The local control of reservations remained quite the same. Native police were authorized in 1878, but the Agent continued to be sole judge of the guilt or innocence of Indians charged with offenses. In 1883 the Courts of Indian Offenses were devised, an idealistic experiment, no doubt originating in the far East. It was hoped to encourage the Indian somehow to discipline himself. But it has proved farcical, and when used at all is a mere instrument in the hands of the Agent. During the past fourteen years I have had charge of four Indian reserves: the “Moqui,”—now correctly named Hopi,—where are many Navajo; the Pueblo; the Crow Creek Sioux; and the Colorado River Mohave; these extended into five states, comprising a total population of 14,000 Indians of six different tribes and many local divisions; and among all these natives I have found but one Indian having the requisite intelligence and unprejudiced standpoint to warrant his presiding as a Judge of the Indian Court. It would be unfair not to name this man. He is Pablo Abeita, of the Isleta tribe of Tihua—Pueblo—Indians in New Mexico. And after years of loyalty to his honored Agents (not all of them were honored) he has reaped as his reward tribal enemies, and political and civil ones. The one man who proved the value of the experiment was made the goat. Such are the fruits of idealism, preserved by new leaders who come staggering under many inventions for the benefit of Poor Lo. These historical facts have been briefed from an article entitled “The Evolution of the Indian Agent,” written by the late Kenneth F. Murchison, one-time Chief Law Clerk for the Office of Indian Affairs, and printed in the Commissioner’s Annual Report for 1892. The writer closed with this significant statement: The Indian Agent now has almost absolute power in the Indian country, and so far as the people over whom he rules are concerned, he has none to contest his power. Appointed at first in the capacity of a commercial agent or consul of the United States in the country of an alien people, the Indian Agent, under laws enacted and regulations promulgated, has developed into an officer with power to direct the affairs of the Indians and to transact their business in all details and in all relations.