The reason for the splendid condition of the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy Indians should not be lost upon our officials and Indian Committees in authority in Congress. They have been surrounded by a high class of white people, and have been left alone to develop and progress. While they have been protected by the State of Maine, no discrimination has been made against them, as in the case of Indians in Oklahoma, Minnesota, California and elsewhere. They enjoy the same citizenship as is conferred upon Whites, and it does not consist of “paper promises,” but is real and effective. Theirs is no story of dishonesty and disease. The past summer, while on an archaeological expedition on the St. John River, I visited three villages occupied by Malecite Indians, in New Brunswick, Canada. All of them are well situated, one at the mouth of the Tobique River; another at Edmunston; and a third near Woodstock. While these Indians are poor, there is no general pauperism, and their general health is better than among the Indians I have visited in our United States (exclusive of Maine). In one respect the plans followed by the Canadian officials are superior to ours, and evince more ability (or rather stability) in the handling of the Indians. Instead of allotting these Indians, giving them deeds to valuable property, permitting them to be swindled by unscrupulous white persons, and then spending years in profitless litigation, in an attempt to make grafters return property taken from the Indians, these Canadians have continued the reservation system under a modified form. The Indians own their tracts of land, as with us, but do not hold deeds, or trust patents to same, therefore the lands cannot be sold or mortgaged; thus the incentive to fraud is removed. The Indians serve as farmers, guides, carpenters and fishermen. Most of them are Catholics, and there is a priest located at the Tobique village. He lives among them and encourages them in various arts. The census gives a few Indians as residing in our eastern states, but they are white people in every way, save color. To discover the next body of Indians exceeding more than three or four hundred, we must go down South where we find a few bands of Cherokees in Swain and Jackson Counties, North Carolina; and scattered throughout Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama there are 1100 or 1200 residing on what was originally a part of the habitat of this great nation. [Illustration: GOVERNMENT SAWMILL, FT. BELKNAP RESERVATION, MONTANA Lumber cut by Indians. ] [Illustration: MAP SHOWING INDIAN RESERVATIONS WITHIN THE LIMITS OF THE UNITED STATES 1913]