Several correspondents in the Northwest give their opinions on what should be done, and I submit extracts from their letters.
“The Government, in my judgment, should further strengthen its work in suppressing the liquor traffic among the Indians. A large appropriation should be asked for each year, and good, competent men should be employed to break up the traffic. In my opinion, it is useless to educate the Indian to grow up and drink himself to death, and if the United States laws are too little enforced with relation to the liquor traffic among Indians, it is not because they are not violated, but because the Government has not yet secured sufficient assistance to see that the law-violators are punished.”
“I have always believed that unallotted Indians who have large grazing areas on their reservation should be the direct beneficiaries of their own grazing-lands and have continually urged that a reimbursable appropriation be made to stock this reservation. It has also occurred to me that the Indians should be encouraged by the use of large reimbursable appropriations to stock their allotments with tools and livestock and I am glad that the above propositions are being actively pushed as desirable propositions by the present Commissioner of Indian Affairs.”
“In my opinion, the reservation was opened seventy-five years too soon. With the exception of a few half-breeds, they were absolutely unprepared for the opening of the reservation. Humanly speaking, they are doomed to utter annihilation. In dealing with them, we forgot that they were savages, and that, as it took centuries to polish our own ancestors who were vastly more intelligent than these redmen, at least one century, or one century and a half, would be required to make these people civilized.”
“When I took charge, nothing had been done for them by the Government. I at once issued agricultural implements, wire, seeds, etc., and organized each band and devoted the first efforts to agriculture on individual tracts, but worked all together as a community. By this means we raised a good crop the first year, in one instance going from almost starvation to plenty in the short space of four months. Since that time not a single ration has been issued, and aside from supervisory work and teaching, which is given by myself and employees, all my Indians are entirely self-supporting. I am unqualifiedly and absolutely opposed to all ration and annuity distribution as it has been carried on in our department. I am insisting upon all my Indians caring for and supporting their old people, and see that it is done. My method of helping Indians is to work both day and night to inaugurate methods and give opportunities to enable them to work out their own salvation.