to it. The wild Indian cannot be "developed" into a citizen, he has to be "born again." All his traditions and his most cherished religious feelings antagonize the change. This must be borne in mind in estimating the difficulties in the way of improving the condition of the Indians.

The Indian, by nature, is a thorough communist. The passion for the ownership of land, so strong in civilized races, is wholly unknown to him. This sentiment is eliminated from his nature. Hence, one of the great obstacles to inducing the Indians to own and cultivate lands in severalty.

Another objection springs from an entirely different source, viz., the fear that they will be overcome in detail if their community of interest is weakened, almost destroyed, by means of the sub-division of their lands.*

The Indians, in their natural state, were implicitly obedient to a few simple laws which were ample for their condition. These laws and traditions recognized individual ownership only in strictly personal effects, such as clothing, ornaments and weapons; the separate ownership of land was wholly unknown. Even the products of the chase belonged to the clan, to a group of relatives, sometimes on the male side, sometimes on the female.

Children never inherited from their parents, but the effects of a dead Indian fell to the clan or gens in common. This wholly prevented the growth of the desire for individual ownership. Indeed, so far from separate ownership being encouraged, it was severely reprobated; in fact, it was not tolerated.

The attempt to secure to an individual what belonged to the gens in common, was a crime universally abhorred. Such transgressors were considered to be peculiarly offensive to the gods. †

It is true that this feeling is dying out, and as to personal property, it is no longer of any moment; but the prejudice still exists as to land.

As has been said, giving a man a farm will not make him a farmer, and giving him implements will not enable him to use them.

*See Pleasant Porter's remarks, page 2. †Maj. Powell 45th Cong. Mis.Doc. 5, p.26.

Lands should only be given in severalty when a tribe has made a considerable advance towards civilization, so that they may in a very short time become self-supporting and entirely free from Government aid or control. To give lands in severalty before reaching this condition, would be a great injury both to the Indians and to the Government.

In the Indian Territory, this entire subject should be left to the Indians themselves.

Urge and educate them up to the idea, accustom them to the notion, that they must meet the question in the near future, but leave the details of time and manner to themselves.

Until such time as a majority of the Indians on any particular reservation voluntarily consent to divide their own lands, the grants in severalty should be made by the Government on its own land to individual Indians.

Lands thus granted should be made inalienable and free from taxes for a fixed period-less than two generations would, probably, be too short a time.

In that interval the new farmer and grazier* will have become sufficiently advanced to take care of himself, and hold his own against land sharks.

All agreements or contrivances to secure the lands to a purchaser upon the Indian's title becoming absolute, should be held void

CITIZENSHIP.

As soon as an Indian is thoroughly self-supporting, and desires the privilege, make him a citizen and leave the rest to time. The Government, as such, can do no more for him then, than it can for any other citizen.

This right, however, should not be conferred upon any tribe, or body of Indians which continues to hold lands in common. Individuality must precede citizenship.

Hon. Mr. Laird, Dominion Superintendent General (1875), p. xiii of report, writes:

* See Gen. Gibbon, "Our Indian Question" (1881), on making Indians graziers.

"Our Indian Legislation generally rests upon the principle, that the aborigines are to be kept in a condition of tutelage, and treated as wards or children of the State. The soundness of the principle I cannot admit. On the contrary, I am firmly persuaded that the true interests of the aborigines and of the State alike, require that every effort should be made to aid the red man in lifting himself out of his condition of tutelage, and dependence, and that it is clearly our wisdom and our duty, through education and every other means, to prepare him for a higher civilization by encouraging him to assume the privileges and responsibilities of full citizenship."

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In the national crime called the Federal Indian policy, the real culprit is the whole people of the United States.

You, reader, have your share to bear in the common disgrace, and you must do your part in its reparation.

But the immediate present actual active culprit, is the Congress of the United States, which through its persistent and long-continued sins of omission, as well as commission, has permitted the administration of Indian affairs to exhibit such disgraceful alternations of weakness and cruelty, of perfidy and fraud. It must be borne in mind too, that Congress, in all these years has sinned against the light.

It has not been in ignorance of the facts, but has lacked both the power and the will to develop a policy that would do justice to the Indians, and honor to the country.

Congress in this has been afflicted with that worst of evils, spiritual blindness, and that body has never shown itself capable in the remotest degree of appreciating the enormity of this wrong, much less of remedying it.

The Executive has for years made more of an effort than Congress to help the Indians, and has been the avowed friend of the race.

But, as a rule (owing to the want of honest co-operation by Congress, and to its own diversity of functions), the time of the Interior Department has nevertheless, been principally occupied in making, breaking and remaking, and rebreaking "perpetual" treaties of peace.

A treaty is made, a "perpetual" reservation is set aside and certain annuities guaranteed.

Presently, that heterogeneous mass of refugees, miners, and gamblers, which, on the frontier, affects to call itself the "ad

vance of civilization," seizes part of the reservation, the payments due come late, or not at all, the hungry and cheated savages rebel, much blood and treasure is spent in teaching them that the white man's "forever" means "never," a Commission is sent to make more promises to be broken like the last, and so on to the end of the shameful chapter.

So notorious is all this, that it is difficult to induce competent men to serve on Indian Commissions.

Nevertheless, the remedies must be worked out through Con

gress.

That body is inert or active only for evil. The true Indian policy must be framed from without, and must be forced on the sluggish sensibilities of the Federal Legislature by persistent and unremitting demand. It will never deal with the subject in the proper spirit as long as it can be put off.

No great moral reform ever originated in Congress, and it is safe to predict that none ever will.

Its slavery record is full of meaning. That question was agitated for many long years before Congress took any notice of it, and then the first great struggle was begun, not with an effort to remedy the wrong, but in a vain attempt to smother the national conscience by trying to suppress the right of petition. All through this momentous question, Congress was the sluggard. At the end, the finishing blow was given by the Executive, and not by Congress.

It is true that Congress has ordered numerous "Indian investigations," and has printed many thousand pages of testimony and reports.

Also (as before mentioned in the Chivington case), many members and witnesses have drawn much mileage on such occasions, and the committees have spent great sums for "expenses," and favorites have earned pay as stenographers and clerks, thus helping to pay the members' political debts.

These committees have generally done one good thingmercilessly condemned the Federal Government-yet the two Houses have never responded, or appeared sufficiently interested to make an earnest effort to respond, on any occasion with a fair,