Columbus Delano

“ The large and increasing number of instances in which claims for increase of invalid pensions having been once adjudicated, are immediately, or before a reasonable time has elapsed, renewed, and new adjustment urged, is a source of embarrassment to the office, and the question presents itself whether it might not be well to prescribe by law a definite period of time during which, after any adjudication of an invalid-pension claim, acquiesced in by the claimant, the rate of pension should remain as fixed in that adjudication. ”

“ The reservation system withdraws the great body of the Indians from the direct path of our industrial progress, and allows the work of settlement and the extension of our railways to go forward up to the full limit of the capacities of capital and immigration, with absolutely no check or diminution on account of Indian hostility, actual or apprehended. There is not a mile of railway which has authority of law for its construction, and for which the capital stands ready, which is unbuilt to day by reason of danger from Indian attack. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The necessity which now compels the resort to a court in an adjoining State involves a burden of expense to litigants as well as to our Government which operates as almost a bar to justice, and produces a condition of anarchy throughout the Territory under which life and property are in jeopardy to an extent almost equal to that in territory occupied by tribes making no pretense of civilization. ”

“ Their authority is founded only on "the consent of the governed," and only as they pander to the whims or vices of the young men of the tribe can they gain such consent. As a police restraint upon lawlessness they are of no avail, being themselves subject to the control of the worst element in the tribe. An Indian murdering another Indian is accountable only to the law of retaliation. The State authorities do not concern themselves in punishing the murders among Indians, even when such murder is committed under the shadow of their criminal courts. ”

“ The great increase of interest in education throughout the country, in the last few years, is gratifying to every sincere patriot. Of this increase I believe the Bureau of Education is one of the principal exciting causes; and the hearty indorsement of the office, by educators of every section and every sort of institution, is a fitting recognition. ”

“ A Christian Government like ours owes it to her own good name, to civilization and Christianity, to use every effort for the elevation of a race which has been placed under her gaurdianship. Should it fail, I trust it may not be through any want of fidelity on the part of any of those now engaged in its execution. The path of duty seems clearly marked; it is ours to follow it.
During the year a number of citizens of the United States moved upon the lands of the Indian Territory adjacent to the Kansas boundary, evidently for the purpose of effecting a permanent settlement thereon. ”

“ It is a singular fact, and one, perhaps, not entirely creditable to the Government, that some of the religious denominations which have been requested to name persons for appointment as agents have been compelled, in order to secure good men, to contribute to the support of said agents while in Government employ, on account of the insufficiency of the legal compensation to their support. This is utterly inadequate to their support and every consideration of justice and economy will justify a liberal increase. ”

“ Experience constantly teaches us the manifest injustice of longer delay in reorganizing the Bureau by a system of positive law, definitely fixing duties by creating heads of divisions, and granting a compensation adequate to the responsibilities. This was proposed at the last session of Congress, but action was withheld on the ground that legislation would be had at the long session for a general re-organization of all the bureaus of the Government. ”

“ Experience shows that the expenditure of 84.50 per week for the entire maintenance, including clothing and medical and moral treatment of each patient, with a careful economy in purchasing and disbursing supplies, in the management of the farm and garden, and in the staff of assistants and employee, is barely sufficient to afford all the comforts and advantages of treatment to which the insane supported by the Government are entitled, and that the rate cannot be properly lessened. ”

“ It is certain that but little progress can be made in the work of civilization while the Indians are suffered to roam at large over immense reservations, hunting and fishing, and making war upon neighboring-tribes. It is only as they are led into habits of industry, and learn the advantages of labor, that anything can be done to elevate them. Industry is the great civilizer ”

“ The comparative weakness of the whites made it expedient, in our early history, to deal with the wild Indian tribes as with powers capable of self-protection and fulfilling treaty obligations, and so a kind of fiction and absurdity has come into all our Indian relations. We have in theory over sixty-five independent nations within our borders, with whom we have entered into treaty relations as being sovereign peoples; and at the same time the white agent is sent to control and supervise these foreign powers, and care for them as wards of the Government. ”

“ The progress of population, through the instrumentality of railroads and other facilities for travel, has brought the Indians and our frontier population into close proximity over an immense area of country hitherto uninhabited by civilized man, and entirely occupied by the Indian and the buffalo. Where difficulties arise between Indians and whites in our frontier settlements we can no longer, as heretofore, mitigate or avoid the trouble by removing the Indians into a country remote from civilization. ”

“ The certificates of the examining surgeons of pensions constitute a very important feature of claims of invalids, inasmuch as they prescribe in a great measure the rates of pension allowed. In order to guard against an improper expenditure of the public money, on the one hand, and to insure justice to claimants on the other, it is essential that such certificates should be the result of the best medical judgment attainable, and that they should be analyzed and corrected by the office, so as to secure proper and uniform rating of pensions. ”

“ Also, that all Sioux Indians be required to remain on the Sioux reservation, and that any found of, or refusing to come in and treat with the Government, be forced in and brought to obedience by the military. I am confident that steady progress towards civilization is being made at the different agencies among the Sioux, and, if the turbulent element of this nation can he subdued, the question whether they can be induced to live quietly and to adopt habits of civilization, so as to become self-supporting, will be one only of time and patience. ”

“ While he would by no means claim that the system in general use throughout the United States is free from defects in its practical workings, he is convinced that the principles on which it rests are sound, and that greater benefits can be secured to the mass of deaf-mutes through its agency than by any system which undertakes to make articulation its basis, assuming to teach all deaf-mutes to speak, and discarding the language of signs. ”

“ But the main object of the census, in which alone would be found the justification for so great an expenditure of labor and money, is its immediate use in directing the legislation and the industrial and social efforts of the present age. ”

“ I deem it to be my duty, also, to urge an increase of the salary of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. The present rate of compensation is entirely inadequate to the position. Its duties require the services of a man of intelligence, capacity, and integrity, and he should be so compensated as to secure such services. Five thousand dollars per annum would be a small salary for the services of a proper man in that important place, and, in view of the great influence he would wield in carrying out the present policy, it would be economy to increase the salary to at least the sum named. ”

“ These are the aims and purposes of the peace policy, briefly stated, and must commend themselves to every right-minded citizen as in keeping with the duty of a powerful, and intelligent nation towards an ignorant and barbarous race providentially thrown upon it for control and support. ”

“ This double condition of sovereignty and wardship involves increasing difficulties and absurdities, as the traditional chieftain, losing his hold upon his tribe, ceases to be distinguished for anything except for the lion's share of goods and moneys which the Government endeavors to send, through him, to his nominal subjects, and as the necessities of the Indians, pressed on every side by civilization, require more help and greater discrimination in the manner of distributing the tribal funds. ”

“ By the creation of the system of internal revenue and the enactment of the election law the officers to whom the act of 1850 commits the supervision of the census work have been charged with duties so numerous and engrossing as to render it impossible for them to give to the census the time and attention absolutely necessary to its proper completion. ”

“ The Indian-Office is working in the most satisfactory manner; the Patent-Office reports important improvements in the details of management; the Land-Office has brought up the large arrears of work which had embarrassed its operations for years; the Pension-Office has materially reduced the number of claims on file at the beginning of the year, for the first time since the close of the war; the ninth census is completed in a shorter time and in a more satisfactory manner than ever before; and the Bureau of Education is rapidly increasing its field of usefulness. ”

“ Such an organization would have a tendency to obliterate many of the existing obstacles to Indian civilization. The traditional feuds which now keep tribes in a state of continual warfare, compelling them to live in camps for protection, would be speedily crushed out by a strong home government. The custom of holding all property in common, which is always a tax upon industry, and a premium upon indolence and unthrift, would be abolished. ”

“ Upon no other subject or branch of the Indian service is there such entire agreement of opinion from all agents and persons, connected directly and indirectly with Indian civilization, as upon the necessity of labor schools for Indian children. It is manifest that burbarism can be cured only by education. Instruction in the day-school merely, except among Indians who are already far along in civilization, is attempted at great disadvantage on every hand. Indian children cannot come from the Wigwam suitably clad for the school-room. ”