OCR Text |
Show , .V! lease them soke parts of it, or whether you want to keep possession of it and increase your heard and live stock. I talked to a great many Indians about this, and when Mr. Murdock went to Washington he took Dick Wanrodes and Ed. Murdock with him and talked with the Commissioner of Indian. Affairs, so the Commissioner wired me to know what the Indians thought about leas in~ their land. I had already talked with a great many of the Indians and after I "*ot that telegram I talked with more of them, narticularly with the men who had stock, and. I found out that they did not want to lease it, and I wired to the Office that they did not; but the Indian Office was not satisfied with my calling the ones together that I did, and they said, 'Call them all together', and I want everybody to express themselves today whether they want to lease this land or not. Now, I could have all those who are willing to lease this land hold up your hands and count the hands and then have those who were not willing to lease the land hold -ot> their hands i and count them, and then tell Washington how they voted, but instead I have prepared two papers so we will vote by signing, and I thought that if they would all sign one or the other of the papers I would send the papers to Washington and show them |