States and nations, even as individuals, are often tempted in diverse ways to forsake the path of rectitude, and, for material gain, territorial acquisition, or other supposed good, to do dishonorable things. To my mind one of the chief blots on the escutcheon of the United States is its treatment of the Indians, and California, as a sovereign state, cannot escape its individual responsibility for its utterly reprehensible treatment of its dusky "original inhabitants."

When the Spaniards seized the land their laws were clean-cut and clear in regard to the confiscation of the lands of the Indians. It was made the duty of certain officials, under direct penalties, to see that they were never, under any excuse, pretense, or even legal process, deprived of the lands they had held from time immemorial. The Mexicans, in the main, effectually carried out the same just and equitable laws. But when the United States took possession of California and the new state government was formally organized, a new idea was interjected. The California law proclaimed its intention to protect the rights of the Indians, but it made it the duty of the Indians, within a certain specified time, to come before a duly authorized officer and declare what lands were theirs and that they intended to claim and use. Now while on the face of it this law seems reasonable and just, in actual practice it is as cruel, wicked, and surely confiscating as is the "stand and deliver!" of the highwayman. How were the Indians to know what was required of them? What did they know of the white man and his laws? As well pass a law that all the birds who do not declare their intention of using the branches of certain trees will be shot if they appear there, as pass laws requiring Indians, ignorant of our language, our methods of procedure, to appear and declare that they intend to continue to use lands they had had uninterrupted possession of for unknown centuries. In other words, the law fiction was a deliberate and definite scheme of dishonest men to make legal the dispossession of the Indians, whenever it was found desirable. Such a case in due time arose at Warner's Ranch. Other cases innumerable might be cited, but this is the one that particularly concerns Pala.

Warner's Ranch was named after Jonathan Trumbull Warner, popularly known to the Mexicans as Juan JosÉ Warner, who came from Lyme, Conn., by way of St. Louis, Santa Fe and the Gila River, to California, in 1831. In 1834 he settled down in Los Angeles, marrying, in 1837, at San Luis Rey Mission, Anita Gale, the daughter of Capt. W.A. Gale, of Boston. The maiden, however, had been in California ever since she was five years old, her father having placed her in the home of DoÑa Eustaquia Pico, the widowed mother of Pio Pico, the last Mexican Governor of California. In due time he (Warner) was naturalized as a Mexican citizen and received from the Mexican Governor in 1844 the grant of an immense tract of land in San Diego County, long known as El Valle de San JosÉ. It was fine pasture land, but it was especially noted for its hot springs—Agua Caliente—near which the Indians had had their village from time immemorial. According to Spanish and Mexican law, it must be remembered, their right to their homes and adjacent pasture lands was inalienable without their own consent. Hence under Warner's regime they lived content and happy, uninterfered with, and never worried that a grant—of which they knew nothing—had been made of their lands without any clause of exemption preserving to them their time-honored rights.

Then came Fremont, Sloat and Kearny. California became a state of the United States and among other laws passed the one referring to the lands of the Indians noted above. As he passed by Palatingua, Genl. Kearny, according to the oldest man of the village, Owlinguwush, who acted as his guide, solemnly pledged his government not to remove the Indians from their lands, provided they would be friends of the new people.

This the Indians were. The white people soon learned the value of the hot springs, and flocked thither in great numbers to drink and bathe in the waters. The Indians charged them a small fee for the use of the bath-houses and tubs they had prepared. This added to their modest income, gained from their industries as cattle-men, hunters, farmers, basket and pottery-makers. They were happy, healthy, fairly prosperous and contented.

But in time Warner died. His grant was duly confirmed by the United States Land Courts, but no one cared enough to see that the rights of the Indians were guarded, hence the confirmation and deed of grant contained no exemption of the Indians' lands.

The ownership changed until it came into the hands of a well-known California capitalist. He was not interested in Indians, had no particular sympathy with or for them, and did not see why they should remain on his land. Several times he vigorously intimated that he wanted them to "clear off," he needed the land, and especially he needed the hot springs. There was a strongly expressed desire that a health and pleasure resort be established at this charming place, but, of course, it was impossible so long as the Indians were there. Each time removal was intimated to the Indians they laughed—as children laugh if you tell them you are going to buy them from their parents. Had they not lived here long before a white man had ever set foot on the continent? Were they not born here, raised, married, had their children, died and were buried here for centuries? Had not Spaniards, Mexicans, and even General Kearny assured them they were secure in their possession? Of course they laughed! Who wouldn't?

But the owner of the land grew tired of their smiles. He wanted the place, so his lawyers ordered the Indians to vacate, and the papers were served in such manner that even the childlike aborigines were compelled to realize that something serious was going to happen. But that they should be compelled to leave! Ah, impossible! No one possibly could be so cruel and wicked as that.

The courts were appealed to, and finally the State Supreme Court decided against the Indians, by a vote of four to three—a decision so contrary to the spirit of honor and justice that it aids in making anarchists and revolutionists of good and law-abiding men. Confident in the right of the Indians' cause their faithful friends took the case up to the United States Supreme Court, and again, this time purely on the plea of precedent—that it was contrary to rule for the United States Supreme Court to interfere in any case that was purely domestic to one State—the judgment ousting the Indians was confirmed.

Things now began to look serious. Some of the Indians were crushed by the decision, others were ugly and wanted to fight. Various people of various temperaments interfered, and each one denounced the others as trouble-makers and brewers of mischief. Council after council was held, and at each one the Indians stedfastly refused to leave their homes.

In the meantime, realizing that the suit for eviction most probably would go against the Indians, certain societies and individuals, prompted by their interest in them and by their inherent sense of justice, appealed to Congress to find a new home for these people if they were dispossessed.

For the first time in its history, Congress voted $100,000 to give to these Indians a better home than the one they were to be evicted from. A special inspector was sent out to determine where this new home should be. He reported favorably upon a site, which, however, better informed people in the state, considered altogether unsuitable. Protests immediately were lodged with the Indian Department and as the result a Commission was appointed to investigate conditions, and find the most suitable place to which the Palatinguas could be transferred. This Commission was composed of Charles F. Lummis, Russell C. Allen, and Chas. L. Partridge.

After weeks of careful and patient investigation, criticized on every hand by those who were anxious to sell any kind of an acreage to the Indians, it was finally decided to recommend the purchase of the Pala Valley. Few seemed to see the irony of this decision. The land once had belonged to the Pala Indians. Less than a century before a thousand of them were regular attendants at the little Mission Chapel and devoted friends of Padre Antonio Peyri. Whence had these and their descendants gone? How had they been deprived of their lands? In another chapter I have quoted from Frank J. Polley, how our California laws aided and abetted the spoliators and how Pala unjustly came into the possession of a white man.

Now it must be bought back again. There were 3,500 acres, with a large amount of hilly government land that would be of use for pasturage and that could be added to the full purchased land as a reservation. The Commission claimed, and doubtless believed, there was plenty of water, but it was not long before the supply was found to be so inadequate that something had to be done to add to it. This has been done, as is elsewhere related.

Congress passed the appropriation bill, made the purchase, May 27, 1902, setting the land aside as a permanent reservation. The Indian Department, therefore, ordered the immediate transfer of the Indians from Palatingua, as well as small bands from Puerta de la Cruz, Puerta Chiquita, San JosÉ, San Felipe and Mataguaya—tiny settlements on the fringe of Warner's Ranch and who were made parties to the ejectment suit—to Pala.

Serious trouble was feared. Mr. Lummis wired for troops to aid in the removal, although his duties as head of the Commission to choose a home for the Indians gave him no authority to act in the matter. He was thereupon ordered from the ranch, and the work of removal committed to the care of a special agent, as Dr. L.A. Wright, the regular Indian Agent, confessed his inability to cope with the situation. Mrs. Babbitt, for many years the teacher at Warner's Ranch, and other friends of the Indians counselled acquiescence to the law's demand. I was invited both by the Indians and the Indian Commissioner to be present at the removal, but I knew that it would be too much for my equanimity, so I kept away. My friend Grant Wallace, however, was present, and in Out West magazine, for July, 1903, gave the following pathetic account:

Thus came about the transfer of the Palatinguas to Pala. Though they often longed for their old home it could not be denied, even by them, that the location of Pala is ideal. It is literally surrounded by mountains that seem to rise in huge overlapping rings, each circling the diminutive valley. The Pala River flows through the settlement. Almost every available foot of space is now under cultivation in that part of the valley near by, and further down, along the river, where the fields broaden out, many acres are yielding their rich and valuable crops.

To the south may be seen the hospitable ranch-house—Agua Tibia—of Lewis Utt, an attorney of San Diego, who divides his time between his city office and his farm. Five thousand feet above cluster the pine trees, the live oaks and other rich arboreal growths of Palomar, the Mountain of the Dove. Nearby the rich olive orchards of John Fry stretch out like silken flags of green. To the north, on the top of the Pala grade, the Happy Valley ranch of A.M. Lobaugh is a stopping-place for camper and tourist. To the west is the extensive ranch of Monserrate.

There are few more beautiful inland locations in the world, and climatically it is as perfect as it is scenically. For from the one side come the breezes of the warm South Pacific ocean, laden with the ozone and bromine of kelp-beds and with the refreshing tang of the salt air, while from the other come the aseptic breezes of the desert, God's great purifying laboratory, where, after being completely purified, they are sent over the mountains, there to gather their unseen but never-the-less beneficent and healthful burden of sweet balsams and odors from the trees, shrubs and blossoms that glorify their slopes and summits.

For awhile after their arrival at Pala they dwelt in tents, and then occurred one of those inexplainable and inexcusable pieces of folly that fills the heart of an intelligent man with contempt and almost with despair. Cold weather was coming on. The Indians must be housed erelong. One would have thought the sensible and obvious thing to do would have been to engage the unoccupied Indians—for, of course, none of them as yet had a thing to do—either to make adobe brick and build their houses of them, or to buy lumber for the purpose from the nearest place of supply. Instead of that what was done by the dunder-headed officials at Washington? Even as I write it seems so incredible that I can scarce believe it. These incompetent men purchased, in New York, fifty flimsy, rickety, insecure, wretched "portable" houses, sent them by freight, and ordered them put up as the permanent homes of these unfortunate exiles. The amount of money expended in these contemptible pretences for houses, and the freight paid on them from the East, would have erected permanent buildings and at the same time have provided paying occupation for the Indians during their erection. Official stupidity seldom manifested itself more clearly than in this instance.

Commenting upon the matter the government's own special agent reported:

But the Indians made the best of them, and have gradually improved, or replaced them with something better. Then the water question arose. There was not enough for their needs. Eighteen thousand dollars was first expended, and then more was called for. At last, in May, 1913, the new irrigation system was completed, and a grand fiesta was held to celebrate the opening.

The first teacher of the Palatinguas when they were removed to Pala was Mrs. Josephine H. Babbitt, who for many years had been their trusted friend at Warner's Ranch. But in those trying early days when nerves were frayed, dispositions frazzled, and passions easily aroused, her earnest and determined efforts to secure for her wards as great a meed of justice as possible rendered her persona non grata to some whose influence was powerful enough to secure her removal.

But it was not long before even this misfortune was made to work out for the good of the Indians. Miss Ora Salmons, who was a teacher of one of the near-by Indian schools, was appointed, and this year of our Lord, sees her close her twenty-eighth year of faithful and happy service among her dusky wards, many of which have been spent here at Pala. With heart, mind and body attuned to her work she has truthfully and poetically been termed "the little mother of the Indians." Radiating brightness, sunshine, sympathy and love for her pupils, old and young, she is strengthened in her daily task by the assurance that she is making their life easier and happier, removing some of the obstacles to their progress, and adding factors of strength and self-reliance to their characters.