As Commissioner, he reorganized the Bureau of Indian Affairs, worked to replace corrupt agents, and attempted to establish more systematic and transparent management of the reservation system.

He established a Board of Indian Commissioners, composed of philanthropists and reformers, to provide civilian oversight of Indian affairs and check the corruption that had historically pervaded the bureau.

He also brought to the position something that none of his predecessors had: a personal understanding of what the Bureau’s failures meant to the people it was supposed to serve.

He had seen those failures from the receiving end.

He had sat in meetings where Seneca leaders tried to protect their reservation against pressures that the bureau’s failures had created or exacerbated.