as any in the party. The young ladies were in nearly every dance, and were apparently very popular with both officers and civilians. Two of the young ladies were of mixed Hawaiian and Chinese blood.

Most of the native Hawaiians are poor, and earn their living by day's work, though a very few of the descendants of the old royal family and chiefs still own considerable tracts of land. The common people, even under the ancient régime, owned very little land. There is abundance of work on the island, and the natives are fairly industrious-not as industrious as Americans, and far short of the Chinese and Japanese, but compared with other races emerging from barbarism, particularly those living in a tropical climate, they may be termed industrious. Many are employed as teamsters, hack drivers, sailors, stevedores, carpenters, masons, painters, and workers at odd jobs. They are better at work by the day than by the month, and they especially dislike work calling for a regular routine or repetition of the same thing. They are also better at earning than at saving. Money seems to burn their fingers, and they proceed to spend it as quickly as possible, using very little judgment in the purchases which they make. This lack of thrift is one of the greatest hindrances to their material advancement.

Another deficiency of the Hawaiians, not shared to the same extent by other undeveloped races, is the lack of financial responsibility. It is hardly proper to call it dishonesty, for that implies a deliberate purpose to possess that which is not one's own. With the Hawaiians it is rather a sin of omission than of commission. They contract debts and neglect to pay them, or use trust funds and do not replace them. Probably they would pay if they had the money and could spare it conveniently, but it is not important enough to cause them to economize and save up the money to meet their obligations. This racial weakness is so generally recognized that natives are rarely employed in positions where money is to be handled. The most striking illustration is that Hawaiian churches do not trust one of their own number as treasurer, but select some responsible white man. When a Hawaiian was made treasurer of the territory two years ago, he was advised by some of his Hawaiian friends not to accept the position. He was considered an upright and capable man, but they feared his half Hawaiian blood would not stand the strain of handling large sums of money; and their fears proved correct, for he soon fled from the islands with twenty thousand dollars of territorial funds.

This weakness of character is very detrimental to the advancement of the race, as it prevents their success in any business enterprise. Very few lay up money with which to buy homes for themselves, or to engage in trade on their own account. It is the opinion of those best qualified to know that there is a slow but steady improvement in this respect, although the outlook is still very discouraging.

The general health of the natives, especially of the full-blooded

Hawaiians, is far from satisfactory. They usually have small families, many of the children die in infancy, and among the adults consumption and other diseases indicating low vitality are prevalent. Their total number has been reduced from 70,000 in 1853 to less than 30,000 in 1890. The health and vigor of those of mixed Hawaiian blood is much superior to that of the pure Hawaiians. There are two leading types of these mixed races, the Caucasian Hawaiian and the Chinese Hawaiian. Of these, it is the testimony of all observers that the Chinese Hawaiians are the best race, both physically and mentally. Many centuries of Oriental civilization under trying conditions have made the Chinese the most virile, hardy, industrious, patient, and thrifty people of the earth. These qualities, added to the kind, open-hearted nature of the Hawaiians, make a very superior race. It is said that Chinese husbands are popular with Hawaiian women, as they are kinder and better providers for the family. Marriages between the Hawaiians and other races are quite frequent, and the number of part Hawaiians is steadily increasing. In 1872 the census gave but 1,487 part Hawaiians. In 1884 they had increased to 4,218, and in 1900 to 7,848. The larger proportion of children among the part Hawaiians is shown by the statistics of school attendance, which in 1902 showed 4,903 full-blooded Hawaiian children to a total population of 29,787 and 2,869 part Hawaiian children to a population of 7,848. In other words, the proportion of children is twice as great among the part Hawaiians as among those of pure blood. These facts force upon us the conclusion that within two or three generations the Hawaiians as a type will pass away, and the Hawaiian problem will find its solution in the gradual absorption of the natives into the larger and stronger races.

The CHAIRMAN.-This completes the subjects assigned for our consideration this morning, and the Chair will now delegate a part of his duties to Mr. Frank Wood.

Mr. FRANK WOOD.-Our host allows us to publish a report of the Conference, and it is all that he will allow us to pay for. This is very largely the source of information throughout the country on Indian subjects. I think I am quite correct in saying that the largest amount of information that can be found on Indian affairs can be found in the past reports of this Conference. We need $400 to publish and pay the postage and expressage on the reports, and I have no doubt you will furnish me with that amount before the end of the Conference, as all previous Conferences have done.

Mr. GARRETT.-We have usually listened at the beginning of the Conference to a résumé of the last year's work from our friend General Whittlesey. To-day for the first time, I think, his face is missing; the weight of years seems to be pressing on him so that he feels unable to attend the Conference. It has been suggested

that we send him a telegram expressing our feeling toward him, and at the request of a lady of the Conference I have sketched the following telegram, which I move may be signed by the President of the Conference and sent to General Whittlesey.

Mr. SMILEY.—I have known General Whittlesey intimately for twenty-four years. He has been here at every Conference but this one; I have traveled with him and his wife and my wife all through the Indian country, in Arizona and the Indian Territory. He is a scholarly man, and he is the most experienced man, except General Dawes, in Indian affairs, that I know of; he is always courteous and gentle and yet firm. He was always popular with the members of the Committee on Indian Affairs of the House and the Senate, and he gained his point not by opposition and brow-beating, but by his gentle, winning way. I second this resolution most heartily.

The resolution was unanimously adopted, and the next day, on the arrival of the Hon. John D. Long, President of the Conference, he signed the following telegram on behalf of the Conference, which was then sent :

MOHONK LAKE, 10-21, 1903.

GEN. E. WHITTLESEY, 8 Iowa Circle, Washington, D. C.

The Mohonk Conference regrets your absence and misses your counsel. Accept our benediction for your long devotion to the Indian cause.

JOHN D. LONG, President.

The Conference then adjourned until 8 P. M.

Second Session.

Wednesday Evening, October 21, 1903.

The Chairman called the Conference to order at eight o'clock, and announced as the subject for the evening's consideration : "The Evils of Political Patronage in the Indian Service," and possibly the remedies.

The CHAIRMAN.-We will first have a paper by Mr. J. W. Davis, of Boston, Secretary of the Conference.

INDIAN INSPECTORS.

PAPER READ BY MR. J. W. DAVIS.

A statement of facts limited by required brevity to only three years of the twenty-three years of experience of the Boston Indian Citizenship Committee. And also, for brevity, all investigating officers of the Department are considered together, although some report to the Commissioner and some only to the Secretary of the Interior.

Surely in these days of unlicensed criticism and ruthless aspersion, it becomes us to be heartily appreciative of good done; and for our Committee I gladly speak of earnest and thorough work begun under Secretary Hitchcock's direction at the Omaha and Winnebago Reservations (concerning which reservations I reported last year), but as the work is not completed, I limit report and comment upon it.

But enough has developed to confirm to the fullest extent the charges which others and ourselves have made for several years concerning that agency, and in condemnation of the lack of any reform following the report of two previous inspectors.

In all fairness it is due to the Honorable Secretary of the Interior to make full allowance for the circumstances under which our charges and appeals first came to him.

If, on his accession, he had report from officers certified to him as efficient and faithful that they had found no sufficient proof of the charges made, it is most natural that he should at first rely on their statement, as against the allegations of those whom he had heard subtly characterized as "Eastern sentimentalists" or "philanthropists,'-a noble name, but uttered with a sneer-or "believers in the noble Indian,". -a perverted characterization of these

friends of Indians.

And it is not strange that he should look askant at their appeals when it is evident that the utterances of some true friends of the Indians and even of some leaders among them have been academic and unpractical, and have shown that they have never been on a reservation, and that some of their complaints have been without accurate knowledge of the conditions; and further, that some of the complaints presented at second hand as being received from Indian protégés are in some cases colored by the selfish purposes of cliques and parties among the Indians, who have misrepresented their grievances, for politics not only prevail among them, but as among us, warp and pervert their utterances.

Still further, those among the whites whose selfish interests have been checked by both Western and Eastern influence have artfully used the minor mistakes of friends of Indians to create an atmosphere in Washington as far as possible unfavorable to a ready and unbiased reception of their protests and appeals on Indian matters.

But most assuredly, all these defects and influences taken together are not substantial reasons for any prolonged rejection of the appeals of friends of Indians of known standing, but for a time they do affect their reception as against official reports.

And it is therefore not strange that the Department has sometimes settled into an indifference toward outside protests, and given unwarranted credence to inspectors' reports. And the limit of time for a head of a Department to reach the point of not being thus hindered from seeing clearly is indefinite.

But the time is certainly now past for any misconceptions by this administration. The new inspections which it has recently made have proved to it the falsity of previous inspection reports, as well as shown that there is among the recognized friends of Indians, West and East, first of all, absolute disinterestedness, with no selfish interests to be promoted; secondly, resources of accurate knowledge of inner facts as full and true as the Government can acquire; and thirdly, that the present protest against the condition of the inspector work of the Department is no hasty, ill-considered fling at an important branch of Government administration.

I stated at the outset that a third inspector's work at the Omaha and Winnebago Reservations had been earnest, and it has been so thorough and searching that the agent has vehemently pleaded to have his resignation accepted immediately. And it is no unfair inference that this sudden urgency to be released from his office, to which he had recently as urgently sought re-election, was to stop further inquiry and escape consequences.

Now the same facts which we and others have been pressing upon the Department's attention have been for more than a year as evident as now; have been urged in reiterated and emphatic forms by various persons, West and East; and proofs were just as accessible to the two previous inspectors who have been on the case as they are now to the third. But the respected Commissioner told me personally, in answer to our appeals, that he could