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Show REPORT OF THE QOMMIt3tilOAEli OF INLJIAN AFFAIRS. 11 as the "spoils" idea, I am in full synlpathy with it, and in so far as it would tend to rescue the Indian service from pa.rtisanpolitics andpPiace it upon the basia of a purely bdsiuess administration, or to call- into ' service men who are especially qualified for their.respective duties and to retain them there during good behavior or until their work shall have been accomplished, it has my heartiest commendation. I think, however, that these evils can be removed and the ends de-sired, be aocomplished in another way, without so great and violent a change as is involved in the substitution of Army offlcers for civilian agents. The work if civil administration is not one to which Army officers have been specially trained, nor one for which they have any special aptitude. While it is doubtless true that there are many men iq the Amy who are capable of doing thiskind of work with gratifjing snc-cess, it is also truethat it is wholly foreign to the military idea, and that it is imposing upon the Army a new duty that must, of necessity, work more or less disaster to the morale of the Army itself. If the Indian agencies are to be filled by the appointment of the best men that can be found in the Army, this would make a drain upon it that I should suppose would be severely felt; and if by those who are not desirable and whom the Army will be glad to get rid of, it certainly will be a great misfortune to the Indian sewice. It should be borne in mind, too, that the officer is enlisted for life; that all his hopes and ambitions are centered in the Army; that he looks to the head of the War Department for an appreciation of his services, for promotion; and that almost of necessity he regards a subordination of himself to the control of any but an army officer as rather an infringe ment upon his position and rights. So that it would not be at all sur-prising if there should be on the part of army.officers detailed for semi ice as Indian agents, some degree of restlessness under civil control and a possible spirit of insubordination, involving unpleasant conse-quences both to themselves and t,o the officer charged with the admin-istration of Indian affairs; and my experience hit.herto fully warrants me in expressing such a fear. This could but lead, at times at least, to a difference of opinion be. tween the War Department and the Department of the Interior, and might result in unpleasant relations, which would be annoying to the heads of those Departments as well as an oeeasion of axxiety and t,rouble to the President. On January 7,1868, there was submitted to the President thereport of the Indian Peace Commission, which is fmnd on pages 26 to 50 of Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, for 1868, and is signed, among athers, by W. T. Sherman, lie~tenant~generaWl; m. S. Harney, brevet major-general; Alfred H. Terry, brevet major-general, and C. C. Augur, brevet major-general, U. S. Army. These men can not be snspected of any hostility to army officers, or of any possible bias in |