commerce, the protection of American citizens resorting to foreign
countries in lawful pursuit of their affairs, and the maintenance of
the dignity of the nation abroad, combine to make it essential that
our consuls should be men of character, knowledge and enterprise. It is
true that the service is now, in the main, efficient, but a standard of
excellence cannot be permanently maintained until the principles set
forth in the bills heretofore submitted to the Congress on this subject
are enacted into law.

In my judgment the time has arrived when we should definitely make up
our minds to recognize the Indian as an individual and not as a member
of a tribe. The General Allotment Act is a mighty pulverizing engine
to break up the tribal mass. It acts directly upon the family and the
individual. Under its provisions some sixty thousand Indians have
already become citizens of the United States. We should now break up the
tribal funds, doing for them what allotment does for the tribal lands;
that is, they should be divided into individual holdings. There will be
a transition period during which the funds will in many cases have to
be held in trust. This is the case also with the lands. A stop should
be put upon the indiscriminate permission to Indians to lease their
allotments. The effort should be steadily to make the Indian work like
any other man on his own ground. The marriage laws of the Indians should
be made the same as those of the whites.

In the schools the education should be elementary and largely
industrial. The need of higher education among the Indians is very, very
limited. On the reservations care should be taken to try to suit the
teaching to the needs of the particular Indian. There is no use in
attempting to induce agriculture in a country suited only for cattle
raising, where the Indian should be made a stock grower. The ration