be reserved until the state can be organized to take its place, and with those two funds, the tribal fund, which the tribes have voluntarily appropriated for education of their own children, supplemented by the two hundred thousand dollars which Congress has given us, (we would like to make it two hundred and fifty thousand dollars next year) we can keep up a fairly good system, enlarge and increase it, until such a time as the state is organized and ready to take charge of the educational work of the Territory. It would be a great calamity; I can hardly describe to you how it would be, if we do not get some relief by the fourth of March. These little day schools, (and we have now over seven hundred, built by donation, by subscription), if they are to close next March, the men upon whose allotments these little day schools are located, will appropriate the buildings to their own use, for barns, sheds, or houses, or they will be moved off the school lots, and when the state is formed it will have absolutely nothing with which to begin. If we can manage to continue these little schools until the state is organized and ready to take charge of them, you see we will have seven or eight hundred district schools already established and organized, already full of Indian and white children for the state to begin with. Those are the two points, I think, upon which Congress should give speedy legislation during this coming session, so we will not have to close the schools the 4th of March; first, to provide that the balance of the two hundred thousand dollars, which I estimate will be sixty thousand dollars, perhaps, may be used between March 4th and the end of the fiscal year, and next, that the tribal school funds may continue to be reserved, as they have been reserved, for the education of tribal children until the state is ready to educate all of the children. Some of the tribes have already taken that stand. The Cherokee council has already passed resolutions asking that Congress do this. The Creek chief, who read his message a week or two ago to the council, recommends the same thing; the chief of the Choctaw nation has already said he wanted his council to do the same thing, so there will be no opposition from the councils, I think, in that respect, because, as the years go by, they are all becoming more and more interested in the education of their own children. There are other topics that I might touch upon, but nothing that you would be more interested in.

One or two words as to what we need more than anything else: first, we need thoroughly up-to-date, practical, teachers. The summer normals, which we organized six years ago, have been remarkably successful. We have had, during this past summer, in the four normals, over nine hundred teachers in regular attendance for the entire month. We need, then, thoroughly

up-to-date, practical teachers; secondly, the Indian needs, aside from that, more than anything else, a thoroughly honest (if he can get it) practical, Christian man as a farmer or tenant, as his neighbor. The great trouble down there on their farming lands, is that their tenants have not been of the right class and character of men; they have been shiftless, roving men, who go here and there in their covered wagons, stop long enough to raise a crop, and then move. The Indian is a great imitator. Place by the side of him a man whose acts are worthy of imitation.

As my time has expired, I will close by submitting for your information a table of statistics relating to our past year's work as follows:

The PRESIDENT.-We are now to have twenty or twenty-five minutes for a free parliament in which all are invited to take part. The speeches will be limited to five minutes each. The conference is open for free discussion.

Mr. ALBERT E. HOYT, of the Albany (N. Y.) "Argus.”—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I am a new-comer at this Conference; I came here in search of information and I have

been told that this is the place to come to get it. I desire all the information I can get, and there is one point that has been touched upon, upon which I would like more information. I refer to the Gallinger amendment, so called, to the proposed statehood bill. I recognize fully all that has been said in regard to the sanctity of the covenant that the nation entered into with the civilized tribes, to protect them against the liquor traffic. I am in grave doubt as to the power of Congress to bind the State after admission to the Union. I doubt very

much whether the Supreme Court of the United States would recognize any such compact whatever. It seems to me that after Congress has given Statehood that they have the fullest powers of a state to control the liquor traffic, their power becomes supreme and that if the new state finds prohibition is not working well, as it has been in some of the older states, that their power to act and regulate the liquor traffic would be unquestionable. That is the way it seems to me. I would very much like some information from those who have given more study to the particular problems, as affecting the Indian tribes in the Indian Territory, some light upon how they propose to avoid that difficulty.

The PRESIDENT.-I do not know whether Judge Andrews is in the room or not. No one can speak with so much authority as Judge Andrews on this question.

Hon. CHARLES ANDREWS (Syracuse, N. Y.), having been called upon by the President of the Conference, said:

Mr. Chairman, Gentlemen of the Conference: I do not feel prepared to give any definite answer to the question. The fact as I understand it, is whether if Congress should admit the Indian Territory as a State upon condition that its constitution should prohibit the sale of liquor within the State for a period of say twenty-one years, and the condition was complied with, the State could, after its organization, amend its constitution by abrogating the prohibition.

The point is whether, if Congress should admit the Indian Territory as a state of the Union, the state, after its admission, and its legislature would be bound by this compact. It is a question of difficulty, I should say. I think when the northwestern territory was organized, certain stipulations were entered into between the Congress of the United States and Virginia, if I recollect right, which ceded that territory to the general government, in respect to certain conditions which should exist in that territory for all future time, prohibiting, I believe, slavery within it. That compact has always been regarded as binding upon the

states which were subsequently organized out of that territory, and slavery was forever prohibited within them. Now, whether an agreement, entered into, not as a fundamental condition of government between the territorial organization and the residents of that territory, bearing upon the prohibition of the sale of liquor, would preclude the state from adverse and hostile. legislation or legislation in opposition to that agreement, is a question. I shall want to think about it before giving an opinion. My present impression is that the state would have plenary power over the subject after its organization and would not be bound in pursuance of that supposed agreement, to continue the policy established by it.

A MEMBER. May I ask one thing further? I think Mr. Hoyt's question is one step further-provided there were made a different Enabling Act, having no special regard to the prior agreement when this Territory was a Territory and was embodied in the constitution of the State, an Enabling Act providing that they could not accept any constitution except with that provision.

Judge ANDREWS.-An acceptance of a favor, if that was so regarded, granted by the Government of the United States, would, by the ordinary law of contracts be deemed to be binding, but it is not a fundamental question of organized Government whether or not the sale of liquor shall or shall not be prohibited within a State. It rather seems to me now that it is going very far to say that such a matter which properly belongs to local regulation, not constituted a fundamental condition of Government, would be placed by such a compact beyond. the power of the State, to regulate in its discretion. This is a very crude answer which I have made.

The PRESIDENT.-We are very much obliged to you.

Mr. BENEDICT.-Congress already has such laws providing for the punishment of the sale of liquor in the State of Colorado, the Dakotas and other States, where there are Indians. It is just as much of an offence to sell liquor to them, now, as it was in the Indian Territory.

Mr. WALTER C. ROE.-I am sure Dr. Abbott knows my name because he taught me how to swim when I was a boy and I am glad to acknowledge that since then I have learned a great many things almost as valuable from him.

I do not know what the scheme of the program contemplates as to industrial work but I do not want to let this opportunity pass without bringing before you, in very simple guise, the influence of the conference in this direction. Seven years ago

Mrs. Roe stood before this conference and pleaded for a simple, industrial work among the Cheyennes and Arapahoes of Oklahoma, and, at that time you generously contributed to that end, putting into our hands something like $1250, which was applied to the building of the Mohonk Lodge. That work has gone on to a very great success in the industrial line and because I fear that the industrial element may not be presented here sufficiently at this Conference, in the pressure of larger things, I want to bring it before you now, giving briefly the history of an enterprise which has proved a success, a self-supporting Indian enterprise, or at least, soon to become such. After you gave those means for putting up that building and starting that enterprise, we cast about for what should be the proper line of work, and finally decided upon bead work because our Indians know no other industry and that is according to their taste. Naturally, we were told it would not be successful because it would not find markets. We have built up the business and now the business is paying for itself, and although we have still one employee paid by the Government, we hope by next July, when the Government fiscal year will come to an end, to relinquish that aid and we shall carry that man by our own resources. We began in a limited. way; if I remember rightly, Miss Sparhawk gave us the first $100 through the Indian Industries League, and then later they gave us another $100, then a good woman down in Fort Worth, Texas, loaned us $300; Mrs. Doubleday, who is here today, through the Sequoyah League, gave us $1000 capital to work with. I wonder whether any enterprise ever started without some good woman to start it. It has certainly been true that they have been our main dependence. We have now developed the business so that we have paid back the $300 from the lady in Fort Worth, $200 to the Sequoyah League, and are ready to pay back the $200 secured from the Indian Industrial League, during the coming winter, when the notes fall due. We have built an industrial office building worth, with equipment, about $750, a home for our manager, worth about $950; we now have about $500 in the bank for operating expenses, total assets about $4.500, while the total indebtedness amounts to $1,000. That has been built up as the industrial department of the Mohonk Lodge, and, ladies, because I would not leave you out in this campaign which had its beginning with Mrs. Roe, we have been faithful to the promise or prediction which we made to you seven years ago, that a self-supporting industrial department could be built up if properly administered. I am pleased to say that in addition to that industrial work, the Mohonk Lodge, which I represent today, has done a beneficent work in connection with the other elements of Indian life; it has become