Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1880.djvu/21

Rh Under the circumstances described in this report, it must be evident that the mission of Indian management will henceforth be, more than ever, a mission of peace and not a mission of war. The principal agencies which must be depended upon for the solution of the Indian problem are work, education, the permanent settlement upon agricultural and pasture lands, security of title, and equal protection of the law. All these are civil agencies, and the more the land interests of the Indians press into the foreground, the more necessary will it be that Indian management be connected with that branch of the service which has the administration of public lands under its special control.

It has also been suggested that the Indian service, owing to its importance, should cease to be a mere bureau in the Interior and be intrusted to an independent department. I should consider this advisable only if the head of that department could at the same time hold a place in the Cabinet, enabling him to make his views heard in its deliberations and to communicate on equal terms with the heads of the other departments of the executive branch of the government. But this would involve the larger question whether it would be wise to increase the number of Cabinet officers, and until this question is decided in the affirmative it would in my opinion be most advantageous to the public interest to permit the Indian service to remain under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior, to be thus represented in the executive council.

Finally, I desire to say that it has not been the policy of this department under my administration, while avoiding all unnecessary outlays of money, to cut down expenses merely for the purpose of making a striking exhibition of economy. The history of Indian affairs shows that ill-judged parsimony has not unfrequently led to serious trouble and very costly complications. I am now convinced that generous appropriations for agricultural implements, for stock cattle to be distributed among Indians, and for educational facilities, made at this time, when the temper of our whole Indian population is such as to receive such aid in the right spirit, and to use the advantages conferred for general and rapid advancement, will produce results certain to accelerate the solution of the greatest difficulties we have so far been contending with, and, consequently, to bring about a great saving of money in the future. When an Indian lives in a house which he considers his own and that of his family, as now thousands of families are living and many more thousands desire to live; when he cultivates his acres, has them fenced by his own labor, and enjoys the product of his agricultural work, either by his own consumption or the sale of a surplus; when he owns his plow and his wagon, and uses the latter, with his ponies, in freighting, by which he earns liberal wages; when he has his cows, and swine, and poultry on his land, the care of which he finds useful and profitable; when he can send his children to school, and begins to hope that they may become as civilized and prosperous as white people, he will soon cease to think of leading the life of a nomad, and the thought of war