EXECUTIVE MANSION, _January 5, 1888_.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:
I transmit herewith a communication of the 23d ultimo from the Secretary
of the Interior, submitting a draft of a bill "to provide for the
reduction of the Round Valley Indian Reservation, in the State of
California, and for other purposes," with accompanying papers relating
thereto. The documents thus submitted exhibit extensive and entirely
unjustifiable encroachments upon lands set apart for Indian occupancy
and disclose a disregard of Indian rights so long continued that the
Government can not further temporize without positive dishonor. Efforts
to dislodge trespassers upon these lands have in some cases been
resisted upon the ground that certain moneys due from the Government for
improvements have not been paid. So far as this claim is well founded
the sum necessary to extinguish the same should be at once appropriated
and paid. In other cases the position of these intruders is one of
simple and barefaced wrongdoing, plainly questioning the inclination of
the Government to protect its dependent Indian wards and its ability to
maintain itself in the guaranty of such protection.
These intruders should forthwith feel the weight of the Government's
power. I earnestly commend the situation and the wrongs of the Indians
occupying the reservation named to the early attention of the Congress,
and ask for the bill herewith transmitted careful and prompt attention.