“Thus was settled a question of far-reaching importance to the Indians and particularly to those who have not sold their homesteads. Congress cannot take away from the Indians this right established by the Supreme Court. But Congress can repeal all the restrictions on the sale of all Indians’ land and expose them to their own ignorance and improvidence; if the present tendency continues, this backward movement will be completely consummated in a few years, and at present there is nothing in sight to indicate a change of policy. “In a recent primary campaign in Oklahoma there were sixty candidates for Congress of both parties, from whom eight members were to be selected. Nearly all of these aspirants for seats in Congress solicited support on the promise that if elected they would work for the removal of all restrictions on the sale of all Indian land of the Five Civilized Tribes in Oklahoma, and for the ‘emancipation of eastern Oklahoma from Federal supervision.’ And they were all in earnest for they knew that to be elected they must favor that policy, and the sentiment that sent the winners to Congress would exact a strict compliance with that agreement. “It has been said by members of the Oklahoma delegation in Congress that the Indian question is a local question with which the rest of the country has no concern, and that the people of Oklahoma should be permitted to work out their own policy toward the Indian and solve the question in their own way. “To a limited extent only is this true. The Indian question is a National problem which we assumed when we as a nation appropriated their land, took them under our protection and arrogated the right to control their destinies. We made definite promises to them and mutual agreements with them, in reliance upon which they consented to changes in their forms of living which the exigencies of our rapidly growing nation demanded. If in the next six or eight years these 40,000 full-bloods and more than 60,000 mixed-bloods and freedmen shall have frittered away their great estate and half of them are paupers, it will not be a State question merely—it will be a National scandal.