St. Cloud, Minn.; and Joseph B. Whiting. At first the Indians were very unwilling to make a treaty; they were afraid of being deceived, afraid of the duplicity of the white man; and it was only after many months of great effort and much finesse used and some stratagems that the requisite number "touched the feather," as they call signing. They knew that those reservations and those pine forests were all they had; they knew the pine was worth millions, and that if they lost that they lost all. Knowing that white men attached great importance to an oath, they had the Commissioners repeatedly swear, with uplifted hand to God, and by kissing the Bible, that all the promises made them would be carried out. The report of what was said on either side in those treaty-making councils, both by the Indians and by the Commissioners, and the promises that were made, was printed by the Government, and is accessible to any one who chooses to read it. The Indians endeavored to secure that, as they say, they would be made "well off" out of the proceeds of their lands sold, and especially of their valuable pine.

But the promises made to the Indians by the Commissioners were not kept. To in stance one, the Commissioners promised to the White Earth Reservation Indians and mixed bloods that they would, as heretofore, be allowed to take, each man and woman and child, one hundred and sixty acres in severalty; and those Indians signed the treaty on the strength of that promise, and would never have signed but for that promise. But the Government cut that promise in half, giving each eighty acres only. Again, the Commissioners swore to the Mille Lacs band, numbering some 800, that if they signed they should always be allowed to live at Mille Lacs, their ancestral home, to which they were so much attached. They did sign on the strength of this; but the Government broke the promise, withholding their annuities for many years to force them to leave, and so plunging them into poverty and great trouble of mind. In many other places, also, as at Cass Lake, the Indians say that the Commissioners promised them a sawmill if they would sign, a blacksmith, a school, to build them a village, etc., none of which promises were ever attempted to be fulfilled. As one of the Commissioners was a Christian Bishop, the Indians thought that his oath would be very binding on him, and his promises carried out. It is to be observed

also that many of the Indians refused finally to sign the treaty, and did not sign it, fearing fraud, and principal among them were the Bear Islanders in question; who thus were apt to consider that they were not bound by the treaty, having never signed it.

All the above broken promises, however, might have been passed over, affecting single bands only, as the three thousand White Earth Indians, and not the whole body, but that the Indians saw, or thought they saw, that their money coming to them, the proceeds of their pine, was being absorbed by white men, and that they would finally have everything stolen from them. This conviction steadily grew upon them, watching through the years. There were three ways in particular in which they thought this was being done. One was that a Commission, consisting of three men, ex-Congressmen and othersunexceptionable men in themselves—was quartered upon them for over six years, each of whom received, with allowances, out of their funds, thirteen dollars a day, or thirtynine dollars for the three daily; and those men again gave offices to men under them, mixed bloods and others, at the rate of five dollars a day, and other sums; so that the daily cost of that Commission to them was, they said, eighty-eight dollars a day, and there was no work for those men to do to equal that expenditure; most of them seemed to be doing nothing but drawing those high salaries. The ostensible business of those Commissioners was to allot lands to the Indians; but I may mention what a United States Inspector sent from Washington-a very honest, capable, and experienced man-said, that he knew one woman in the employ of the Government who would allot more Indians than that Commission, or that an additional clerk under the Indian Agent at one thousand dollars a year could have done it all. I think the Indians and the United States Inspector were right in their view. Of course it was very aggravating to an Indian who was hungry, and who would have dearly liked just two cents, out of his millions of dollars' worth of pine forests, to buy himself one pound of flour, but could in no wise get it, to see so many white men and others drawing fat salaries out of him, and doing very little or nothing.

Besides this Commission many other white officials were sent, some to supervise the cutting of timber and many other things, and the Indian had to pay for it all.

Finally this Commission of three, with their numerous retainers, became so glaring an imposition that the members were reduced to one, and everything seemed to go just as well or better under that one.

Another way in which the Indians saw they were cheated out of vast sums was in the estimating and sale of their pine timber. Under President Harrison's administration a corps of estimators, each drawing six dollars a day out of the Indians' money, was appointed to estimate the amount of pine on the Red Lake Reservation, or a part of it, and did so. When the new administration of President Cleveland came in, the cry was raised that the former estimating had been done fraudulently, and that it must be done over again. So a new corps of estimators, numbering, I believe, some twenty-six, was hired, each receiving six dollars a day out of the Indians' pine.

This new corps was said to be, as to its members, grossly incompetent. Some of them were paper-hangers, some saloon-keepers, some had got their appointments from having control of negro votes in the South, some had never seen a pine-tree, and most knew nothing about estimating pine. As to how they fulfilled their duties, the general report was that they spent their time mostly in playing cards under a pine-tree. They were always well supplied with whisky, and drank heavily. When there was to be a dance at some neighboring town, fifteen or twenty miles distant, they would go there, and after remaining a few days return to the pines. Some were said to absent themselves for months, but still drew their pay. One took the Keeley cure. Their operations, with those of the former corps of estimators, covered a period of many years. The Hon. Melvin R. Baldwin, Chairman of the Chippewa Commission in the Indian country, and at the head of all the work, said that those first two corps of pine estimators were paid $350,000, and that the real value of the work was $6,000; that he could have it done for that sum, and done it honestly, whereas it was done dishonestly, he said, in the interest of the purchasers. He said that much of the pine was very greatly underestimated-sometimes only a trifle of what was really growing on the tracts; that when it came to be sold at the Government Land Office, those tracts were snapped up, the purchasers getting them for a small part of their real value, while any tracts that they had estimated up to the actual amounts of pine growing on

them were not bought. He denounced those sales as fraudulent; went on purpose to Washington, and did all he could to prevent their confirmation. There is on file at Washington a report of Special Agent J. George Wright, about these gross underestimates of the pine. When that second corps of pine estimators had finished their work, that was not the end; a new corps, the third, was set to work, to go over what the second corps had done; and so it seemed as if their pine would be estimated all away. It seemed like an estate sometimes among white people, which is all frittered away in legal expenses till nothing is left for the heirs.

men.

Then the Indians saw another means of fraud introduced in the shape of fire. According to the law, what is called "dead and down pine" could be cut; and the Indians realized 75 cents per thousand feet for such pine. But green standing pine on the lands they had ceded was not allowed by law to be cut at all, unless it had been bought by an individual purchaser. They complained constantly that their green standing pine was being cut by wholesale, under the pretense that it was "dead and down" pine. The cutting was done almost altogether by white For the pine so cut they got only 75 cents per thousand feet of logs, whereas green pine logs everywhere were worth from $4.75 to $5 per thousand. This was taking their pine from them almost for nothing, and they saw no end to it nor any means of stopping it, for they complained and tried with all their power to stop it, bringing it to the notice of the authorities in every way they could, but they were not listened to, and the thing was allowed to go on. By this means again they foresaw the loss of all their property; that they would get 75 cents a thousand for their pine-expenses to come out of thatinstead of $4.75 or $5, which it was worth. A lifelong, experienced lumberman, and an honest man, who examined the cut of logs on one reservation last winter, said that twothirds, at least, of them were green.

Then, as, by the law, green growing logs could not be cut, but only dead and down, it was a great temptation to those who wished to cut to fire the pine, especially as by doing so they would get for seventy-five cents what otherwise would cost them $4.75 or $5. So on the Red Lake Reservation, where the largest body of pine was, fires ran everywhere; the whole country was burned over. It was a pitiful sight to see the beautiful

shapely pines, that formerly covered the country for a hundred miles, and which, like the buffalo, could never be replaced, yield to the devouring element. The Indians all said and believed that the pine was fired that it might be capable of being cut and got for 75 cents instead of $5. That was what made the Leech Lake Indians, including the Bear Islanders, ask, just before this trouble began, that the cutting of pine on their reservation, begun last winter, should be stopped. They saw how the Red Lake Reservation pine had gone by fire; they saw how the White Earth pine was going; and they knew the same thing was going to take place on their own reservation-that it had already begun. One can make allowance for the feelings of poor men seeing themselves about to be plundered by their elder brothers, who should have loved and protected them, of the last remnant of the noble patrimony they had inherited from their fathers.

It ought to be noted, also, that when the Indians found the promises made to them, by which they were induced to sign, were broken and would not be kept, they repeatedly offered, and would have been most eager, to undo the treaty, to take back their land, even with a great part of the pine burned and cut off it, and release the whites from their promises to pay.

But this, of course, they were not allowed to do. The edict was: We will break our promises to you, by which we got your land, as much as we please, but we shall not allow you to undo that treaty nor take back your land, and if you attempt to do it we will kill you. You must stand by and see us plunder you all we want to, and if you resist we have soldiers and will send them and shoot you.

There is a very strong and clear sense of justice in the Indian's breast, stronger than in any race I know; and what they felt and feel may be imagined. Their white brother so rich and they so poor! And this was a sort of invisible and intangible enemy that was striking them down; it was no person they could reach; it was law, and it was Government. No wonder that the poor Bear Islanders, not knowing where to strike, struck at last wildly and blindly. But they struck no woman nor child, nor man without arms; to their nobility be it said that, as men, they sought men and heroes, with arms in their hands.

That is always the way the Indian does: he bears till he can bear no longer; he has

no newspaper nor organ by which to make known what is being done to him, no powerful organization of friends to champion his cause, and at last he does the only thing he thinks he can do-strikes a despairing blow.

There was another thing occurred which was, as it were, the last straw; that was the cutting down by the Government of the little annuities from $9.20 to $5.50.

Senator Rice repeatedly promised them at the time of the treaty that they would be paid an annuity of about $9 a head for fifty years; that, as their pine was sold and the proceeds lodged in Washington, that annuity would increase to perhaps three times the amount or more; that this increase might not all be paid to them in money, but in useful things, but would certainly be paid. Having the treaty before it, the Government for many years paid the Indians about $9 each-about $9.20, I believe—as promised by the Commissioners. Then, all at once, without any previous notification to the Indians, the Government cut down the annuity to $5.50, the amount paid at the last annuity payment. I believe this cutting down was ordered by some official on the ground of a clause in the treaty that some of that annuity money was to be used for schools. But the Government, having paid $9.20 per capita under that treaty for so many years, having the treaty before it, had fixed that as the proper interpretation of it, and had morally bound itself to pay them that sum, and not one in a thousand of the Indians was aware of the existence of any such clause in the treaty. All they knew was that the Commissioners had promised them $9 per capita, and that the Government had always paid it. When, therefore, the annuity was suddenly cut down, it filled them with alarm and dismay; they said, "All our pine is going, by fraudulent estimating, by fraudulent selling, by fraudulent cutting, by swarms of officials at high salaries eating us up, and now the only thing left, this annuity, which we looked on as sure as the sun to rise, is cut down almost one-half; won't the next step be that it will be taken away altogether? and then the whites will have got everything we have, and only our bodies left."

An annuity is bad for Indians, and should never have been promised; but, having been promised, there is nothing to be done but honestly to pay it. No one but one who has lived among them can understand how they set their hearts on those few dollars; and

there are hundreds among them, poor widows and others, who make the best use of them. It is a pity if they cannot be restored to them. Good friends of the Indian, including the Hon. Mr. Baldwin, Chairman of the Chippewa Commission, begged the official who made that decision not to do so. They reminded him that it might cause an outbreak that would cost a million dollars. We see what the accumulating causes behind it, above detailed, have caused.

To any one living among them the things above detailed have been perfectly plain. Even those living at hundreds of miles' dis.tance, who had no such opportunities of seeing, could see it. For instance, the Hon. Mr. Eddy, Member of Congress from the Red Lake and White Earth districts, said, as quoted in the newspapers some months ago, "The funds of the Chippewa Indians are being rapidly frittered away," or words to that effect. We all thought that promises solemnly made to Indians only to be broken, and dishonest handling of their affairs, were things of the dim and distant past; but, seeing how things have gone since the Rice Treaty of 1889, one learns that they are just as operative now. It is the same old story.

The Chippewa Indians have been most patient, forbearing, long-suffering, under very great provocation, for many years; hardly even uttering a complaint; and, in the opinion of those who have seen the working of things, they have been deeply wronged and abused.

The platform was devoted almost wholly to the subject of administration, and is so significant that we give it in full:

THE PLATFORM

Great progress has been made in dealing with the Indian race in our country. The Nation no longer regards them as a hostile people, nor even as a foreign people. The reforms inaugurated under President Grant have been carried forward toward their logical results; the policy of discontinuing the reservation system has been accepted, and in many of the reservations the land has been allotted in severalty, and the surplus land sold for the benefit of the Indians. Less money is expended in rations, which pauperize, and much more in schools, which prepare for self-support.

The Government has recognized the value of the education of the Indian women in their homes in the domestic arts, and has appropriated increased sums to carry on this work. The anomalous partnership between the Nation and the churches has been discontinued, and now only one denominational body looks to the Govern

ment for aid in support of its schools. The schools of the other denominations are supported by themselves, and the Government itself has organized and is carrying on with comparative efficiency the work of the similar education of all Indian children of school age in the reservations.

Nevertheless, the Indian problem is still far from solution. A needlessly expensive system is maintained, nominally to care for the Indian, in large measure to care for party and political favorites. The schools, the clerks in the Bureau at Washington, and the agency physicians have been brought under the Civil Service law, but with these exceptions the Indian Bureau remains a political machine, subject to change in all its personnel at every Presidential election. By both Democratic and Republican administrations men have been put at the head of the Indian Bureau who were neither familiar with Indian affairs nor acquainted with methods of education. Indian agents and Indian inspectors have been appointed without training or any evidence of their fitness for the office. In more than one instance drunken officials have been

appointed in the reservations, and well-authenticated complaints have failed to secure their removal, or have resulted only in transfer to another field, with an increased salary. In those

cases in which the reservations have been discontinued and the land has been allotted in severalty the entire machinery of the agency has been retained, though no considerable service is required, and the retention is clearly against the spirit of the law. These evils have shown themselves alike when the appointments have been left with the Indian Commissioner, when they have been reserved by the Secretary of the Interior to himself, and when they have been practically left to local politicians. Some excellent officials have been appointed and some excellent work has been accomplished, but this is not because, but in spite of, the system.

Two illustrations of the evils of this system have been afforded during the last year. The first is the removal of Dr. Hailman, notwithstanddian Schools, attested by protests against his reing his splendid record as Superintendent of Inmoval from men of all parties and all sections who were familiar with his work, including many educational experts. The second is the outbreak of Chippewa Indians, whose valuable pine timber the Government, by the agreement of 1889, covenanted to sell for their benefit, and is still appraising and reappraising as a preliminary to such sale; two successive appraisements, extravagantly conducted, having already been set aside as worthless, with a third appraisement now in progress.

We have appealed to successive administrations to remedy these abuses, and the abuses still continue. We now appeal to the people of the United States to demand of their Government that the Indian Bureau be taken out of politics; 'that the Indian Commissioner be no longer treated as a political officer, to be changed with every change of administration; that the work of the Bureau be intrusted to experts, and left in their hands until it is accomplished. And we also appeal to them to demand of Congress that it set on foot at once measures to bring the 1.dian Bureau and its work to an early close;

"F

of Philadelphia, who presided over the Con ferences; Mr. J. W. Davis, of Boston, en nent for his cautious and judicial temper: Mr. James Talcott and Dr. Lucien Warner of New York City; Drs. Ward, of the New York "Independent," Buckley, of the "Christian Advocate," Dunning, of the “Congrega tionalist," Hallock, of the "Christian at Work," Jenkins, of the "Friends' Intel gencer," Gibert, of the Chicago "Times Herald," and Lyman Abbott, of The Outlook And substantially the only criticism uttered from the floor on the Platform was that it was somewhat too cautious and too mild, and that a stronger statement was warranted by the facts.

AMILIAR acquaintance," says a well-known Cambridge professor, "is constantly mistaken for accurate knowledge;" inasmuch as my acquaintance with Japan is limited to the pleasant experience of a few weeks, I cannot fairly lay claim to either one or the other. It is true that I can now picture Kyoto, that city of lanterns and the lotus-flower, as she appears in the indescribably soft and tender radiance of sunrise. Far away in the distance, across the temple roof, with its bluegray tiles and glorious curves, Atago-Yama can just be discerned, wrapped in its garment of soft diaphanous mist; that yellow streak is the bed of the shallow Kamogawa, which will be clearly defined to-night by the many twinkling lights of the al fresco tea-house platforms. Fuji is no longer the "fabric of a dream," but a glorious reality, rising in stately majesty before my eyes as I crossed the Otome-toge from Gotemba. Nara, Nagoya, Miyanoshita, Nikko, Chuzenji, and many another place of fame, all pass before me in review, and make their impression on my mind, until at last Tokyo and its temples complete the panorama. No one should attempt to visit indiscriminately all the temples in any one city. I have contented my self with the most famous in Tokyo, Nikko, and Kyoto; nevertheless weariness has often come upon me; even of bulgy Buddhas-if this seem not profanity-there cometh satiety at last. But never shall I weary of the restgiving green of the terraced paddy-fields,

with their infinite network of paths, along which the straw-clad peasant and his wife now wend their way. Permit a brutal Eng lishman, who is supposed to go about clothed in the Union Jack, and whose horizon is limited by the rim of his bath-tub, to appre ciate the quiet charm of southern Japan.

Mighty luminous and calm Is the country of the palm. But the "flower-garden of the East" pos sesses a beauty all its own, to which the Westerner is not quite insensible.

It is something to be able to differentiate the "kakemono" from a "gayly flowered kimono," or a "sayonara" from an "ichiban," but it is far more to discriminate be tween the gushing, geisha-like eulogy of Sir Edwin Arnold and the contemptuous cynicism of Mr. Clement Scott. This much, at least. I think I have achieved. The Japanese people are not hopelessly bad, neither are their women wholly angels. With Oliver Cromwell, Japan may well say, "Paint me as I am." Yet one must perforce pay the ac customed tribute of praise to the Japanese women for their gentle, courteous, dainty

ways.

"Dr. Gannius," says a famous novelist, "wears manners as if they were bath slippers," and it is quite possible that this may be true of others besides that worthy man; but it is certainly not true of the Japanese. Polite manners and picturesque attitudes come natural to them. The Anglo-Saxon may be fortiter in re, but the Oriental is certainly suaviter in modo. Even the pine