And State Papers 639 



Their management and control should be turned over 

 to the Commission of Fish and Fisheries. Alaska 

 should have a Delegate in the Congress. It would 

 be well if a Congressional committee could visit 

 Alaska and investigate its needs on the ground. 



In dealing with the Indians our aim should be 

 their ultimate absorption into the body of our peo- 

 ple. But in many cases this absorption must and 

 should be very slow. In portions of the Indian Ter- 

 ritory the mixture of blood has gone on at the same 

 time with progress in wealth and education, so that 

 there are plenty of men with varying degrees of 

 purity of Indian blood who are absolutely indistin- 

 guishable in point of social, political, and economic 

 ability from their white associates. There are other 

 tribes which have as yet made no perceptible advance 

 toward such equality. To try to force such tribes 

 too fast is to prevent their going forward at all. 

 Moreover, the tribes live under widely different con- 

 ditions. Where a tribe has made considerable ad- 

 vance and lives on fertile farming soil it is possible 

 to allot the members lands in severalty much as is 

 the case with white settlers. There are other tribes 

 where such a course is not desirable. On the arid" 

 prairie lands the effort should be to induce the In- 

 dians to lead pastoral rather than agricultural lives, 

 and to permit them to settle in villages rather than 

 to force them into isolation. 



The large Indian schools situated remote from 

 any Indian reservation do a special and peculiar work 



