lities ruthlessly bartered and trafficked
with before their eyes. They did not realize that this was a period of
individual graft and misuse of office for which true civilization was
not responsible.

Among the thinking and advanced class of Indians there is, after all, no
real bitterness or pessimistic feeling. It has long been apparent to us
that absolute distinctions cannot be maintained under the American flag.
Yet we think each race should be allowed to retain its own religion and
racial codes as far as is compatible with the public good, and should
enter the body politic of its own free will, and not under compulsion.
This has not been the case with the native American. Everything he stood
for was labelled "heathen," "savage," and the devil's own; and he was
forced to accept modern civilization _in toto_ against his original
views and wishes. The material in him and the method of his
reconstruction have made him what he is. He has defied all the theories
of the ethnologists. If any one can show me a fair percentage of useful
men and women coming out of the jail or poor-house, I will undertake to
show him a larger percentage of useful citizens graduating from the
pauperizing and demoralizing agency system.

There was no real chance for the average man of my race until the last
thirty-five years; and even during that time he has been under the
unholy rule of the political boss and "little czar" of the Indian
agency, from whose control he is not even yet entirely free. You are
suffering from a civic disease, and we are affected by it. When you are
cured, and not until then, we may hope to be thoroughly well men.

INHERITANCE AND OTHER FRAUDS

Here is another point of attack for the men who continually hover about
the Indian like vultures above a sick or helpless man--the law providing
that the allotments of deceased Indians may be sold for the benefit of
their legal heirs, even though the time limit of twenty-five years
protected title may not have expired. I consider the law a just one, but
the work of determining the heirs is complicated and difficult. It is
only last year that Congress has appropriated $50,000 for this purpose,
although forty thousand inheritance cases are now pending, and much
fraud has already been accomplished.

Representative Burke has shown that the bulk of the minors and
incompetent Indians in Oklahoma have been swindled out of their property
by dishonest administrators and guardians.