geous wrong. How do people know that it will be safe and profitable, and that there will be no retribution to weary and haunt us by and by? I do not believe they know at all. They are so greedy for the Indian land, poor as most of it is, that they are willing to leave to their children the added burden of a pauper population of a quarter of a million Indians, idle, vicious and criminal, rather than take the trouble to consider the subject, and to institute a policy which would be best and safest for the white people of the country.

The Indian problem will never be decided rightly until the business men of the country take it up, and apply business principles and methods to its investigation and solution. There is no need of rhetoric or sentimentality in treating the subject sensibly and practically. It would be just as well to vary the terms of the problem so that it would stand thus: What policy, system and methods of management in the conduct of Indian affairs would be best for the white people of the country? The conclusion would be equally favorable to the Indians, though we should make no distinct claim on their behalf. Of all our people, those of our great and growing Western communities have most at stake in this matter. But we are all one nation, and our business men everywhere should give attention to this pressing and rapidly developing state of things, and should

take the matter into their own hands. It will take time and money, but it will save more.

I meet a few persons in the Eastern States who think there is so much stealing in the Indian service on the reservations, so much misappropriation of Government funds by Indian agents, that all other evils and abuses in the service are trivial in comparison. They are fond of repeating that "all Indian agents will bear watching," and appear to think it a wise and valuable saying. But it is no more true of Indian agents than of everybody else, and therefore the phrase does not suggest anything helpful or illuminating. Such men are usually specialists in occupation, absorbed in pursuits which hold them apart from the general current of affairs and discussion in the country, or who have in some other way been prevented from observing the changes which have occurred in the character of the Indian service during the last twenty-five years. Their opinions of this subject appear to be based upon the history and traditions of a former period of our national life, rather than upon the facts of the present.

A thorough examination and exposition of the system and methods of agency book-keeping now in use on all the reservations, and of the character of the reports and statements which must be constantly sent to the Indian Office at Washington,

would show that there cannot now be any considerable opportunity for theft, however agents and clerks may unite in desiring or attempting to steal, if the officers and clerks at Washington attend properly to their duties. The only collusion that would avail to render theft possible, or that would secure it from immediate discovery, would be the collusion of the officers at Washington with the agent and his subordinates on a reservation, which is, of course, entirely impossible. As a matter of fact, it is well known, I believe, that no thefts, or financial irregularities of any moment, have been brought to light in the Indian service on the reservations during recent years. The real dangers and evils of the Indian service are to be looked for in other directions.

The industrial and social progress and development of the Indians depend, to a much greater extent than most people appear to understand, upon the character of the land which they occupy. Such land as that which makes up the greater part of the Omaha and Winnebago reservations, for instance, invites and will sustain a highly varied, complex and profitable agriculture. Nearly all the products of the great middle zone of our country, which extends east and west between the States lying farther north and south, can be successfully and profitably grown on

those reservations. The soil is rich and the climate all that can be desired. Corn, wheat, rye, oats, barley, flax, hemp and all our best grasses can be grown there, with all our most important root crops, potatoes, turnips, beets, carrots, parsnips and nearly all kinds of vegetable and garden products of temperate and semi-tropical regions, with grapes and nearly all the best small fruits. Grazing and stock-raising can be profitably combined with agriculture, and these regions would support a dense Indian population.

Wherever the soil is thus fertile and productive the land should be accurately subdivided, so as to give to each Indian family, in the possession of a definite area of ground, an adequate basis and security for a home and for the industries necessary to sustain it. There are, however, many reservations of which the soil and climate offer but very slight opportunity or return for agricultural labor. In such regions and conditions whoever occupies the land must depend for subsistence chiefly upon stock-raising. The land of such reservations as Rosebud and Pine Ridge, in Dakota, that of the Crow Indians, in Montana, the Klamath reserve in Southern Oregon, and several others which I have seen, will not sustain its inhabitants if they depend upon agriculture for the means of subsistence. After an extended and careful examination of the land of all these reser

vations, I am convinced that it can be made available for agriculture for the Indians only to this extent. The land which admits of cultivation (but a small proportion of the total area of these reserves) should be divided and allotted in severalty among the Indians, so as to secure to each family and individual an anchorage to a particular spot and portion of the soil, as the basis and necessary condition for a home. Without this the people would never pass beyond the nomadic stage of development, and would not attain to anything worthy of the name of civilization. But in all these regions the soil is so unproductive, and the supply of moisture so scanty, that the returns of agriculture are extremely uncertain, and taking several years together cannot be depended upon as an adequate means of support for the inhabitants. They can grow little in the most eastern of the arid regions named, besides the Ree corn, (a dwarf variety cultivated by the Indians in Southern Dakota, called Squaw Corn by the white people,) and a few vegetables and garden products. But the necessity of restraining the people from a nomadic life-or rather of carrying them beyond that stage of development—is so great, and all means adapted to that end so important, that this anchorage of each family to a subdivision of the arable land is indispensable, and it should be attended to most carefully. It is best for the In