Uncle Sam, Trustee
not procure such price for the lands as settlers are willing to pay for them. The Indians in their talks have shown themselves to be not unreasonable in their demands, but simply persisted in demanding what they believed to be just and proper. . . ."
Whatever may have been the shortcomings of Indian Commissioners in years past, the Indian office during the last few years has been administered by sincere friends of the Indian. There is nothing in the Indian situation more gratifying than this, at a time when the last of the Indian's patrimony is absolutely at the disposal of Congress.
But the efforts of the Indian Rights Association and the plain statement of the Commissioner served only to raise the maximum price, originally three dollars, to four dollars per acre. Nothing but a thoroughly aroused public opinion can move Congress, and public opinion could not be aroused in the face of "an agreement with the Indians."
Then, with the declaration, "That the said agreement be, and the same hereby is, accepted, ratified, and confirmed as herein amended and modified, as follows:"—the Rosebud bill became a law in April, 1904, as though an agreement between two parties, changed out of all resemblance to its original self by one of the parties without the consent of the other, were entitled to the name "agreement"!
Thus ends the first act in the Rosebud land scandal. The second has to do with the division of the spoils.
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