“ As long as they are permitted to live a communal life and exercise their ancient form of government, just so long will there be ignorant and wild Indians to civilize. The Pueblo form of government recognizes no other form of government and no other authority. While apparently they submit to the laws of the territory and the government, they do so simply because they are compelled to acquiesce. The returned student who has been five years at the boarding school is compelled to adopt the Indian dress upon his return to the pueblo ”

“ Santa Fe, 1906: 'There is a greater desire among the Pueblo to live apart and be independent and have nothing to do with the white race than among any other Indians with whom I have worked. They really care nothing for schools, and only patronize them to please their agent and incidentally to get the issues given out by the teacher. The children, however, make desirable pupils, and if they could be retained in school long enough more might be accomplished. The return student going back to the pueblo has a harder task before him than any other class of returned students I know. ”

“ It is easier to go back to the Sioux tepee and lead a white man's life than to go back to the pueblo and retain the customs and manners taught in the school.
'In pueblo life the one-man domination-the fear of the wrath of the governor of the pueblo-is what holds this people down. The rules of the pueblo are so strict that the individual cannot sow his wheat, plant his corn, or harvest same in the autumn without the permission of the pueblo authorities. ”

“ He therefore lapses back and becomes like one who has never seen the inside of a school.'
Zuni, 1909: 'The Zunis, especially the old people, are very much opposed to sending their children to school, and to every influence that tends to draw them away from their old ways and habits, of living; but by persistent effort, and by appealing to their reason, we succeeded in filling the school with children. The children are happy and contented while at school, but when they go home for a visit, their mothers and older sisters talk with them and make them dissatisfied and they do not wish to return. ”

“ The people of the pueblos, although sedentary rather than nomadic in their inclinations, and disposed to peace and industry, are nevertheless Indians in race, customs, and domestic government. Always living in separate and isolated communities, adhering to primitive modes of life, largely influenced by superstition and fetichism, and chiefly governed according to the crude customs inherited from their ancestors, they are essentially a simple, uninformed, and inferior people. ”

“ It is said that such legislation cannot be made to embrace the Pueblos, because they are citizens. As before stated, whether they are citizens is an open question, and we need not determine it now, because citizenship is not in itself an obstacle to the exercise by Congress of its power to enact laws for the benefit and protection of tribal Indians as a dependent people. ”

“ Rep. 688: 'It may well happen that Congress should embrace in an enactment introducing a new state into the Union, legislation intended as a regulation of commerce among the states, or with Indian tribes situated within the limits of such new state or regulations touching the sole care and disposition of the public lands or reservations therein, which might be upheld as legislation within the sphere of the plain power of Congress. ”

“ There are as many as twenty Indian pueblos scattered over the state, having an aggregate population of over 8,000. The lands belonging to the several pueblos vary in quantity, but usually embrace amount 17,000 acres, held in communal, fee-simple ownership under grants from the King of Spain, made during the Spanish sovereignty, and confirmed by Congress since the acquisition of that territory by the United States. ”

“ The first act makes it a punishable offense to introduce intoxicating liquor into the Indian country, and the second, in naming the conditions upon which New Mexico should be admitted into the Union, prescribed, in substance, that the lands then owned or occupied by the Pueblo Indians should be deemed and treated as Indian country within the meaning of the first act and of kindred legislation by Congress. ”

“ Immorality and a general laxness in regard to their family relations, together with their pagan practices, are the great curse of this tribe. They have no marriage ceremony that is binding, and a man will often live with two or three different women during one year. ”

“ With one accord the reports of the super-intendents charged with guarding their interests show that they are dependent upon the fostering care and protection of the government, like reservation Indians in general; that, although industrially superior, they are intellectually and morally inferior to many of them ”