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Show 187 at the top to the farmers and blacksmiths serving the agencies, good talent was difficult to find. Heroic men were few. The most appealing figure among the whites, John J. Critchlow, was protestant, middle class and a fervent believer in the government of the United States and its policies. Villains were few. The most pervasive problem for the Indians was the lack of food and supplies promised them by the government. That part of the white society least responsive to their needs was the Congress of the United States; that body alone had the power to alter the policies or the amount of money spent. It was a penurious Congress, particularly when the Indians were caught between the interests of the Mormons and the federal establishment. In the Colorado experience also, the federal role was condemned by the whites because of its supposed pro-Indian bias. The Federal Government officials but dimly understood what they were doing to their wards. As the government attempted to make farmers of the Indians, to destroy their languages, replace their religions, and modify their customs, the Indians turned inward, became secretive, and in their own way succeeded in retaining a remnant of their past. The age in which the great changes in Ute life took place was an age of confidence in the United States. From the era of Manifest Destiny (ca. 1840) to the era of Theodore Roosevelt (ca. 1905) the |