Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1880.djvu/13

Rh and other offenses; in turning over offenders to the civil authorities; in serving as couriers and messengers; in keeping the agents informed as to births and deaths in the tribe; in notifying him of the arrival on the reservation of strangers—whites or Indians; in accompanying and protecting surveying parties, and, in general, such other duties as in civilized communities are intrusted to an organized police force.

The Commissioner of Indian Affairs states that "special reports as to the character and efficiency of the services rendered by the police have recently been called for from its agents by this bureau, and those reports bear uniform testimony to the value and reliability of the police service, and to the fact that its maintenance, which was at first undertaken as an experiment, is now looked upon as a necessity."

But no less important than the police services rendered is the moral influence which this institution is apt to exercise upon the tribes among which it is active. It impresses the minds of the Indians with the authority of law; it discountenances and discourages their traditional practice of taking personal revenge for injuries received; it imbues them with a sense of duty and individual responsibility; it accustoms a considerable number of young men among them to a moral discipline formerly unknown to them; it inspires them with the pride of good conduct, as only men of exemplary habits are kept in the police force, it being the rule that every one of them who renders himself guilty of any transgression affecting his character is immediately discharged; it strengthens the authority of the government as against that of the chiefs by the active support of the Indians themselves, and thus prepares them for the dissolution of their tribal relations and their incorporation in the great body of the American people. In all these respects the effect of the police service upon the tribes has been very marked. I have repeatedly recommended that the pay of Indian policemen, now fixed at $5 per month for privates and $8 for officers, be increased. It is essential that the best young men of each tribe be obtainable for the police force, but the rate of pay is so low that young Indians can easily earn much higher wages as freighters and laborers, and it is a subject of great dissatisfaction among them that a policeman, who considers himself the soldier of the government, should receive only one third of what an Indian scout in the military service receives for the discharge of duties no more important. The consequence is, that as the different tribes progress in civilization it becomes more difficult to obtain good young men for the police force. At two agencies the force had to be disbanded for this reason. I therefore repeat once more my urgent recommendation that the pay of policemen and their officers be remitted to the discretion of the Indian Office with a maximum to be fixed by law, and as that maximum I would suggest the pay of Indian scouts employed by the Army.

I mentioned before that the feeling of uncertainty which prevails among the Indians as to the premanency of their possession of the lands