OCR Text |
Show 68 BEPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. The total number of patents issuedjto date is 477. It is less than the number of applications which have had favorable action, because time is required for the preparation of the patents by the General Land Office after their issue has been directed. The effort to carry out the intent of the Burke law has caused much labor, but the results on the whole are very satisfactory. The chief difficulty is to ascertain the capacity of applicants. Each agent or super~ntendenht as his individual point of view, which, no matter how sincerely he may strive to carry out t&e spirit of the law, colors his reports and recommendations. A good many allottees have appealed from the pro forma decisions of the Office, which has then ordered a special investigation, with results usually favorable to the appellants. Some curious reasons have been advanced in support of conclu-sions for or against the capacity of an allottee. In one case the agent laid considerable stress on the fact that the Indian wore short hair. Others make the educational test paramount. The Office always holds that there is no one standard by which every person can be judged, but that probably the safest test is the industry and thrift of the applicant. If an Indian has supports$ himself by his own exertions, whatever calling he may have followed, it is reasonable to suppose that he has acquired enough knowledge of money values and opportunities to justify the Government in trusting him with his own laud. On the whole, this provision of the Burke law is becoming better understood, and its effects are believed to be most beneficial. Doubt-less mistakes have been made, and will continue to be made, here and there, in its execution, but most of these will be found to have grown out of misinformation received by the Office from other sources than its own agents. The average citizen is not likely to deny a request for his signature to a petition merely because he is not well enough acquainted with the facts; it is easier to sign than to refuse, especially when one can give no affiative reason for refusing, and in this way the Office is sometimes misled. The Burke law specifically withheld from the Secretary of the Interior authority to issue patents in fee to allotlottees in the Indian Territory. The Congress doubtless intended to except only the mem-bers of the Five Civilized Tribes in that Territory from the scope of the act; but the effect of the law is to exclude from its benefits the Indians of the Quapaw Agency, the only agency in the Territory besides that for the Five Civilized Tribes. .As most of the Indiann attached to the Quapaw Agency are thoroughly competent to manage their own affairs, and ought no longer to be held in such property bondage, it is boped that the Congress at its next session will amend the wording of the Burke law so as to make plain its real purpose with regard to the Indian Territory. |