ower,
The misers and minters of money;
Gone for the greed that is their creed--
And these in the land have thriven.
What then wert thou, and what art now,
And wherefore hast thou striven?

REFRAIN

And every note of every bell
Sang Gabriel! rang Gabriel!
In the tower that is left the tale to tell
Of Gabriel, the Archangel."

To-day, the total Indian population of Southern California is reported
as between two and three thousand. It is not increasing, and it is good
for the race that it is not. Until the incumbency by W.A. Jones of the
Indian Commissionership in Washington, there seems to have been little
or no attempt at effective protection of the Indians against the land
and other thefts of the whites. The facts are succinctly and powerfully
stated by Helen Hunt Jackson in her report to the government, and in her
_Glimpses of California and the Missions_. The indictment of churches,
citizens, and the general government, for their crime of supineness in
allowing our acknowledged wards to be seduced, cheated, and corrupted,
should be read by every honest American; even though it make his blood
seethe with indignation and his nerves quiver with shame.

In my larger work on this subject I published a table from the report of
the agent for the "Mission-Tule" Consolidated Agency, which is dated
September 25, 1903.

This is the official report of an agent whom not even his best friends
acknowledge as being over fond of his Indian charges, or likely to be
sentimental in his dealings with them. What does this report state? Of
twenty-eight "reservations"--and some of these include several Indian
villages--it announces that the lands of eight are yet "not patented."
In other words, that the Indians are living upon them "on sufferance."
Therefore, if any citizen of the United States, possessed of sufficient
political power, so desired, the lands could be restored to the public
domain. Then, not even the United States Supreme Court could hold them
for the future use and benefit of the Indians.

On five of these reservations the land is "desert," and in two cases,
"subject to intense heat" (it might be said, to 150 degrees, and even
higher in the middle of summer); in one case there is "little water for
irrigation."

In four cases it is "poor land," with "no water," and in another
instance there are "worthless, dry hills;" in still another the soil is
"almost w