Uncle Sam, Trustee
outright to the Government at two dollars and a half per acre; it bore not even a family resemblance to the provisions of the proposed bill; it had been once presented and refused in Congress, and later repudiated by the Indians; land values had more than doubled in the two years which had elapsed; but what of it?
"An agreement with the Indians"—that so disarmed general suspicion, both in and outside of Congress, that the Indians' friends protested almost in vain when the bill appeared in January, 1904. Reuben Quick Bear, President of the Rosebud Indian Council, appealed to the Indian Rights Association:
"If ever we needed help we need it now, and badly. . . . A real estate man recently went over it and told a friend of mine that he would gladly give $10 an acre for the whole tract, and could raise the money in three weeks. Over a year ago a syndicate offered the Commissioner $5 per acre for the whole tract, and land around here has since doubled in value. We only ask $5 per acre. . . .
"Ask that three men be appointed to value the land—one to be appointed by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, one by the Indians, and these two to select a third, as was done when the Omaha reservation was valued years ago. If this proposal is entertained the South Dakota delegation will at once consent to $5 per acre, as they well know that
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