IN 1871 the agent began to enforce the laws against the selling of liquor to the Indians, and, according to a rule of the Indian Department; he also punished the Indians for drinking. Missionary influence went hand in hand with his work, and good results have followed. For years very few Indians on the reservation have been known to be drunk. Punishment upon the liquor-drinker as well as the liquor-seller has had a good effect. Far more of the Clallams drink than of the Twanas. They live so far from the agent that he can not know of all their drinking, and, if he did, he could not go to arrest them all; and many of them live so close to large towns where liquor is very easily obtained, that it has been impossible to stop all of their drinking. Still his occasional visits, the aid of a few white men near them, and of the better Indians, together with what they see of the evil effects of intemperance on themselves, have greatly checked the evil. Very few complete reformations, however, have taken place among those away from the reservation, except those who have become Christians. In addition, a good share of the younger ones have grown up with so much less temptation than their parents had, and so much more influence in favor of temperance, that they have become teetotalers.

For a long time, beginning with 1874, a temperance society flourished, and nearly all the Indians of both tribes joined it. Each member signed the pledge under oath, and took that pledge home to keep, but in time it was found that the society had no penalty with which to punish offenders sufficient to make them fear much to do so again. The agent alone had that power—so the society died. But the law and gospel did not tire in the work and something has been accomplished.

The agent could tell many a story of prosecuting liquor-sellers; sometimes before a packed jury, who, when the proof was positive, declared the prisoner not guilty; of having Indian witnesses tampered with, and bought either by money or threats, so that they would not testify in court, although to him they had previously given direct testimony as to who had furnished them with the liquor; of a time when some of the Clallam Indians became so independent of his authority that they defied him when he went to arrest them, and he was obliged to use the revenue-cutter in order to take them, and when, in consequence, his friends feared that his life was in danger from the white liquor-sellers, because the latter feared the result of their lawlessness; of a judge who, although a Christian man, so allowed his sympathies to go out for the criminal that he would strain the law to let him go; or, on the other hand, of another judge who would strain the law to catch a rascal; of convicting eight white men at one time of selling liquor to Indians, only to have some of them take their revenge by burning the Indians’ houses and all of their contents. Still in a few years he made it very unsafe for most permanent residents to sell intoxicating liquors to the Indians, so that but few except transient people, as sailors and travelers, dared to do so.

“For ways that are dark and tricks that are vain” the Indian and the liquor-seller can almost rival the “heathen Chinee.” A saloon is on the beach, and so high that it is easy to go under it. A small hole is in the floor under the counter. A hand comes up with some money in it: after dark a bottle goes down, and some Indians are drunk, but nobody can prove any thing wrong.

An Indian takes a bucket of clams into a saloon and asks the bar-tender if he wishes them. “I will see what my wife says,” is the reply, and he takes them to a back room. Soon he comes back and says: “Here, take your old clams, they are bad and rotten.” The Indian takes them, and soon a company of Indians are “gloriously drunk,” a bottle having been put in the bottom of the bucket. Sometimes a part of a sack of flour is made of a bottle of whiskey.

An Indian, having been taken up for drunkenness, was asked in court, in Port Townsend, where he obtained his liquor. “If I tell, I can not get any more,” was the blunt reply. Others have found theirs floating in the river or lying by a tree, which may all have been true, yet some man who understood it was the gainer of some money, which perhaps he found. Many an Indian, when asked who let him have the liquor, has said: “I do not know;” or, “I do not know his name.”

Yet there are stories on the other side which make a brighter picture. In 1875 the Twana and Nisqually Indians met as they had often done during previous years for feasting, visiting, trading, and horse-racing. The first agreement was to meet on the Skokomish Reservation, but continued rains made the race-track on the reservation almost unfit for use, it being bottom land. There was another track on gravelly land about ten miles from Skokomish. On the Sabbath previous to the races the sermon had reference to the subject, because of the betting and danger of drunkenness connected with it. A Nisqually Indian came then and urged the Skokomish Indians to go to the other race-track at Shelton’s Prairie, because the one at Skokomish was so muddy. The Skokomish Indians replied that they did not wish to go to the prairie for fear there would be whiskey there, but that they would go to work and fix their own track as well as they could. One sub-chief, the only one of the chiefs who had a race-horse, said he would not go there. This word was carried to the Nisqually Indians who were camped at the prairie, but they refused to come to Skokomish, and sent their messenger to tell the Skokomish Indians so. Several hours were occupied in discussing the question. In talking with the agent, the head-chief asked him if he would send one of the employees to guard them, should they decide to go to the prairie. The head-chief then went to the prairie and induced the Nisquallys to come to the reservation for the visit, trading, and marriage, which was to take place, and for the races if the track should be suitable. From Wednesday until Saturday was occupied by the Indians as agreed upon, but the weather continued rainy and the track was unfit for use. On Saturday the Nisqually Indians went back to the prairie and invited the Skokomish Indians to go there for the races. On Monday twenty-five or thirty of them went, but this number did not include a chief or many of the better class, the great fear being that they would be tempted to drink. According to the request of the chief, one white man from the reservation went, together with the regular Indian policemen. There were also present ten or twelve other white men from different places, one of whom carried considerable liquor. The Indian policemen on seeing this went to him and told him he must not sell or give any of it to any of the Indians, and he promised that he would not. He was afterward seen offering some to a Nisqually Indian, who refused. When night came it was found that, with three or four exceptions, all of the white men present had drank some, and a few were quite drunk, while it was not known that any of the Indians present had taken any. That the better class of Indians should not go to the races, and that all should earnestly contend against going to that place for fear of temptation; that they asked for a white man to guard them; that an Indian told a white man not to give liquor to his fellow-Indians, and that, while most of the white men drank some, it was not known that any Indian drank at all, although it was not the better class of Indians who were present, were facts which were encouraging.

A sub-chief of the Clallam Indians, at Elkwa, one hundred and twenty miles from the reservation, in 1878, found that an Indian from British Columbia had brought a keg of liquor among his people. He immediately complained before a justice of the peace, who arrested the guilty man, emptied his liquor on the ground, and fined him sixty-four dollars.

The head-chief of the Clallams, Lord James Balch, has for nine years so steadily opposed drinking, and imprisoned and fined the offenders so much, that he excited the enmity of the Indians, and even of their doctors, and also of some white men, much as a good Indian agent does. Although he is not perfect, he still continues the good work. Fifteen years ago he was among the worst Indians about, drinking, cutting, and fighting.

In January, 1878, I was asked to go ninety miles, by both Clallams and Twanas, to a potlatch, to protect them from worthless whites and Indians, who were ready to take liquor to the place. The potlatch was at Dunginess, given by some Clallams. I went, in company with about seventy-five Twanas, and it was not known that more than eight of them had tasted liquor within four years, although none of them professed to be Christians. During that festival, which continued nine days, and where more than five hundred Indians were present, only one Indian was drunk.

More than once a whiskey-bottle has been captured from an Indian, set out in view of all on a stump or box, a temperance speech made and a temperance hymn sung, the bottle broken into many pieces, and the contents spilled on the ground.

The Indians say that the Hudson’s Bay Company first brought it to them, but dealt it out very sparingly, but when the Americans came they brought barrels of it. They seem to be proud that it is not the Indians who manufacture it, for if it were they would soon put a stop to it; nor is it the believer in God, but wicked white men who wish to clear them away as trees are cleared from the ground.

Thus, when we take into consideration the condition of these Indians fifteen years ago, and the present condition of some other Indians in the region who lie beastly drunk in open sight, and compare it with the present status of those now here, there is reason for continued faith in the God of the law and gospel of temperance.