Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1878.djvu/7

Rh the methods of accountability; an active supervision has been exercised by inspectors and special agents; the detection of fraud has been followed by vigorous prosecution; and, on the whole, I feel enabled to say that the character of the service has been raised in point of integrity and efficiency.

I am, however, far from pretending that the present condition of Indian affairs is what it ought to be. The experience gained in an earnest effort to overcome difficulties and to correct abuses has enabled me to appreciate more clearly the task still to be accomplished. In my last annual report I stated frankly, and I have to repeat now, that, in pursuing a policy ever so wise and with a machinery ever so efficient, gradual improvement can be effected only by patient, energetic, and well-directed work in detail. An entirely satisfactory state of things can be brought about only under circumstances which are not and cannot be under the control of the Indian service alone. If the recurrence of trouble and disturbance is to be avoided, the appropriations made by Congress for the support of Indians who are not self-supporting must be liberal enough to be sufficient for that purpose, and they must be made early enough in the year to render the purchase and delivery of new supplies possible before the old supplies are exhausted.

2. The Indian service should have at its disposal a sufficient fund to be used, with proper accountability, at discretion in unforeseen emergencies.

3. The citizens of Western States and Territories must be made to understand that, if the Indians are to cease to be troublesome paupers and vagabonds, and are to become orderly and self-supporting, they must have lands fit for agriculture and pasturage; that on such lands they must be permitted to remain and to establish permanent homes, and that such a result cannot be attained if the white people insist upon taking from them, by force or trickery, every acre of ground that is good for anything.

The first two things can be accomplished by appropriate action on the part of Congress. The difficulties growing out of the continually-repeated encroachments by white people on the rights of the Indians may be lessened by the concentration of the Indians on a smaller number of reservations, but they can be entirely avoided even then only by the most energetic enforcement of the laws on the part of the general and local governments.

To this end it seems desirable that the southwestern tribes, whose present reservations appear insecure or otherwise unsuitable for their permanent settlement, should be gradually removed to the Indian Territory. The climate of the Indian Territory is congenial to them, while it has proved unwholesome to the northern Indians who were located there. The northwestern tribes will, in the course of time, have to be concentrated in similar manner on a few reservations east of the Rocky Mountains and on the Pacific slope.