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Kamiah Nez Perce Res. Idaho. 
Aug. 28, 1889.

My dear General Heth.

My dear friend I want to do something for these people and I want your help if you approve. I want to send James Rubins to Washington to study law at the Columbia Law School. I have looked into James life and career and studied the man. There is lots of human nature in him and some of it of a very noble cast. He is a man of gifts, and a man who can be made an instrument for much good to this people. They need a lawyer among them, and some one who can look after their interests and represent them among the white people. James has the power, and the inclination to do this. I have looked over the tribe, while I have found more pious men, and what persons would call more steady men, I have not found any one so capable, nor any one with more real strength to withstand the world. I think you understand me. There are many persons who can be very good living in a paddock out who if they were turned loose would lose their head. James has already seen a good deal of the world, and has accomplished considerable. All this will help him. He does not yet fully estimate himself, because he has not yet pitted himself among men, therefore I want him not to study in any mans office, but in a class of young men, that he may realize his own needs and work the harder. As to his habits, I am not afraid for him, I have had very plain and serious talks with James, he is too genial and active to find scope in this reservation life. He must have an object in life, one that will espouse his entire nature. To educate James Rubins in the law, will be to save him, but I would not feel justified in appealing to you and others for help to do this if it meant merely the rescuing of one man in his private capacity, but to do this for James is to do a service for the entire tribe which will reach