Judge Burch’s research led him to conclude that the Indians were in vastly better shape forty years ago than at the present time. The reading of Warren’s book, Gilfillan’s testimony, and other evidence establishes it beyond question that the Indian does not seem to have suffered to any great extent in either health or morals prior to 1880. The older men of the tribe, who were keen mentally in spite of great age, when I visited those Indians in 1909, told me much regarding their past. I visited them under most auspicious circumstances, being empowered by the Indian Office to conduct investigations of affairs at White Earth, and having at my command numerous interpreters and assistants. The old shaman, Bay-bah-dwun-gay-aush, Me-zhuck-ke-ge-shig, Ojibwa,[13] Mah-een-gonce, and others with whom I talked a great deal, laid the blame for their present deplorable condition on the unscrupulous French-Canadians, mixed-blood element, as well as covetous white men who sought timber and land. Gilfillan has pointed out in his letter the increase of drunkenness due to large financial rewards offered by the Government in pursuing a mistaken policy. Father Aloysius Hermanutz has been at White Earth since 1878. In his testimony before the Graham Investigating Committee, he stated that the full-blood Indians at that time were in good condition. Nearly everyone owned a team of oxen, a cow, and cultivated fields. Many of them raised vegetables and there was much weaving of rugs and small carpets. They had an Agent, Mr. Charles Ruffey, who was kind to them but very strict. The farmer was a competent man and knew how to make Indians work. “I met him one day on the road on horseback. He went to that Indian—to that farm—I met him there and asked him where he was going, and he said: ‘There are two Indians, Father, up beyond that church. They didn’t plow their field in order to put the seeds in, and the Agent ordered me to tell them if they don’t plow their fields now (it was in April) that the team will be taken away from them.’ And of course they were oldtimers. That was Saturday when I saw them, and on Sunday morning they started to plow. They were scared and they plowed their fields. At the time the Indians were in very good condition, and then afterwards it changed and they went down again.” The illustrations accompanying these chapters were taken during the investigation of 1909 and give some idea of conditions obtaining at that time. So much has been said and written regarding the situation of the Minnesota Ojibwa, that the Government adopted heroic measures, and conditions are to a great extent ameliorated, but they are still far from satisfactory. Omitting the racial traits of the people the past sixty years, let us consider their present condition and the causes leading up to it.