imposed were illegal; that the executive orders were
illegal. The Supreme Court sustained the Government. In the same way our
attitude in the water power question was sustained, the Supreme Court
holding that the Federal Government had the rights we claimed over
streams that are or may be declared navigable by Congress. Again, when
Oklahoma became a State we were obliged to use the executive power
to protect Indian rights and property, for there had been an enormous
amount of fraud in the obtaining of Indian lands by white men. Here we
were denounced as usurping power over a State as well as usurping power
that did not belong to the executive. The Supreme Court sustained our
action.

In connection with the Indians, by the way, it was again and again
necessary to assert the position of the President as steward of the
whole people. I had a capital Indian Commissioner, Francis E. Leupp. I
found that I could rely on his judgment not to get me into fights that
were unnecessary, and therefore I always backed him to the limit when
he told me that a fight was necessary. On one occasion, for example,
Congress passed a bill to sell to settlers about half a million acres of
Indian land in Oklahoma at one and a half dollars an acre. I refused to
sign it, and turned the matter over to Leupp. The bill was accordingly
withdrawn, amended so as to safeguard the welfare of the Indians, and
the minimum price raised to five dollars an acre. Then I signed the
bill. We sold that land under sealed bids, and realized for the Kiowa,
Comanche, and Apache Indians more than four million dollars--three
millions and a quarter more than they would have obtained if I had
signed the bill in its original form. In another case, where there
had been a division among the Sac and Fox Indians, part of the tribe
removing to Iowa, the Iowa delegation in Congress, backed by two Iowans
who were members of my Cabinet, passed a bill awarding a sum of nearly
a half million dollars to the Iowa seceders. They had not consulted
the Indian Bureau. Leupp protested against the bill, and I vetoed it. A
subsequent bill was passed on the lines laid down by the Indian Bureau,
referring the whole controversy to the courts, and the Supreme Court in
the end justified our position by deciding against the Iowa seceders and
awarding the money to the Oklahoma stay-at-homes.

As to all action of this kind there have long been two schools of
political thought, upheld with equal sin