ernment is ready to adopt that policy in order to acquire revenue, you must lease the land for the only purpose for which it is fit to be used.

The report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office figures the revenue from these reservations at between four and five million dollars; while, on the contrary, the revenue will be practically nothing. The people who live there will leave and others will not go there under the provisions of the homestead law. It is for these people that I plead.

Mr. President, the counties adjoining these reservations in my State lost 18,000 in population between the years 1890 and 1895. While the State itself gained slightly in population, the people left the lands in the vicinity of these reservations because they were mortgaged and unable to pay the interest.

I recollect an incident which occurred there. A citizen of the State of New Hampshire held a mortgage of $600 on a quarter section of land near the Great Sioux Reservation. He concluded he would go out to the Dakotas, as the debtor had failed to pay the interest for two years, to see what was the trouble. This citizen of New Hampshire visited my State, drove 12 miles from the railroad station to see the farm upon which he held a mortgage and of which he was very liable to become the proprietor. He found a small house, one story in height, with two rooms, and a sod barn near by, three cows picketed out and grazing not far away, a young woman, and two young children. He drove up and asked the name of the resident, and found it was the place he was looking for. He asked the lady where her husband was. She said he was away working for one of the neighbors, but she would send one of the children for him, which she did. When the man came, the visitor told him that he was the person who held the mortgage on his land, and said, "I should like to know when you can pay me the interest." The settler said, "I think if we have two or three good crop years I can pay up the back interest." The gentleman from New Hampshire then asked if this was all the property the man had, and he replied, "Yes; this is all I have. I have just this quarter section of land, these three cows, a few chickens, a pair of horses, and

some farm machinery which I have not paid for yet." The New Hampshire man then asked the settler if he could stay there and work it out. "Yes," was the reply, "I think I will stay and try to do it." The gentleman from New Hampshire then took the papers out of his pocket, turned them over to the settler, and said, "If you can stay here and support your family, you will have no occasion to pay the mortgage.'

Mr. President, you can go into the State of South Dakota and into the western portion of Nebraska and into Kansas and buy these lands for less than the Indian price. Take the best lands in my State which are open to settlement-the Sisseton and Wahpeton Indian reservations. On these reservations we opened for settlement about 550,000 acres. About one-half has been taken by actual settlers, who have been trying to make homes and make a living. They began in 1891. Five years have expired. We have extended the time for them to make payment for the lands, but they are unable to pay. The price is $2.50 an acre. Each settler must produce $400. He can not borrow the money at any bank in the State and he can not borrow $100 a quarter section from anybody in New England. This bill must pass or the settlers will leave that reservation and give up the struggle, and I think they would be wise to do it, for they can go 50 or 100 miles away and purchase lands for a dollar or a dollar and a quarter an acre from the people of the East who have been obliged to take up the lands by mortgage foreclosure from homesteaders who had previously made the effort to pay for them and had failed.

I have received a telegram to-day from people on that reservation, which reads:

People on reservation all deeply in debt. Crop failure three years out of four. Banks will not loan enough to prove up. Not one in ten Statement mailed delayed by storm.

can save land.

So I have not received it. The simple question now is, whether we shall drive those people from their land or whether we shall give them an opportunity to remain there?

There is no chance for revenue to be derived from it. Before I allude to the map, to which I desire to call the attention of the Senate, I wish to make some reference to the minority report.

MR. ALLEN: I should like to ask the Senator to explain more fully who it is that says that four millions and a half of revenue can be derived from this land, and whether it can be derived annually, and in what manner?

MR. PETTIGREW: I suppose the Senator refers to the Sioux Reservation, which is opened to settlement, and lies partly in North and South Dakota and Nebraska.

The diagram furnished in the minority report of the committee comes from the Commissioner of the General Land Office, and with it he says:

Loss to the United States, if settlers are relieved from payment, $4,624,000.

MR. PETTIGREW: Of course that is based upon the idea that that land will all be taken up by homesteaders, that they will live there five years, and then pay the money for it, which is absolutely impossible and can never occur. After seven years but 700,000 acres of these lands have been taken, and those are lands along the streams where there is water, the best of all of them. The rest of the land can not be occupied by homestead settlers, for they will not produce crops which will support a family.

MR. PLATT: May I ask the Senator a question?
MR. PETTIGREW: Certainly.

MR. PLATT: There were a little over 9,000,000 acres of the Great Sioux Reservation, said to be eight million and a half, opened to settlement or entry. I suppose it will be admitted that the Government will have to pay 50 cents an acre for those lands, somehow.

MR. PETTIGREW: Anyhow; and it has to do it right

away.

MR. PLATT: That is $4,000,000, is it not?
MR. PETTIGREW: There are 8,550,000 acres.

MR. PLATT: Four million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

MR. PETTIGREW: That is true. The Government made an agreement with these Indians by which it promised ten years after the treaty was ratified to pay 50 cents an acre for the land not taken by settlers, and as it is nearly all vacant and untaken, the Government will have to pay the Indians for it, as the ten years have nearly expired.

I wish to call attention to another fact. This land was bought from Indians who received it in compensation for the lands which they yielded in Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska, and it is part of the purchase price of the lands in those States which have been given to homesteaders.

MR. PLATT: I merely referred to that point to answer the question of the Senator from Nebraska [MR. ALLEN] as to how the Government could lose that amount of revenue. It will have to pay for it.

MR. PETTIGREW: The Government has to pay for it any way. It makes no difference whether or not the settlers pay for it. I will read to the Senator, if he desires, the provision of the law in regard to that subject.

MR. ALLEN: Will the Senator from South Dakota permit me?

MR. ALLEN: I wish to ask the Senator from Connecticut a question. If the Government takes back the lands—and it will be compelled to take them back; that is all there is to it— from what source is it likely to derive any revenue after they are taken back? What are you going to do then?

MR. PLATT: The Senator from South Dakota says the Government can not get any revenue; that it can not sell or dispose of the lands.

MR. ALLEN: I, too, say you can not get any revenue. I say those lands are not only semiarid, but arid. Ordinarily they are not worth 15 cents a quarter section outside of their use for grazing purposes.

MR. PLATT: Then it will not help anybody to pass the bill except a few settlers already on the land?

MR. ALLEN: Except a few people who are on this land, trying to make a living, and who are making a precarious sort of living. If they are not relieved, you will throw them on the balance of the nation to be supported in some form.

MR. PETTIGREW: That is it exactly.

MR. ALLEN: And they would be self-supporting in their way if they were permitted to go on and make a pioneer

struggle.

MR. STEWART: Are these lands similar to those in western Kansas?

MR. STEWART: I had occasion in connection with a committee to make an investigation there some years ago with a view to irrigation. I ascertained that there had been three sets of settlers. When there was a good year, when there was rain, a large number of settlers would go out. Then there would be drought for five or six years and the settlers would have to be taken away, and they were taken away by contributions of benevolent people, and large tracts of land were abandoned. Then, again, there would be a rainy season or two, and the railroads would represent that there was a chance for settlement there, and another set of settlers would go upon the land. They would have to leave in the same way. There were three attempts in the course of the preceding years to settle a vast region of land-and I presume people will continue to make such attempts-but they were not able to support their families and stay there. Some of them even starved to death. The distress was very great among those who attempted to make homes there.

Now, if these are similar lands, and anybody is trying to live upon them, it seems to me the United States had better let the settlers stay there, because there is no possibility of their paying anything to the Government. The Government will get nothing in any event if they are similar lands, and I understand they are, to the lands in western Kansas, where I spent several weeks investigating the irrigation question, for I am satisfied those lands will never be worth a cent.

MR. CARTER: Mr. President