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Show regard to obtaining liquor from the canteen and elsewhere as is ac-corded to wliite soldiers. This is to be regretted on many accounts. It lowers the character of the Indian himself, makes his return home with the habit of drink a source of evil to his tribe, and gives the impression that enlistment in the Army means an opportunity to in-dulge in a practice which is strictly prohibited on the reservation. This idea has already been disseminated anlong Indian pupils at school by their correspondence with friends who haveenlisted. I INDIAJ3 TRADE. - No chinge has been made during the year in the policy hitherto pur-sued by me in regard to Indian trade, which has been fully set forth in my previous reports. The recent act of Congress, by which clearer and more stringent provisions have been added to the laws against the introduction of intoxicating liquors into the Indian country, has already been referred to on page 103. This legislatioil will be felt only by cer-tain traders among the Five Civilized Tribes. The sale of beer ax well as other intoxicating compounds by licensed traderson reservations else-where has never been allowed. ' As I have before stated, the 'distinguishing characteristics of Indian trade have nearly disappeared, and the system of licensing traders among Indians will cease as reservations are surrounded by white set-tlements, or as reservation walls are beaten down by allotments. This state of affairs has already been reached among the Omallas and San-tee Sioux in Nebraska, the Sac and Pox, Cheyennes, and Arapahoes in Oklahoma, and the Sisseton Sioux in South Dakota. The Omahas have had no licensed trader for two years, and it is my purpose not to renew existing licenses granted to traders among the other tribes named. As such licenses are issued for only one year, those Indians will soon be free from any snch suggestion of their former condition of wardship as distinguished from their present status of citizens. EXHIBITION OF INDIAFS. During the past year numerous applications have been received ask-ing for authority to take Indians from reservations for exhibition pup-poses. I have steadily refnsed to countenance in any way anything of the :'Wild West" character. Further consideration of the question has only confirmed me in the views expressed hitherto, that it is unwise for Indians to be allowed to appear before the public exhibiting their savage characteristics. It tends to create in their minds the idea that what the white man particularly admires is that which really is a mark oytheir degradation; it tends to foster a roalningspirit; it brings them, almost of necessity, into contact with the low and degraded white man, encourages vice, and begets false ideas of civilized life; it takes them |