the Department is contemplating “compelling” them to leave it and go to the reservation in Idaho. There were stormy scenes there also during this year. Suits were brought against all the employés of the Lapwai Ageney, and a claim set up for all the lands of the agency, and for many of the Indian farms, by one Langford, representing the old claim of the missionaries, to whom a large tract of ground had been ceded some thirty years before. He attempted to take forcible possession of the place, and was ejected finally by military force, after the decision of the Attorney-general had been given that his claim was invalid.
The Indian Bureau recommended a revocation of the executive order giving the Wallowa Valley to Joseph and his band. In June of this year President Grant revoked the order, and in the autumn a commission was sent out “to visit these Indians, with a view to secure their permanent settlement on the reservation, their early entrance on a civilized life, and to adjust the difficulties then existing between them and the settlers.”
It is worth while to study with some care the reasons which this commission gave to Chief Joseph why the Wallowa Valley, which had been given to him by Executive order in 1873, must be taken away from him by Executive order in 1875:
“Owing to the coldness of the climate, it is not a suitable location for an Indian reservation. * * * It is now in part settled by white squatters for grazing purposes. * * * The President claimed that he extinguished the Indian title to it by the treaty of 1863. * * * It is embraced within the limits of the State of Oregon. * * * The State of Oregon could not probably be induced to cede the jurisdiction of the valley to the United States for an Indian reservation. * * * In the conflicts which might arise in the future, as in the past, between him and the whites, the President might not be able to justify or defend him. * * * A part of the valley had already been surveyed and opened to settlement: * * * if, by some arrange-
