and ourselves enjoy. We permitted white rascals to come and go at will. Let us glance at other reservations.

The Indian Rights Association sent its Secretary, Mr. M. K. Sniffen, to accompany Inspector E. B. Linnen to the Pima Agency, Arizona, in the spring of 1911. Conditions were found to be extremely bad. It does not appear that the Pemi-Maricopa Indians have been protected, and the encroachments of white people on their reservations continue..

A reliable inspector visited the Omaha reservation about a year ago. He found that Indians had been swindled and succeeded in securing indictments against seven individuals all white men and some of them prominent.

In August, 1912, I ascertained on unquestioned authority that the Utes in southern Colorado were in bad financial and physical condition. Many of them have no allotments and therefore cannot farm. There destitution is due to the fact that they sold their lands under direction of the agent. Agent checks were drawn in favor of certain traders for horses, wagons and other things which they never received. These Indians have been receiving circulars on sanitary conditions and dairying. But for the fact it is so pathetic, it would appear positively ludicrous, this sending of official literature on dairying and sanitation to the pauperized Utes.

What they need is something to eat, some blankets to keep them warm and land to cultivate.*

I have here a mass of evidence from Oklahoma and shall be glad to show it to any of you here at Mohonk. Time does not permit more than to say that boys and girls owning valuable allotments were taken to distant cities, Marcus Covoy to Southampton, England, and several to Mexico City, in order that white men might obtain their lands: The value of properties owned by the Oklahoma Indians is $129,264,000. There are now 15,596 cases of fraud or cases needing protection before the courts in eleven counties.

There are 29,100 minor children involved, all of whom own valuable property. The house of two of these children, Herbert and Stella Sells, was blown up with dynamite in order that the heirs to $250,000 worth of property might be obtained. However, the guilty persons were apprehended, and one is now serving a life sentence.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, would it not be well for us to do something for these Indians? Can we not see whither our policy of allotting without protection is leading us? Are not human

* Personal letter from the Agency, August 15, 1912.

life and human rights more important than the kind of coat a man wears when he preaches or teaches?

I wish to say to you in all seriousness that unless we realize that we must give the Indians more than a deed, and an education, we shall surely have a race of diseased paupers on our hands to support. What will become of the Ojibwa at Leech Lake, Red Lake and Cass Lake? They have valuable timber. Are we conserving it? What of the 29,000 minor children in Oklahoma, the Utes in Colorado and the dispossessed Californians? Is it not bad business policy for us to permit Indians to be evicted as we have in California, and then spend large sums of money to purchase irrigated lands as homes for them?

The present evils cannot exist for lack of money to fight them, because Congress appropriates millions of dollars each year for the employment of thousands of persons and for the education of thousands of children. Therefore, it must be because of weak- - not to use a stronger term — inspection service or because those in authority in the Indian Office have concluded that the policy of educating the Indians and allotting their lands is the only correct solution of the Indian problem. Everything else is secondary. Do not misunderstand me. The Indian Office has paid some attention to health and a little attention to protection of property rights, but it seems to me, after inspecting the evidence, that allotting and educating have been considered to be primary above everything else. As the Indians are to-day nearly all allotted and a large proportion are educated, I suppose that the Indian Office would take the position -which is logical-that the Indian problem is virtually settled. I have no objection to education either in a restricted or in its broadest sense. I have been a teacher for many years. But I contend that the facts presented you in this discourse are but a few of the great army of facts at your disposal which indicate that we have brought about the present deplorable state of the American Indian as a race, because we have made a fetish of education and allotment. That is, we have set out to give the Indian our civilization, and we have omitted that which makes our civilization possible the protection of our property and the safeguarding of our health. If we had carried out our policy of educating and allotting but in addition had treated the Indian wards as the children of the ladies and gentlemen sitting in this audience are treated, what a different story the future historian of Indian Affairs in the United States would write.

You are not molested in your homes. Your children are not treated in school as was Philomena Donnell, whose property was taken from her in one of the schools at Flandreau. Louis Car

penter, John Carl, and others have made a practice of going to Government schools, calling the pupils, into the parlor or music room or meeting them down street and transacting business with minors. There is no girl's school in the East and no boy's school where it is possible for such things to occur.

There is absolutely no excuse for the present increase in trachoma and tuberculosis. We introduced these diseases. We are responsible for them. When Mrs. Newton, before I went to White Earth, reported to the Indian Office the presence of trachoma and tuberculosis at White Earth, large appropriations should have been secured to stamp out the diseases before they reached the dreadful percentage shown by Doctor Murphy in his recent statistics. Why not have spent the Darwin Hall money thus?

What should we do? First, have an inspection service worthy of the name. How could White Earth have reached its amazing condition had inspectors done their duty? We should have an inspection corps composed of men who know Indians and will go among Indians and study their wants. Previous inspectors at White Earth stayed about the agency, checked accounts, listened to employees disputes and condemned worthless articles. The Superintendent at White Earth, Major Howard, complained to me that I spent two weeks among the Indians before I called on him or looked through his schools.

Second, there should be prompt legal action in Indian matters, and all laws rigidly enforced. Three years have passed and the Department of Justice has not ended its White Earth cases. No one has gone to jail; no Indians are living on returned allotments. The Ojibwa naturally conclude that the white rascals at Detroit and Ogema are more powerful than the Great Father at Washington, for the simple reason that they obtain the Indian lands in a few days or weeks or at the most months - whereas the Great Father spends three years and has not administered justice. Fourth, competent ethnologists or a Committee of the Board of Indian Commissioners should make a list of the full blood Indians of the United States. All depends upon the blood status. Ordinary clerks cannot make an accurate roll.

Fifth, at Washington we should have a Commissioner big enough to realize the essentials in this great Service, and he should make protection the key-note of his administration rather than indiscriminate allotting.

Sixth, the Board of Indian Commissioners should be given broader powers by the Congress, and funds in order that its members might visit reservations.

Seventh, restrictions should be imposed on Indian lands in such

a way as prevent fraud. Otherwise, the lands in thousands of cases, will be absolutely lost to the Red Man.

Eighth, the police force on every reservation should be greatly increased and given full authority.

Ninth, scant attention should be paid to the pleas or suggestions of people living about reservations with reference to a change of Indian conditions. Before changes are made the matter should be fully investigated by the Board of Indian Commissioners. Our Finally- The Indian has lost much, but much remains. policy, weak but well-meaning, has plunged thousands of our wards into poverty. Let us give the Indian what we ourselves enjoy full rights and privileges of citizenship, and the pursuit of happiness - not merely empty words.

Otherwise, history will record our short-sighted and disasterous policy in its true light, and we shall be condemned by future generations. (Applause.)

THE CHAIRMAN: The next speaker will be Mr. E. B. MERITT, Law Officer of the Bureau of Indian Affairs at Washington.

INDIAN ADMINISTRATION

ADDRESS OF MR. EDGAR B. MERITT

I realize fully and with regret that many injustices have been done the American Indians in the past, but I am not so much concerned at this time in the mistakes of the past as I am in helping to procure for the present and for the future correct Governmental administrative policies which will result in bringing about improved conditions and better opportunities for the American Indian.

Therefore, in the few minutes allotted to me it is not my purpose to take up the conditions of the past, but to face the future with hope and encouragement regarding the progress of the Indians and attempt to point out a few things which if followed I am convinced would result in more efficient Indian administration:

I. I believe that the present leasing policy of the Government regarding Indian lands is not best adapted to the needs of the Indian. Under the present system a Government farmer on an Indian reservation, who should in fact devote all of his time to teaching the Indians how to farm, is now busy, to a large extent, acting as lease clerk in preparing agricultural leases. The farmer submits the leases to the Superintendent, the Superintendent after examination, submits them to the Indian Office, the Indian Office,

after examination, submits them to the Department, all of which involves a large amount of red tape, unnecessary clerical work, and the taking up of the time of signing officials who might well be devoting their energies and efforts to more responsible work. Adult Indians reasonably competent should be permitted to lease their own land for farming and grazing purposes for a limited period, and the Superintendents should be held responsible for leasing the lands of the incompetents and minors. This would tend to develop the Indians by placing upon them responsibilities, and they would learn to transact business by actual experience.

2. I have been contending for more than a year that the Indian Office is holding too strict a rein over the expenditures of "Individual Indian Moneys" under its jurisdiction. These funds have grown within the last few years from three to more than twelve million dollars now deposited in various banks throughout the country. A most careful supervision and protection should be given the moneys of the minors and the aged and decrepit Indians, but the able-bodied Indians in my judgment, should be given a freer hand in the handling of their funds, and they should be encouraged to expend their money for comfortable homes and improvements on their allotments.

The

3. It is apparent from actual conditions on various Indian reservations that there is an excessive percentage of diseases among Indians, especially tuberculosis and trachoma, that should not exist and should be gotten under control at the earliest moment possible. The present medical force is entirely inadequate to handle the situation, and I am strongly in favor of a very large appropriation by Congress that will enable the Indian Service to bring about improved health conditions among the Indians. President in a message to Congress last summer set out very admirably the great need of larger appropriations for the Indian Medical Service. The health and sanitary work among Indians should be very largely increased. The death rate among whites is estimated to be 15 per 1,000, while the death rate among Indians is more than 35 per 1,000. It is also estimated that 30% of the total number of deaths among Indians is due to tuberculosis, whereas only about 11% of deaths among whites is due to tuberculosis. These startling figures show clearly the great need of enlarging the Indian Medical Service and giving more careful attention to conserving the health and lives of the Indians.

4. There are seven or eight thousand Indian children who are without proper school facilities, more than five thousand being within the Navajo country. These deplorable conditions are the result largely of inadequate appropriations by Congress. If the estimates as prepared by the Office recently and heretofore