The Tulalip Residents' Stand

We, the undersigned, residents of the Tulalip Reservation, having lived in peace and pleasant relationship with our white neighbors in Snohomish County for a period of over ten years, have learned with regret that our Agent, A. N. M., is endeavoring to enforce a rule in our midst which would be injurious to our livelihood. While we have lived in peace, we have been treated with sympathy by all our white neighbors and especially those in Snohomish, whom it deeply concerns. We held a meeting last night to find out who of our members were coerced by the presence of the Agent in taking care of their logs and who made the complaint on which the Agent based the necessity for his act. The result of the meeting convinced us that the Agent is acting on his own responsibility and not ours. We are informed the Agent has a paper to Washington with our names attached, purporting to be an expression of our feelings, to assist him in carrying out his selfish ends. We wish to state to our white friends that we signed no such document. If our names are on it for friendship, they are placed there by fraud. We are not afraid the white people will hurt us. We are not afraid they will do us any harm whatever. For years we have been there, living on our homesteads, and taking care of their property. They have not only not been seen to come on their mill and keep their logs clean, but have been invited by us to do so. Many of us are living still, who were present at the signing of the treaty, many years ago, which insures us the privilege of going in the white man’s mills and pick their logs and lumber. We have enjoyed that privilege without molestation from the white men. The logging interests of this river are worth to the Indians of the reservation over $10,000 annually, and they derive more benefit and more profit from the loggers and from logging here than from all that is spent by the government to maintain the Tulalip reservation.