Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1897-01-14
OPPOSE FREE LANDS.
Government Should Not Buy Farms
to Give Away.

government SnOulU NOT arms
to Give Away.
A minority OF the Senate Committee
on Indian Affairs is decidedly opposed to
free lands for settlers. The report OPP
poses the bill on the general grounds of
the vast expense its adoption would en-
tail upon the government. Commencing
with the year 1889 the government has
purchased SO, $40 acres of land from
the Indians, agreeing to pay SO, 261, 937
for it, besides $3,O09,000 set apart as a
trust fund for the benefit of the Indians
of the Great Sioux reservation. If
says the report, ''all the land already
opened to settlement upon Indian reser-
vations heretofore coded shall be taken
up, the sum to be paid therefor by the
settlers will be $50 ,353, 00GS6. This bill
proposes to release the settlers from the
payment of this sum-"
The report calls attention to the fact
that 1t was provided in the acts bearing
upon those settlements with the different
tribes of Indians that settlers should pay
sufficient for the lands to reimburse the
government for the money paid the In
dians. Several million acres of land are
embraced in these pending agreements.
The bill as it passed the House applied
only to lands in Oklahoma, but by the
amendments made by the Senate COM
mittee the provisions of the bill are ex-
tended to all coded Indian lands, the
amount being more than three times that
contemplated in the bill az it passed the
House. All the lands on the Indian res
ervation thus opened for settlement have
been paid for by the government before
the opening Of the same, except in the
case of the Cherokee outlet, where pay
ment was to be made in installments, and
the sum of $4,9S0000 still remains I'M
paid, and in the case of the Great Sioux,
Chippewa and Colville reservations,
where the Indians are TO be paid as the
government shall receive money from the
settlers upon disposal of the lands.
Another amendment proposed to the
bill in effect requires that the government
shall, upon releasing the settlers from
payment of their obligations, pay the In
dams for these lands the sum per acre
which by law is ROW to be- paid by the
settlers. "If," says the report, "this
amendment shall be adopted and the bill
pass, the government would be called
upon to pay In the future, including the
amount not yet due in the Cherokee out
let purchase, a sum 'approximating $751;
100000"
The report calls attention to the fact
that negotiations are In progress for the
acquisition Of other Indian lands, which
are being conducted upon the policy that
the government shall be reimbursed for
its OUTLAWS.
Referring to the origin Of the bill Sen
ator Platt says in his report: 1.-THE ex-
element which preceded the opening of
lands in Oklahoma will be still remem-
bered, as will the mad rush scarcely
controlled by government authorities to
secure these lands upon the well under
stood conditions of payment for the same
in addition to compliance with the pro-
vision of the homestead laws. In every
appeal made to Congress for the opening
of the lands of these reservations the
argument that the government ought not
to be put to the large expenditure re-
quircd in the payment of the Indians for
the REIMBURSEMENT of their title was an
swered by those who were advocating
and insisting upon the passage of bills
for that purpose by saying that 1t was un-
dersteod that the government should be
reimbursed by the settlers"