between the love of home in the white child and the Indian child. The Indian child has been trained to centralize himself about his father's home and the white child trained to disperse himself among his fellows. I want to say to the Conference that it is my belief that there is as much necessity, aye more necessity for its guardianship, its protection, its advocacy of Indian policies than there ever has been. I believe that the Indian needs this protection and calls for it now, as much or more than he ever has needed it or called for it. There are numerous conditions surrounding the Indian that make it necessary that this influence, this good that has surrounded him so long, still remain about him, and I want to appeal to the Conference not to turn the Indian down, not to abandon him, but to be responsible for this influence and this power in national affairs, for the good of the Indian. He needs it. I thank you. (Applause.)

THE CHAIRMAN: Our next speaker is MR. CHARLES E. BurTON, Superintendent of the Indian School at Grand Junction, Colorado.

MR. CHARLES E. BURTON: Ladies and Gentlemen: We have been trying to educate the Indian for about twenty-five years. We have been trying to bring the Indian into citizenship for about one hundred years. We have absorbed into our citizenship every year a million people from foreign countries, many of them just as ignorant and just as hard to make citizens of as the Indian, if he had the proper policies for his bringing into this grand and glorious citizenship. There are only two possible explanations; either the Indian is a fool, or the policies for his education are foolish. It is certainly that way or it would not have taken so long to make a good start. I am very grateful and thankful that we have had an example in our Conference today of what education and Christianizing of the Indian has done. We are making a glorious start; we have done a great deal, but we have not done what we ought to have done, or the Indian question would have been solved years ago. As I say, there is something wrong with our policy. We are not pursuing the right plan for either citizenizing or Christianizing the Indian. As I said, we are bringing a million people every year into our citizenship. If we were to take five thousand of the most ignorant Poles, or Italians, or Austrians, or any other immigrants to this country and put them on a reservation in the West, enclose them in that reservation on lands where one could hardly acquire an education, keep them there year after year, would they not remain the same for a thousand years as when they came here? That is exactly the policy that we are following with the Indian, or at least that we have been following. I am glad to say that policy is changing as fast as it

can be changed. I believe the Indian has done well; he has done. nobly, and I thank God that he has done so, that he has shown that he has manhood and honesty and uprightness in his character, and if he has a chance he will make a man yet; and not only individually, but as a race he will accomplish something. Ladies and gentlemen, I wish to ask you if our honored President of the United States, who is filling his position so nobly and so admirably, could have climbed to that position, if he had retained the wooden shoe and the baggy trousers of his Dutch ancestors? Would it be possible for the million people who come to our shores every year to retain the clothing with which they come? I am told that down at Ellis Island sometimes the cotton trousers and the gaudy dresses on the immigrants are changed even before they leave the wharf. You do not see them in Chicago; you do not see the various styles of head-dress after these immigrants leave the wharf at New York.

We hear a great deal about cultivating the native industries. Ladies and gentlemen, I am in favor of cultivating such native industries as will stand the test of utility. We are sometimes told that we ought not to try to make a white man out of an Indian. True enough. We do not want to make a white man out of an Indian any more than we want to make a white man out of a negro, or out of a Chinaman or out of a Japanese. But we do want to make an educated, refined, American citizen out of him, and I am sure that if we do away with the reservations, if we give the Indian time, if we give him the chance that we have, he will do it.

I want to make one more point before I close. Let us see. We put our children into school at the age of six years; we keep them in school until they are eighteen or twenty, and after they pass through the public schools, we give them sometimes four years in the Normal School and sometimes four years in the University; we give our children thirteen, fifteen or sixteen years of schooling, and yet we expect the poor Indian boy to go into school, learn a new language and try to get an education with six or seven years' schooling. Ladies and gentlemen, it cannot be done. (Applause.)

THE CHAIRMAN: We will now hear from DR. CHARLES F. MESERVE, President of Shaw University, Raleigh, N. C., and long in the Indian service as head of the Haskell Institute, Lawrence, Kansas.

DR. CHARLES F. MESERVE: Mr. President, and Friends of the Conference: For the last fifteen years I have made a study of the work done by Mr. John H. Seger at Colony, Southwestern Oklahoma. When the Florida prisoners were returned to Oklahoma, Mr. Seger took fifty or more of them from Darlington and went with them fifty-five miles out on the prairie

where Colony now is. With these Indians he put up in a year several hundred cords of wood and several hundred tons of hay. His work was so successful that when the time came in 1890 to establish a school for the Cheyennes and Arapahoes on this part of the reservation, he was asked to build the school and become its superintendent. Later on he was made Agent. The work prospered under his management. About a year ago he resigned the position of superintendent and agent and has since devoted himself to personally looking after and directing the farming operations of the Indians in the Colony district. I visited this district last August and spent several days along the Washita River and its tributaries in company with Mr. Seger. I took particular pains to go into the fields of corn, cotton and other crops and see just what kind of work was being done. I found some fields of corn and cotton in as good condition as fields of similar crops belonging to the Indians' white neighbors. There were others where the Indians had neglected their work and the fields were overgrown with weeds. I was, however, gratified on the whole to see the substantial progress that was being made and the results accomplished in a single year.

He

Nelson Sage, an Arapahoe, a single man, twenty years of age, had 160 acres under cultivation. There were thirty acres in corn that will yield forty bushels to the acre. He ploughed, planted and cultivated this field without any white help. He also had fifteen acres of kaffir corn which a white man cared for. The Indian was to harvest it and have half the crop. The Indian corn was worth forty cents a bushel and the kaffir corn, which will yield forty bushels to the acre, was worth thirty cents. lives with his father and mother in a house constructed of wood and owns a riding plow, a riding six-shovel cultivator, and a riding monitor disc cultivator for listing corn. These machines were bought by himself and not furnished by the government, as has been too often the case. He also owns a good span of mules and a pair of work horses. Near his place were six and a half acres of wheat in the stack, worth fifty-three cents per bushel. The yield was twelve bushels to the acre. He also had five acres of millet of excellent quality.

Hannah Little Bird, an Arapahoe, had hollyhocks about her house, and near by a vegetable garden. Hannah and her husband had hogs, chickens, cattle, two teams, fifteen acres of corn, five acres of oats, fifteen of millet and kaffir corn, and eighteen acres of wheat. Little Bird and family have 800 acres of land, the average value of which is $10.00 per acre.

Kias, a Cheyenne, had thirty acres under cultivation and Ed. Harry, a Cheyenne, twenty acres. Three brothers, Howling Water, Alfred Heap-of-Birds and Homer Heap-of-Birds had six acres of alfalfa, forty acres of Indian corn, twenty acres of oats, and twenty-four of kaffir corn.

There are eleven Indians that are doing about as well as Sage and Little Bird. There are fifteen more that are doing something or pretending to. Of the 276 Indians in Washita County of all ages, all the able bodied are doing some farming. Money is paid out to the Indians in smaller quantities by the Indian officials now than formerly, and this compels them to work. They are cultivating three times as much land as last year.

I was interested to note that rivalry among the Indians in crop raising is beginning. They are understanding that weeds are not corn and are taking more pride in their work. This is brought about by the wise service that Mr. Seger is rendering and also by the example of their white neighbors. I found in this part of Oklahoma a thrifty class of Mennonites who are very kindly disposed toward the Indians. In some cases where the Indians were in need they have furnished seed for crops and have taught them how to set up and operate some of their farming machinery. It was evident that Mr. Seger had done. much to bring the white people and the Indians into a closer and more sympathetic relationship.

In order that the Conference might have some concrete examples of what the Indians are doing I have brought here the specimens that you see on the table before you. The cotton and Indian corn as well as the kaffir corn, millet and milo maize are equal in quality to that raised by the neighboring white people. Thunder Bull, a Cheyenne, has thirty acres of corn that will yield forty bushels to the acre, much of which is like the sample you see in my hand. On account of excessive rain, the wheat and oats which I show you are somewhat deficient in quality. They are, however, as good as similar grain raised by the white people. There are Indians in Washita County that have this year from 800 to 1200 bushels of Indian corn besides kaffir corn and other crops. This sample of cotton was raised by Sage Bark, an Arapahoe; this splendid millet by Watan, who is known to many people in the East as one of the officers of the Reformed Church at Colony.

These Indians can easily become self-supporting after a very few years of wise direction by Mr. Seger, or some one else like him, in whom they have implicit confidence. All of the substantial crops that are raised both in the South and in the North can be grown in this section of Oklahoma, and, with the increasing interest of the Indian in work, I believe there is a bright outlook for the Indians of the Colony district and all other Indians who are blessed with such favorable surroundings and intelligent supervision. (Applause.)

The meeting then adjourned until the following morning.

Third Session.

Thursday Morning, October 18, 1906.

THE CHAIRMAN: We are now to take up the Philippine Islands. The first speaker on the subject will be REV. DR. JOHN BANCROFT DEVINS, Editor of the New York Observer, who has visited the Philippines and written a book on his observations.

REV. JOHN BANCROFT DEVINS, D.D.: Ladies and Gentlemen: The first speaker in a series of this kind I understand, is to furnish the raw material out of which the chefs who follow him are to prepare the feast for you.

There is not a little change in the temper of editors from that of former days when three editors can speak with safety on the same general subject before the same audience. It is said that Horace Greeley, writing of the editor of a contemporary, an esteemed contemporary, you understand, closed his editorial with these words: "You lie! you villian, you lie!" There is no fear at Mohonk of those who speak later using terms like that of those who precede them even though differing views are given.

May I speak for a moment of a Sunday that I spent in Cavite, just across the bay from Manila, with one of the missionaries. When the time came to start, at six o'clock in the morning, it was raining and Philippine rain-I spoke last year of the Philippine heat which is equalled only by the Philippine rain! We went across the bay in a small steamer and took a sail boat with outriggers to go near the native church.

In spite of the rain in the early morning, when we reached old Cavite, we found a congregation of perhaps two hundred people. A stringed band was playing as we entered the church. The Filipinos are fond of music. They play by ear wholly, catch new airs quickly and reproduce them remarkably well. Just after the American occupation, soldiers saw a funeral procession in a Manila street led by a band playing the inspiring air: "There'll be a hot time in the old town to-night." The Filipinos are rapidly becoming American citizens!

Following the preaching and communion services in Cavite, there was a double wedding. One of the brides seemed uneasy; she kept rocking back and forth, and scowling as she rocked, evidently in pain.

"What is the trouble with that lady?" I asked.

"Why," replied the missionary, "look at her feet, she has on shoes." And so she had; apparently the first time that she had