Leader. Have the Indians been subject to peculiar temptations to intemperance?
Girls. Yes. On many of the reservations, our agents complain that whiskey is a great curse. At the Leech Lake Agency, six Indians were killed in drunken quarrels among themselves in six months.
Boys. Rev. Myron Eells, of Washington Territory, says he convicted quite a number of persons for selling liquor to the Indians, which aroused the fierce opposition of the whiskey ring, which had done its utmost to prevent his success.
Leader. What has resulted from efforts for their reformation?
Girls. So much was accomplished by Rev. Mr. Spees and his wife at Red Lake, that not a drunken Indian had been seen for many weeks.
Boys. At the Skokomish Agency, about 130 Indians took the temperance pledge. Since then those who came under the influence of the missionary abandoned the use of strong drink. The opposition, however, by the liquor sellers was such that they burned seven Indian houses by way of retaliation.
Leader. Do Indian youth readily accept temperance principles when brought into the training schools of the Association?
Girls. They do. Those brought to Hampton by Capt. Pratt gave up their tobacco and whiskey during the first year, held prayer meetings together, and pursued the industrial occupations required by the school without serious objection.
Boys. At the Green Bay Agency, within a few years, a great work has been done in the way of temperance reform, so that Mr. Wheeler, the missionary on the ground, says that a more temperate community of its size cannot probably be found in the State of Wisconsin.
Singing.