Yet I have seen and heard of agencies where, notwithstanding gratuities, there has been steady improvement in houses, crops and herds. Good management on the one hand and the good sense of the better class of Indians on the other hand, at certain points led to remarkable results; but a forward move along the whole line of the Indian population is not to be looked for till they shall have the same motives to industry that other men have and that all men need. Agencies, reservations and rationing are and long will be a necessity, lessening only as by wise use of public bounty, and by proper legislation and care, the Indians shall approach self-support and citizenship. The persistently indolent should not remain as they are now, unless the nation has pledged itself, by solemn treaty, to feed forever the savage who squats on his haunches and refuses to work. First-class men, and no others, can settle the Indian question. The want of them is the bottom fact in our Indian troubles. Government pays the market price for good beef and sugar and tobacco, but will not pay for good men. There is only one answer to the question, “Can a superior man afford to be an Indian agent?” No! There are excellent Indian agents, thanks to their noble impulses, but Government should buy and not beg what it is bound to get. Salaries are from $900 to $2,200, depending principally upon the number of Indians under the agent’s care. Hence, the more liberally he feeds, the more the roving bands of the plains seek his care and swell his income. Pressing self-support upon them may scatter them and lessen his salary. Congress will appropriate hundreds of thousands of dollars to feed Indians, millions to fight them, but will not give the nominal additional sum necessary to induce men who can make a living in any other way to become Indian agents. We tell the Indians to take the white man’s road and refuse to open it. He needs ideas; he is capable of citizenship, but is unfit to hold lands or manage property till he can read and write, and knows something of our language.