Mr. ROSS. Mr. Speaker, of the various questions Presented to this House none is more entitled to our consideration than the one now pending in relation to these poor wild men of our forests and plains. We should inaugurate a policy of justice and humanity toward them. And 1st I desire to call attention to one sig nificant fact concerning our Indian affairs. In 1865 a commission, consisting of 4 Senators and 5 members of the House, was appointed, with directions to visit the Indian country and gather as much information as possible of their condition, &c. The fact to which I wish to attract attention is, that although this commission, in consequence of the vast extent over which the investigation was to take place, was divided into 3 parts, each to take a different direction, yet the 9 individuals who did this work unanimously approve and recommend the passage of the measure reported by the ComIndAffrs. I will call attention to another significant fact, that the committee in the Senate having charge of Indian affairs have sent this bill to this House with the indorsement of that body; and the ComIndAffrs in this House also recommend its passage. The indorsement of these 3 committees should commend it to the favorable consideration of the House. I do not pretend there is perfection in the Present. system. I believe it is wrong from the bottom to the top, and needs a rad ical reformation; but I am not disposed to go in the direction indicated by the chairman of the ComMilAffrs. Mr. Speaker, I understand the 1st objection urged by the Gentfrom Ohio [Mr. Schexck] is that . bill is a union of church and State. I am satisfied I would be as much opposed to a union of church and State as any gentleman upon this floor. Is there anything like a union of church and State in asking for recommendation from religious societies in the country of civilians for appointment to office? Are these great religious societies to be ig. nored? My judgment is they can make as suitable recommendations as the ComMilAffrs. The Gentfrom Ohio says he has had appointed 2 friends as Indian agents upon his recommendation. We have had a little experience in this country of military superintendency of the Indians. It became my duty as a member of that commission to visit Bosque Rodondo, in NewMexico, an Indian reservation, where from 9,000 to 10,000 were forcibly held by military authority. They had been forci bly taken from their mountain homes in Arizona Territory, their corn and orchards destroyed and villages burned; driven away from their homes, men, women, and children, in the most inclement season of the year. After this wanton and cruel destruction of their homes and means of subsistence they fled to the mountain fastnesses, and were hunted down like beasts of prey, and compelled at the point of the bayonet to travel 100s of miles in mid winter, with snow on the ground, to NewMexico, many perishing by the way from the inclemency of the weather, hunger, and exhaustion. The 7 to 10,000 Indians held by military authority on this reservation in NewMexico have been costing the Government over 100,000 dollars a month independent of the expense of the military at the ost. I defy gentlemen to controvert the evience which is furnished unmistakably upon this point. The evidence may be found in the War Dept. And, sir, look at the inhumanity of the manner in which these Indians are treated 1Ido not desire to say anything against General Carlton or his. officers, who have charge of the Indians. I regard them as gentlemen. But the defect is inherent in the system itself and cannot be remedied. I would be glad if you would look into the report of the Indian agent for NewMexico and see the demoralization that is growing out of this connection between the military and the Indians in this country. The evidence shows that it costs 29 and a half cents a ration for these Indians, when individuals in that country offer to furnish them for 15 cents. This is a part of the system of governing these Indians by military authority. oThey are put upon reservations for the purpose of working the lands. Sir, the system as proved a failure. Why? Because the white man cannot raise anything there. These Indians have been driven from their hunting grounds to that portion of the country where they cannot subsist either by hunting or agriculture. Let gentlemen go out and look at the reservations in the West that have been left for the Indian tribes, and they will find that they are those portions which the white men will not occupy. This reservation is located on a small stream of water called the Pacos, without any timber for firewood or the erection of buildings within 15 or 20 miles; and when the water gets low in the summer time it is so brackish with alkali, as the evidence shows, that it causes disease and death among them, and the report shows that the mortality among them is very great. Their only chance for fuel is to go out in the inclement weather and dig mesquite roots out of the ground and ack them in on their backs. This is your umane method of governing the Indians by military authority Gentlemen. us it is going to cost us nothing for officers and agents to manage Indian affairs if we transfer this business over to the War Dept, for the reason that the officers and men are already in the service. Why, sir, I apprehend that the distinguished gentleman at the head of the Military Committee [Mr. SchENck] has found himself with more military officers on his hands than he knows what to do with, and would like to shove them into the civil service to make places for them. According to his theory you may take the greatest villain, thief, or scoundrel in all the country, and you have only to appoint him into the Army and put shoulder straps on him and all his guilty stains are washed away, and he becomes as white as the driven snow. Now, sir, I am inclined to think that if a man will steal before he gets into the Army there may be a little propensity in that direction left in him afterward. I can see no good reason for transferring the Indian Bureau to the Military Dept. The evidence collected by the commissioner sent out by Congress shows that 19 out of 20 of all the difficulties that have arisen between the whites and the Indians have grown out of aggressions upon the part of the white men against the Indians. Why, sir, what was the reason alleged for taking these 7 or 10,000 Indians from their native home in Arizona and placing them in NewMexico? It was that they made forays in NewMexico and stole horses, sheep, and cattle. And yet the evidence shows that the NewMexicans had stolen from the Indians 2 horses, sheep, and cattle where the Indians stole one. Nor is this all: the NewMexicans had taken about 5,000 of their women and children and sold them into slavery, where they are held as slaves today. Mr. Speaker, while we are looking into this question we should look at it in a spirit of justice. What have we done to these men of the forest, who have heretofore occupied all this vast region of country? We have driven them westward, westward, westward! We said when we got them beyond the great Father of Waters that there they would have a resting place. But the discovery of gold in California and the Territories has changed our resolution; the tide of emigration has reached almost every part of the western country. The buffalo and game, from which the Indians have heretofore procured a subsistence, are disappearing before the onward and irresistible wave of population, and the aborigines are passing away like autumn leaves.. All the land that is fit for hunting, for mining, or for agriculture was taken possession of by the white man. The Indian reservations are planted away off in some place where life cannot be sustained except it be the owl, the wolf, or the snake. And we ask the Indian to remain there and cultivate the soil as no white man, with all the appliances of civilization, would undertake to do. The country where they are located lacks many of the prerequisites for a habitable country. It lacks soil, it lacks tim ber, and it lacks water; and if they succeed in overcoming some or all of these difficulties, and they make some improvements, get some small portion of the land under cultivation, then the grasshopper, the caterpillar, and the hail storm come to destroy their crops. Now, it is perfectly ridiculous to ask people to live in such a country and obtain a subsistence. Take, for instance, the 8 or 10,000 Indians now held by the military in the Territory of NewMexico. Why, sir, you could take all those Indians, bring them into the settlements, and board them at hotels and boarding houses far cheaper than they are now maintained in NewMexico. I think great injustice has been perpetrated upon the Indians in that Territory. While in NewMexico I had an opportunity to see them and talk with them. They came around the committee, old men and women, with tears streaming down their cheeks, and told us how their children were dying from want of proper sustenance and from being compelled to drink the alkali water there. They told us how they had been treated by the military; that they had been driven from their former homes by the soldiers at the point of the bayonet and forced to go on reservations where they could not possibly raise enough to support them. They said they wanted to go back to their old homes. They asked us, when we returned to Washington, to say to their “Great Father” that they wished to be returned to their old homes, where they would be peaceable and quiet. They said that if that was done they would overlook the great iniquity which had been practiced upon them by the people of NewMexico, in stealing their wives and children and selling them into slavery, and they would guaranty that they would be able to support themselves. Sir, these Indians did support themselves for 150 or 200 years in Arizona, where they formerly lived. But they have been forced away from there by the military and placed upon reservations where white men would starve to death, and now the government has to pay some $100,000 per month to subsist the Indians there. The care of the Indians in NewMexico is a fair test of what we will have if the whole management of Indian affairs is placed under the War Dept. What may we expect? A man is sent out there from the Military Academy; the young officer wants of course to see his name in print; and how is he to do it? Why, he must “punish the Indians, ” in western parlance. He starts out upon a war hunt, and kills some old men, women, and children, and thereupon his name is paraded in the papers as that of a great military chieftain. All these Indian difficulties are generally brought on by the inexperienced officers who have charge of affairs out there or I believe the remedy proposed by the JtCommee who visited the Indian territories, in the shape of the bill now before us, is the best measure we can have. I have confidence that the bill will, if passed, prevent the speculation now practiced upon the Indians.