snow.  The order went to Washington, went through the regular routine, and the next spring, after winter had passed, a case of shoes came for these little Indian children.  When it was opened, she found it full of brogans, that had been made for the Southern negro in the rice-fields; and every shoe in that case was so large that there was not an adult Indian on the reservation that could wear it.  That is how the Indian Bureau provides for the little Indian children when there is a case of special necessity. (Laughter.)

I could mention numerous illustrations showing that it is impossible to do any work that is required immediately, through this Indian Bureau.  If people are starving, you cannot get food for them until they die.

Now, what is the remedy?  I believe that Christianity is the only remedy—­the only solution of the Indian question.  Where they have had good Christian agents—­and they have had some—­where they have missionaries, the Indian has made wonderful progress.  I think we can point to a few civilized and Christianized communities among the Indians that can find no parallel among the whites of the country.  There is less crime, less immorality, more faithfulness to the requirements of the Christian religion and better observance of the Sabbath, more sincerity and earnestness in the performance of every Christian duty, than we can find in the same number of whites anywhere.  At Metlakatla, as told by Mr. Duncan, the Indians now form a community of twelve hundred people, who have their churches, their stores, their town-halls.  They live in houses, like other people; they appear like civilized people; they carry on all the vocations of civilized life; and all this has been done by the work of one man.  There is no liquor-drinking or liquor-selling there.  A majority of this twelve hundred people are earnest, faithful, consistent Christians.  They get no help from the Government.  They have built up and support their churches.  Where can you see anything among the whites that equals it?

Then there is another reason why we should go to them with the gospel of Christ.  It is a good thing to engage in works of charity and benevolence, but before we do this we should pay our debts.  We owe so much to the Indians of this country, that I think before we go anywhere else we should do something to atone for the years of wrong, for the centuries of injury, that they have suffered at our hands.  We have taken their homes from them.  We have driven them from reservation to reservation.  We have taken their crops when almost ready to reap.  We have removed them into climates where they have died by hundreds.  We have not listened to their cries.  We have on various trumped-up charges frequently slaughtered these people, and treated them in the most cruel manner.  There is no question that I know of that so holds a man, once interested, and so grows upon him, as this Indian question.