several of the most competent and reliable agents during the year from this cause. No man capable of managing the business of an agency ranging from $15,000 to $200,000 ought to be asked to give full service to the Government for $1,500 a year. I recommend that the salary of agents be increased to $2,000 per annum for the more eastern agencies, and $2,500 for those remote and inaccessible.
CONDITIONS OF PROGRESS.
In estimating the actual progress attained, under the operation of what has been termed the peace policy, it is necessary to keep in mind the constant change in the position of the Indians toward the white settlers. Tribes which a few years ago were so far removed from all White settlements as to render any annoyance or conflict between the two races improbable and almost impossible, have now, by the tide of emigration, been brought in close proximity to, and almost daily contact with, settlers. Naturally the difficulties in the Indian problem are largely increased by such contact. The clashing interests of both parties produce irritation and make complaints more numerous.
But the peace policy is not to be charged with these increasing troubles, nor to be connnected with them except by the inquiry as to what would probably have been the difficulties, in the same circumstances, under any other policy.
The question of the civilization of Indians reduced to its last analysis is twofold. First, whether the Government is willing to make sufficient appropriation to teach barbarous men how to live in a civilized way; and, second, whether the expenditure of such an appropriation can be fairly made through the administration of persons fitted to become their teachers. Without suitable provision for the necessary expenditures the best efforts of the best men will be comparatively futile; and with the most abundant provision that the resources of the nation can make, nothing will be accomplished worthy of the effort unless there can be found persons ready and fitted to go to these Indians, in the spirit of kindness and Christian love, with a faith in God and a faith in man strong enough to sustain them amid the degradation and perversities of barbarism, and cheer them on in the full conviction that no being made in God's image is incapable of improvement. No effort for lifting the poor and degraded can succeed which is not guided by the enthusiasm which comes from this faith. The agent and his employes will not give full work without it, and the Indian will not throw off his suspicion and wake out of his indolence until he feels this touch of human sympathy.
For this reason the Government is specially to be congratulated on the response which the Christian people of the country have made to the proposition of the President that they should take a certain super-. vision of Government labor for the Indians, by nominating agents and furnishing employes suitable to represent the Government in its beneficent efforts with these tribes, as well as in sending missionaries and teachers for religious labor among them.
THE INDIAN TERRITORY.
The affairs of this Territory will doubtless receive the serious consideration of Congress during the coming session. The practical absence of law as between the inhabitants of the Territory and the citizens of the United States; the general state of unthrift from lack
