EXECUTIVE MANSION, February 10, 1892.

To the Senate and House of Representatives: 

I transmit herewith, as required by law, a communication of the 6th instant from the Secretary of the Interior, with the report of the Puyallup Indian Commission and accompanying papers.

BENJ.  HARRISON.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, February 16, 1892.

To the Senate and House of Representatives: 

There was passed by the last Congress “An act for the protection of the lives of the miners in the Territories,” which was approved by me on the 3d day of March, 1891.  That no appropriation was made to enable me to carry the act into effect resulted, I suppose, from the fact that it was passed so late in the session.  This law recognizes the necessity of a responsible public inspection and supervision of the business of mining in the interest of the miners, and is in line with the legislation of most of the States.

The work of the miner has its unavoidable incidents of discomfort and danger, and these should not be increased by the neglect of the owners to provide every practicable safety appliance.  Economies which involve a sacrifice of human life are intolerable.

I transmit herewith memorials from several hundred miners working in the coal mines in the Indian Territory, asking for the appointment of an inspector under the act referred to.  The recent frightful disaster at Krebs, in that Territory, in which sixty-seven miners met a horrible death, gives urgency to their appeal, and I recommend that a special appropriation be at once made for the salaries and the necessary expenses of the inspectors provided for in the law.

BENJ.  HARRISON.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, February 17, 1892.

To the Senate and House of Representatives: 

The Indian appropriation bill which was approved March 3, 1891, contains the following provision: 

And the sum of $2,991,450 be, and the same is hereby, appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, to pay the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations of Indians for all the right, title, interest, and claim which said nations of Indians may have in and to certain lands now occupied by the Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians under Executive order, said lands lying south of the Canadian River, and now occupied by the said Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians; said lands have been ceded in trust by article 3 of the treaty between the United States and said Choctaw and Chickasaw nations of Indians which was concluded April 28, 1866, and proclaimed on the 10th day of August of the same year, and whereof there remains, after deducting allotments as provided by said agreement, a residue ascertained by survey to contain 2,393,160 acres; three-fourths of this appropriation to be paid to such person or persons as are or shall be duly authorized by the laws of said Choctaw Nation to receive the same,