by the five civilized tribes became steadily more ineffective when the
Indian Territory was thus brought into contact with white settlers. By
1893 affairs had become so confused that Congress decided to take steps
toward the ultimate admission of the territory into the Union as a
State. A committee of the Senate reported that the system of government
exercised by the Indians cannot be continued, that it is not only
non-American but it is radically wrong, and a change is imperatively
demanded in the interest of the Indians and the whites alike, and such
change cannot be much longer delayed, and that there can be no
modification of the system. It cannot be reformed; it must be abandoned