Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1902-01-17

IL Will be offered
as a rider to the river and harbor bill.
STANDING ROCK LEASES
STATUS OF AFFAIRS IN CONNEC-
TION WITH THE LEASING OF
THE INDIAN LANDS AS SEEN BY
A WASHINGTON CORRESPOND
ENT, 4
Washington, Jan. 15.-(Special to
Minneapolis Journal.)-The senate
committee on Indian affairs will have
an Investigation of a recent move of
the Indian Office to lease the western
half of the Standing Rock reservation
in North and South Dakota to white
cattle grazers. Thursday is under
stood to be the day fixed for beginning
the inquiry.
Here is the story behind the action
of the committee. In his desire to
urge the Indians into s%elf-support and
thus into eligibility for citizenship,
Commissioner Jones has been cutting
down the rations of the Standing Rock
Sioux, and encouraging such
as are practicable for opening to them
means of earning a livelihood. The
country in which they live is adapted
for nothing but grazing and is so poor
at that as to require not less than forty
acres of pasture to a head of cattle.
Those Indians who have established
themselves n more or less permanent
homes have been obliged to choose
sites for them along the streams, be-
cause water fit for human use is scarce
and often to be found only at distances
OF from ten to fifty miles. The grow
ing timber, too, is confined to the little
gullies through which the streams run.
The commissioner has hoped to in
duce those Indians who have begun to
see the necessity of Improving them
selves to go into cattle herding on as
large a scale as their circumstances
would warrant. But as they have as
a rule been pretty slow about it, and
they are poor, he devised some time
ago the idea Of leasing their western
grazing lands to outsiders-responsible
parties who are willing to pay a fair
price for the privilege-the rental
money to be put into the tribal treas
ury, or be used to purchase stock for
the Indians to go into business with,
or be distributed among the Indians.
To this end he issued an ADVERTISE
ment for proposals which were opened
on Friday last, for a lease of the whole
practicable tract, comprising some g.
100000 acres. The program presented
to the prospective bidders directed at
tention to the presence of a consider
able number of Indian families resid-
ing on this part of the reservation
they have been estimated at 6OO-and
reserved to them the privilege of free
grazing in the neighborhood of their
homes, to the extent of 100 head of
cattle or horses each. For pasture
for any larger herds the Indian own
ers would be expected to make terms
with the lessees. The lessee, it was
announced, would be required to en-
close the cattle range with a strong
three strand barbed wire fence, with
posts two rods apart, but would be per
mitted to cut the posts on the reserva-
ton.
Right here is the weak point in the
whole business; and it is hoped that,
before any award is made, arrange
ments will be entered into with the
Would-be lessee to change those provi-
slons in Important particulars. When
it is remembered that there is no tim
Der except that along the water courses
and the fence line around the entire
range is estimated as bound to be SO
miles long with posts two rods apart,
1t is plain to all who know the char
acter OF that country that the forlorn
little stock OF timber now growing
there will be stripped clean.
Moreover, just as surely as the fence
is drawn around the r SO as to in
clude the 600 Indian homes, and The
Indians occupying these homes try to
do any cattle raising, there will be a
continual quarrel between the Indians
and the white herders as to the own
ership of certain cattle, or the number
pastured by an Indian in excess of the
hundred head reserved to him for free
grazing privileges. Nay, more, as the
Indians who have set up homes nat
urally put them where the pasture is
best and the water most convenient,
the cattle of the white herders will be
continually encroaching upon these
preserves. to the serious damage of
the Indians, and at a most unfortunate
juncture-just when everything should
be done to encourage them in the idea
that civilized ways are profitable and