a sentiment of gratitude when our most tender-hearted Christian General Howard said that some would get sick and some would die, but that they would come out all right after all. That is the philosophy we must face. There will be pathetic instances. There are always pathetic cases arising from the enforcement of just laws. I saw the daughter of the old Chief Seattle begging from door to door, yet her father once thought he owned all that vast region. I saw other Indian women in the Northwest who had married white men, and, when the severalty laws came, they made their children legitimate and their wives comfortable. How is it possible that you can give an Indian property, and not give him power to lease what is his own? How is it possible that we can make him a child for generations, and expect him to continue in that childhood, and yet grow into manhood? I do not like to differ with Senator Dawes; but, while we must admit that the legislation which gives the power to lease the Indian's land is often prompted by greed, I should like to see our national legislature give to these Indians in the Indian Territory the power to sell their land or lease it, exactly as the white men do with their property. They have long been civilized, and I doubt if we shall get to a solution of the problem until we put them on this footing and say, You are citizens of the United States Government, and you have got to face the perils that other men face." I am afraid that there is too much paternalism in treating the Indian problem.

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The Indian is going to be helped by those who live nearest to him or by those to whom he is to be sent to live near. Is it not possible for Indian associations to awaken a public sentiment in the immediate neighborhood of the reservations which still exist, but which should be broken up as soon as possible? Since the West was first settled, a very different class of men and women have come in from the early settlers. Very many Western people have gone there who are not tempted to defraud these Indians. Is it not possible to create a public sentiment there that will befriend these Indian neighbors? Is not that the right Christianity? Then, while we fight for them, we must teach them to fight for themselves. Some will go under, but there is a great difference between Indians. I have seen the Digger Indian, who is only an animal, and I have seen among the Creeks and Cherokees elements of manhood as fine as any I have ever seen.

I do not believe the Indian ever owned this country. He was a tramp in it, without a title. I do not believe we ought ever to have made treaties with them any more than with any local communities.

Mr. AUSTIN ABBOTT. It appears from Captain Pratt's remarks that there is-in his view, a little account between him and me remaining unsettled from last year. I thought that account was balanced. Last year, after his address on the importance of not allowing the Indian youth, after education, to go back to the reservation, I said that I understood him to say this was the only way to save them. When he disavowed having said it was the only way, I made what I thought was, under the circumstances, a very handsome apology by acknowledging that I should have said that his words had made the impression on my mind that he thought it was the only way. That's about as near as you can expect a lawyer to get it. A lawyer is not so accustomed to hit the bull's-eye as a captain.

Now, to balance this account, I will not venture to impute any opinion whatever to him. All I have to say, after listening to his very impressive address this morning, is that I believe he has more than half convinced you that it is the only way. I will leave it to you if he has not done so. This is a kind of compulsory arbitration to settle the account between Captain Pratt and myself.

LAW FOR THE INDIAN.

[By Austin Abbott, LL. D.]

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Are we not dealing too much in generalities? Two travelers might come to the United States, and afterwards one who spent a winter in Maine might say, What the poor in America want is snowshoes and blankets." And the other, who spent a summer in New Orleans, might, with equal truth, say, "What they want in America is sunshades and mosquito nets." We have similar ideas of this great problem. There are radical differences between tribes and between reservations. I am satisfied that, in respect to some tribes and reservations, this method is the only way. With some Indians, at least, after they have been brought from the reservation and educated in civilized life, the method is not to send them back, but to tell them to go wherever they can find work. Let them be put into the currents of life to swim with the rest of us.

Generalities are useful, as they lead us to something specific. The differences of opinion that we have developed here appear to me partly owing to the fact that we have not considered any specific question. If we did we should find that these differences of opinion developed by discussing generalities would largely disappear, Let us consider some specific questions; and perhaps we may agree on one or more, and may take some steps for their advancement.

Last year at the American Bar Association the subject of legislation for the Indian was fully discussed and a proposal made for an extension of jurisdiction of the courts was approved. A resolution to that effect was passed.

There are several difficulties in the way of advance out of the present situation. A man once fell into a well in the night. As he went down he clutched at the air, and he caught on the bucket. There he hung by his hands till daylight, half dead with exhaustion and fear lest he should fall into the water. When daylight came he was able to see that there was no water in the well, and his toes were within 3 inches of the bottom.

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Now, the Indian problem is clutching on the edge of the bucket of the reservation; and the bottom of the well is dry. You are not going to drop the baby into the river." There must sooner or later be a uniform law for colored, and white, and Indian, and all, in a free country. This is the solid bottom. We could not say that ten or fifteen years ago, for the only protection of the Indians then was the fact that they were wards of the nation. We get beyond that now as fast as they become civilized.

One of the specific difficulties is that the courts administering the law are all at sea. They do not agree on what the law is. One judge has held that in the Indian Territory the common law is to be the rule of decision. Another judge has held the opposite, saying that, because these are not Englishmen nor the descendants of Englishmen, we can not presume that the common law is to apply among them. The profession are in doubt as to what is the law. But they are all agreed that a different system is to be applied to the Indian from what is applied to the white man. This is the fundamental grievance and the logical cause of endless difficulty. Let me give you one instance to show how the efforts of education, religious instruction, and moral training can be nullified by the results of this confusion of laws. During the last year or two an Indian man and woman were indicted for adultery. On the trial the guilty act was proved. But it appeared that the woman was a half-breed and by the law was not an Indian. She was convicted. It appeared that the man was a full-blooded Indian. There was not the same law for the two. There was no law to punish the Indian, and he was acquitted. Now, a single declaration by a court of American justice in the Indian country that the Indian man may commit such offenses with impunity may annul the moral instruction that