The reservations are for the most part fertile and they are near to cities which afford good markets. The Indians can always find work, and there is no excuse for idleness. The police supervision given by the tribal councils is usually nothing more than a matter of good-natured tolerance of evil doing, unless it becomes too flagrant.

On most of the reservations the so-called pagan party, which means the party of Indians anxious to maintain the old tribal ways and organization, is in the ascendency. The Christian party, which means those who are more ready to adopt the white man's way, is politically in the minority and apparently has but a small influence.

Here, then, are certain persistent and distinct racial groups which are in the State of New York but not of it, segregated groups of people not amenable to the laws of the State, but retaining a curious and intolerable independency. On the reservations crimes go unpunished, save by the feeble revenge of the aggrieved parties; marriage and divorce laws are openly disregarded; health regulations can not be enforced; school attendance is purely voluntary. For 40 years intelligent State and Federal commissions have repeatedly investigated and reported, but the chaos only grows worse. The Indians living on the reservations for the most part desire to avoid the responsibilities of citizenship. They do not want to pay taxes; they do not want to be obliged to observe the laws; they do not want to run the risk of annulling the treaties which provide for them certain small annuities or gratuities; they do not want to lose their right to assert certain imaginary claims against the State and the Nation for valuable properties which some of them believe to have been confiscated many years ago. The political and industrial leaders do not want to lose their petty dignities and offices with the powers that belong with them.

It is sufficiently evident that what the Indians want is not necessarily what they ought to have. Not only their own higher welfare and the rights of their children but also the rights of the neighboring white communities must be considered. The State, for its own protection, can not permit these groups of voluntary aliens to continue to live on reservations where the laws concerning health, sanitation, morals, and education can not be enforced.

The tribal system indulges laziness, encourages ignorance, and permits sexual relations which defy all the sanctities of family life. The Indians pay no taxes, and yet the State is called upon to provide schools, roads, and courts. Has not the State the right and duty to insist that the special immunities of these people must cease and that the Indians, whether they want to or not, must assume the responsibilities of citizenship?

The all-important question which presses for immediate answer is the determination of jurisdiction. For more than 100 years the State of New York has assumed that it was responsible for the welfare of these Indians. At the same time, the United States Government, in order to carry out the original treaty provisions, has maintained an agent, located at Salamanca, and the statistics of the New York Indians are carried in the annual reports of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs as if these Indians were under the charge of the Indian Office at Washington. The function of the

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agent at Salamanca is nothing more than to pay out the little annuities and gratuities provided for in the treaties and appropriated by Congress in each annual Indian act.

Some two years ago an important opinion was written by a deputy attorney general of the State of New York which has thrown utter uncertainty into these relations. In that brief it is claimed that the State of New York never has had any responsibility for these Indians and ought not now to be exercising any jurisdiction whatsoever. It is claimed that all responsibility rests with the Federal Government. It is obvious that only a decision of the United States Supreme Court can bring this deplorable uncertainty to an end. At present both the State and the Federal courts deny jurisdiction and everything is at a deadlock.

I am not qualified to render any opinion upon the legal aspects of this vexed question. I may, however, be permitted, as a plain citizen of ordinary intelligence and some experience in these matters, to testify that, whatever may be the law on this subject, practical efficiency and common sense require that the State should continue to exercise jurisdiction and that all Federal relations with these Indians should be discontinued.

If the contention that the State has no jurisdiction is upheld, it will reverse the habit and practice of a century. The State education department will relinquish all responsibility for the school system that it has so carefully upbuilt; the representatives of the State board of health and its physicians will have no authority to set foot on the reservations to safeguard the health of the Indians or the surrounding population; the highway commission will abandon the upkeep of the roads and bridges; the State board of charities will be absolved from the care of indigent Indians; the State agents will have no power to sign leases, and many leases signed in good faith will become invalid without reparation to the white

tenants.

Back in 1889, before this now urgent question of jurisdiction was thought of, a committee appointed by the State to investigate the Indian problem recommended:

I. Compulsory attendance at school.

II. The extinction by the United States of the claim of the Ogden Land Co. upon the Seneca and a portion of the Tuscarora Reservations.

III. The allotment of the lands in severalty, with restriction upon the sale of homesteads.

IV. The extension of the laws of the State over all Indians, providing for their absorption into the citizenship of the State.

There is little to be added to the wisdom of that report, made 32 years ago. The report of that committee concludes:

These Indian people have been kept as wards or children long enough. They should now be educated to be men, not Indians, and it is the earnest belief of the committee that when the suggestions made, or at least the more important of them, are accomplished facts and the Indians of the State are absorbed into the great mass of the American people, then, and not before, will the Indian problem be solved.

By the act of the New York Legislature, approved May 10, 1919, a new commission has been appointed to confer with committees of Congress in regard to these and related matters. This commission consists of 13 members, and includes the attorney general, the pre

siding officers of the senate and assembly, 5 members of the assembly, 1 representative each of the State board of health, of charity, the department of education, and the Indians themselves. It is very much to be hoped that this commission will arrive at some agreement with the Federal authorities and determine upon some procedure which can be carried through to a final conclusion.

RECOMMENDATIONS.

My own recommendations, which are in no sense original, but which merely repeat and codify the recommendations made for the last 30 years, are as follows:

I. Bring a test suit in the United States Supreme Court, in the name of the United States, against the State of New York to settle the question of Federal or State jurisdiction in the affairs of the New York Indians.

II. Bring a test suit to establish the validity of the Ogden Land Co. claim; and if the claim is found to be valid, secure congressional action and a Federal appropriation to extinguish it.

III. Capitalize all treaty and trust funds, and by Federal appropriation pay out these moneys pro rata to each person entitled to receive them.

IV. Abolish all tribal courts and forms of tribal government.

V: Divide the land of the reservations and allot in severalty, but make due allowance for existing claims for improvements and for land lawfully acquired, and restrict the right to sell the homestead allotments for a period of at least 20 years.

VI. Capitalize all tribal funds and properties and divide pro rata. VII. Extend over the Indians all the laws of the State and the Nation.

VIII. Extend citizenship and the franchise to all Indians adjudged competent by a well-qualified competency commission.

I would refer you to the following documents, reports, and bulletins for further data on this subject:

1. The report of the special committee on the New York Indians appointed by the United States Board of Indian Commissioners in 1915, together with the statement submitted to that committee by the United States Commissioner of Indian Affairs and the New York State Department of Education.

2. Memoranda concerning the New York Indians contained in the twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth, and twenty-ninth annual reports of the Mohonk conference.

3. Document No. 1590, Sixty-third Congress (1914), being the letter from the Secretary of the Interior to the House Committee on Indian Affairs in regard to the Seneca claims and the enlightening report of Mr. J. R. Reeves on the whole situation.

4. The record of the hearing before the House Committee on Indian Affairs (1904), in regard to the bill for the allotment of land in severalty to the Indians of the State of New York.

5. The opinion of the attorney general of New York in regard to State and Federal jurisdiction (1917).

6. A bulletin of the State department of health (1919) concerning sanitary conditions.

7. Report of Commissioner Moorehead on the St. Regis Reservation in the forty-ninth annual report of the Board of Indian Commissioners; my recent report on the Shinnecock Reservation, Long Island.

8. A recent (1920) pamphlet prepared by Mr. A. C. Parker, secretary of the New York State Commission, entitled "The New York Indian complex, and how to solve it," which is the best summary yet made of present conditions and the way out of them.

These memoranda might be indefinitely multiplied, but the reports and bulletins referred to will sufficiently indicate the judgment and experience of all competent observers. The situation ought by this time to be thoroughly understood. The needed thing is not further investigation and deliberation, but action. The continuance of this intolerable situation is a grievous wrong to the Indian children, a confession of impotency on the part of a great State and Nation, a disgrace to American civilization.

Respectfully submitted.

Hon. GEORGE VAUX, Jr.,

SAMUEL A. ELIOT, Member, Board of Indian Commissioners.

Chairman, Board of Indian Commissioners.

APPENDIX M.

THE SHINNECOCK INDIANS, SOUTHAMPTON, LONG ISLAND, BY SAMUEL A. ELIOT.

BOSTON, MASS., July 22, 1919.

Su: In behalf of the board I have visited the reservation of the Shinecock Indians at Southampton, Long Island, and beg to submit the following report:

The Shinnecock Reservation consists of some 700 acres of sandy meadow and scrub growth on a neck of land running out into Shinnecock Bay and within the borders of the town of Southampton. On the reservation there appears to be living from 30 to 40 families, with a total population estimated at 150. The land is held in common, and while some of the householders try to cultivate small gardens, no one has a claim to any individual property rights in anything but the improvements. Some of the people live in decent three or four room cottages, but too many are living in shacks of a shabby or squalid character. The soil is very thin and the gardens are poor. The roads are mere sandy cart tracks. The people give little or no indication of Indian descent. A few may be presumed to have some Indian blood, but certainly the majority of the people look like Negroes, and I think it can be assumed that the tribe is more Negro than Indian. No one claims that there are any full-blood Indians left.

The men earn a meager livelihood by doing odd jobs on the neighboring summer estates. A few of the younger men work in the garages at Southampton, and some do a little fishing. The more energetic members of the community go away to find work in the neighboring towns or in New York City.

The

The health of the people is reported to be reasonably good. community has been too notorious for drinking habits, and the neighboring white people expect that the enforcement of the prohibitory law will be beneficial both to the health and to the morals of the Shinnecocks.

The State of New York supports a small day school and the Presbyterian Board of Missions, assisted by some of the summer people at Southampton, supports a chapel. The minister in charge is an unmistakable Negro. The attendance upon both school and chapel is said to be small and irregular. The buildings are in fairly good

condition.

This reservation is included among those in New York under the jurisdiction of the United States Indian agent at Salamanaca, but the Indian Office does nothing for these people, and, so far as I can learn, the Federal Government pays no attention to them. It would appear that the State of New York alone is doing anything for the Shinnecocks, and, although it may not be within the province of the United States Board of Indian Commissioners to make recommendations to the State authorities, I may be permitted to say that there seems to be no reason why the State of New York should continue to care for this community of colored people. In my judgment this reservation ought to be promptly broken up into individual allotments and each family settled on its own piece of ground, presumably the plots where their shacks or houses are at present located. The Presbyterian Missionary Board may well continue to care for the church, but there seems to be no reason why the school should not be supported by the town of Southampton. Under present conditions this colony of unabsorbed and unrelated people can not be regarded as a healthy or creditable element in the life of an exceptionally prosperous and beautiful town.

The allotment of the land in severalty ought not to be limited to a division of the acreage of the reservation, but should mean the end of the whole tribal system. Each individual should receive absolute ownership of his share of the land in fee and without restrictions. The land has in itself little or no worth, but the situation of the reservation within a few miles of a fashionable summer neighborhood gives to even unimproved land along that shore a considerable value. The opportunities for remunerative labor are ample. The laws of the State should be extended over the reservation, the lands taxed, and the so-called Indian people absorbed into the body politic. The Shinnecock Reservation ought to cease to exist, the tribal organization ought to be dissolved, and the people ought to be expected to work and live as self-reliant, self-respecting, property owning citi

zens.

Respectfully submitted.

SAMUEL A. ELIOT,

Member, Board of Indian Commissioners.

Hon. GEORGE VAUX, Jr.,

Chairman, Board of Indian Commissioners.