The whole number of Indians in the United States, including Alaska, probably is not far from 300,000, of whom about one-half now wear citizen’s dress, and about one-fourth speak the English language sufficiently to be understood. Some of these people are citizens, and some are wards of the nation. They differ from each other as they differ from us, in their languages and thoughts and ways. They represent nearly every grade of civilized and savage life. Their original rights to a large portion of our national domain we have recognized by purchase and by treaties, which have plighted the faith of the nation for their protection and support. We certainly desire to live in peace with them, but with many of them we are in constant danger of war. What shall we do with them and for them? How shall we wisely maintain our rights respecting them, and at the same time righteously fulfill our obligations? How shall the Indian cease to disturb us, and become a blessing to the nation? There is really but one solution to the Indian problem, though many have been prominently attempted. We have tried to force the Indian. We have fought him. We have shut him in upon reservations. We have made a pretence of feeding and clothing him. We have tried our hand at civilization, have built school-houses, provided teachers, and gathered Indian children together, and taught them the rudiments of learning. We have furnished them with implements and helps to agriculture, and some of the mechanic arts. But the results, it must be admitted, are not re-assuring. When we fight Indians, they fight too, and their fighting is apt to be, in proportion to their numbers, much more successful than ours. In the Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1868, there is an estimate of the expenditure of some late Indian wars, from which we learn that it has cost the United States Government on an average one million of dollars, and the lives of twenty-five white men to kill an Indian. “There is no good Indian but a dead Indian,” said Gen. Sheridan, Lieutenant-general of our army, but the process of making the Indians good in this way is at least a costly one, and the prospect of success can hardly be considered hopeful.