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Show REPORT THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, OFFICE OF INDIAAFNFA IBS, Washington, D. C., August 27,1892. SIR: I have the honor to submit this the sixty-5rst Annual Report of the Commissiouer of Indian Affairs (my fourth report). POLICY OF OITI5ENSHIP. Tlie Government has a well-defined policy of dealing with the In-dims. This policy is the outcome of more than a century of experience and of a vast amount of discussion. While it is necessarily open to objections, and while it will fail in many respects to fully meet the ex-pectations of the friends of the Indians, it is the least objectionable plan that has yet presented itself as a solutlon of the diffioulties of the situ-ation. So fitr as I now see, the only methods that have presented them-selves for consideration in competition with the one adopted by the Government are *he following: 1. It has been proposed, even seriously, that the whole mass of In-dians should be taken and distributed through the Eastern States, only one or two in a place, in order that they might thus come into vital contact with our civilization and be metamorphosed into Americans. The practical diI3culties of a scheme like this areresom any as to render it absolutely impossible of execution. Indeed a mere statement of it reveals its chimerid character. . 2. Of course it is possible to continue the present resewation system aqd the exercise of gnardiauship over these people in the future as in the past for an indefinite period to come. The objections to this, how-ever, are many and vital. The agenoy and reservation system haspos-sibly accomplished some good in the past, and it has, at present, the possibility of benelit during the transition period, but certainly no wise man who understands the heitnation would venture even to suggest thatgthe system should be made permanent. 5 i 1 |