“At the seven agencies assigned to the care of the Catholics,” he remarks, “no restriction has been placed upon their system and methods of education, and no other religious body, so far as I am aware, has in any way attempted to interfere. I regret to say that this is not true, so far as the Catholics are concerned, of some of the agencies assigned to other religious bodies, and in some instances the interference has been a material hindrance to the efforts of this office to bring Indians under control and to enforce rules looking toward civilization.” _We_ regret to say that while, on the one hand, the Catholic Church has sought only to continue her ministrations to those of her children who were dwelling upon reservations “assigned to other religious bodies”—a duty which she could not neglect nor permit to remain unfulfilled—on the other hand, the most cruel, persistent, and petty persecution has been waged against Catholic Indians under the charge of Protestant agents, for the reason that they were Catholics, and the most unwarrantable interference, opposition, and maltreatment have been in many instances manifested in cases where Catholic priests were merely exercising the rights they possessed as American citizens, and discharging the duties imposed on them as Christian teachers. But before we enter upon the proof of these unpleasant facts let us return to the statistics of the commissioner’s report, for the purpose of completing our review of the condition of the semi-civilized and civilized tribes. The whole number of acres of land comprised in the Indian reservations as they now exist is 159,287,778, of which, however, only a very small portion (9,107,244 acres, or 14,230 square miles) is “tillable”—that is, land fitted for agricultural pursuits, and on which crops can be raised. Now, from these figures, which are official, a very important truth may be deduced. The policy of the government, as explained by the commissioners in successive reports, is to gather all the Indians upon these reservations (or upon a few of them), to wean them from their life of hunting and fishing, and to teach them to support themselves and their families by purely agricultural pursuits. The idea may perhaps be a good one; but care should have been taken to provide ample means for its execution. There are, as we have seen, 266,151 Indians, exclusive of those in Alaska and of the “roamers and vagrants.” All these, if the present policy of the government be successful, will be finally planted upon this region of 14,230 square miles of tillable land, and bidden to live there, they and their children, for ever, earning their bread by the sweat of their brow in cultivating the soil. Now, 14,230 square miles of land is equal only to 28,460 farms of 320 acres each, or to 56,920 farms of 160 acres each. The tradition established by the government, by its original surveys of