remain, as well as other bands of citizen Sioux with
whom I am acquainted, are becoming more and more completely identified
with the general farming population of Nebraska and the Dakotas.

LEGAL STATUS OF INDIANS

The door to American citizenship has been open to the Indian in general
only since the passage of the Dawes severalty act, in 1887. Before that
date his status was variously defined as that of a member of an
independent foreign nation, of a "domestic dependent nation," as a ward
of the Government, or, as some one has wittily said, a "perpetual
inhabitant with diminutive rights." The Dawes act conferred upon those
who accepted allotments of land in severalty the protection of the
courts and all the rights of citizenship, including the suffrage. It
also provided that the land thus patented to the individual Indian could
not be alienated nor was it taxable for a period of twenty-five years
from the date of allotment.

Of the 330,000 Indians in the United States, considerably more than half
are now allotted, and 70,000 hold patents in fee. The latest report of
the Indian Bureau gives the total number of Indian citizens at about
75,000. Those still living on communal land are being allotted at the
rate of about 5,000 a year. The question of taxation of allotments has
been a vexed one. Some Indians have hesitated to accept full citizenship
because of fear of taxation; while white men living in the vicinity of
large Indian holdings have naturally objected to shouldering the entire
burden. Yet as the last census shows 73 per cent. of all Indians as
taxed and counted toward the population of their Congressional
districts, it appears that taxed or taxable Indians are not necessarily
citizens; though they must be considered, in the words of Prof. F. A.
McKenzie, who compiled the Indian census, as at least "potential
citizens."

The so-called "Burke bill" (1906) provides that Indians allotted after
that date shall not be declared citizens until after the expiration of
the twenty-five-year trust period. This act has served no particular
purpose except to further confuse the status of the Indian. The "Carter
code bill," now pending in Congress, provides for a commission of
experts to codify existing statutes and define this status clearly, and
has been strongly endorsed by the Society of American Indians and the
Indian Rights Association. It ought to be made law.

There is a special law under which an Indian may ap