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Show REPORT OF THB COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. 159 comport with its general scheme for the civilization of the Indian race. My only purpose in taking the advanced ground that 1 do in favor of having the Government released from all obligations to these . Indians is that when their last acre of land has been sold and they have received for it whatever the purchasers see fit to give them, and when their last dollar has been invested beyond recovery, they shall not return to this country and demand' that the same Govern-ment which as property owners they despised and defied shall sup-port them as paupers. The best lessons that Indians or white men ever learn are those of experience. The fruits of folly are sometimes hard for the vic-tims to digest, but they are not necessarily unwholesome on that account. Next to passing thru an experience of the same sort them-selves, the experierfce of these Indians when reduced to penury may profit other Indians who are tempted to seek a country supposedly freer than ours. KIOWA PASTURES. By the act of June 5,1906 (34 Stat. L., 213), the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache pasture reserves are to be disposed of for the benefit of the Indians to qualified homestead entrymen after the children of the former allottee? of Indian blood are allotted. On June 8 the Secretary designated United States Indian Agent John P. Black-mon to make these allotments. The legislation opening the pastures was slightly modified by an act of June 28, 1906 (34 Stat. L., 550), giving a preference right to actual settlers on pasture No. 3 to pnr-chase the lands leased to them respectively at an Appraised value to be fixt by a commission aphointed by the Secretary of the Interior. One material provision of the act is that the lands are to be ap- . praised "without regard to any improvements that have been placed thereon, except such as are required by the provisions of said leases." The appraisals and - sales are under the jurisdiction of the General Land Office. Meanwhile, under an act of March 20, 1906 (34 Stat. L., 80), six town sites have been set. apart in the pasture-reserve area, for-three of which I have.choaen the names of the three chiefs who have for a number of years past presided over the councils of the Kiowa, Apache, and Comanche tribes, respectively-Ahpeatone, Quanah, and Koonkazachey-and for a fourth, Randlett, in commemoration of the services of Col. James F. Randlett, U. S. Army,-retired, the faithful agent who guarded the interests of these Indians thru a period of special storm and stress. Preparations for the sale of the newly opened lands are going for-ward, under the jurisdiction of the General Land Office, as fast as practicable, the Indian Office cooperating in the work of +rnishing important information tp intending bidders. , |