lO OKN. R. H. PRATT: 



The year their treaty was made, General Sheridan engaged 

 a party of Osages as scouts and couriers, and secured from 

 them a service of 75 to 80 miles per daj'' on foot across the 

 country. 



It is doubtful if a single Osage could be found able now 

 to accomplish any such feat. 



Money never has and never can settle the obligation rest- 

 ing upon us toward this Indian brother of ours. What he 

 has always needed, and needs now, is fraternity and its 

 privileges. 



We forcibly made ourselves our Indian " brother's keeper," 

 and he always has had far more right to rise against us in 

 judgment, and greater cause to condemn us, than the Negro 

 ever had. 



General Milroy, Agent for the Miamis and Pottowatamies 

 in Indiana, in his annual report in 1847 gave a picture of the 

 drunkenness, debauchery and crime produced by the payment 

 of the annuity he had made that year to those Indians, and 

 statistics to show how by the hundreds, year after year, they 

 had murdered each other when under the influence of drink 

 procured from designing white men with the money we gave. 



He stated that probably in the history of the human 

 family there was no other parallel case where a whole nation 

 had actually destroyed itself by assassination. 



General Milroy 's picture is applicable to-day and bears on 

 many tribes. 



We have not only turned our own hands against them to 

 destroy them with violence, but we have led them and con- 

 tinue to lead them, to destroy themselves. 



Inviting the Indians to always look to the Government for 

 support instead of continuing to rely upon their own right 

 arm, is another of the great evils of the system. 



Be the amount ever so small, the receiving of it is to them 

 the greatest of all the events of the year. 



The payment of $4.00 or $5.00 per capita brings a whole 

 tribe together at the Agency, bag and baggage, men, women 



