CHIEF FIRE WARDEN. 35 



and feel secure. It is true we now have the Itasca State 

 Park, but it is only six miles square, and, being distant 

 from a railroad, is not available as a popular resort. It 

 should, however, be cherished and sometime connected 

 with the proposed national park. 



Third — It will benefit and please the Indians more to 

 be paid for the land in bulk and have it held as a park 

 than to have it sold in small tracks and lumbered, as was 

 contemplated under their agreement with the United 

 States in 1889. By agreement between the United States 

 and the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota, made under the 

 act of congress of January 14, 1889, entitled "An act for 

 the relief and civilization of the Chippewa Indians in the 

 State of -Minnesota," said Indians ceded the said reserva 

 tions to the United States with the understanding that 

 the reservations would be surveyed, that the ' 'pine lands" 

 thereon would be estimated and offered for sale to the 

 highest bidder in forty-acre tracts, and that all other lands 

 except such as might be allotted to individual Indians 

 should be regarded as agricultural lands and sold to actual 

 settlers in tracts of not exceeding 160 acres at #1.25 per 

 acre, but on homestead law conditions, and that the pro- 

 ceeds of all sales, after deducting the expense of survey- 

 ing, estimating, etc., should be paid into the treasury of 

 the United States to the credit of the said Indians. To 

 accomplish such new agreement with the Indians a bill 

 substantially like the following will have to be enacted by 

 congress: 



Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 

 United States of America in Congress assembled, That the President 

 of the United States is hereby authorized and directed, within sixty 

 days after the passage of this act, to designate and appoint three 

 Commissioners, to be well known citizens of the United States, to 

 negotiate with the bands of Chippewa Indians in Minnesota here- 

 inafter mentioned and agree upon a sum that shall be paid by the 

 United States for the Mississippi and Winnibigoshish, Leech and 

 Cass Lake Chippewa Indian reservations, Minnesota, as a whole 



