CHAPTER XL. CONCLUSIONS
In studying Indians, the scientist deals with facts. The historian is a scientist in that he records facts; the sociologists and persons interested in political economy and government, draw conclusions from facts. Manifestly, we should formulate our Indian policy upon scientific principles. We should be governed solely and absolutely by facts and past experiences. Yet, although our Government in all other branches of its great Service profits by human experience in our own country and elsewhere, in our handling of the Indian, it is safe to affirm that we have not heeded the lessons of the past.
The Indian policy the past two or three years has appreciably changed for the better. If the reforms instituted by Honorable Cato Sells can be carried out as planned, we shall conserve much of the Indian property that remains. The Indians still possess vast estates, and with economy and protection, there is sufficient land to care for all of them, save on a few reservations. In Oklahoma and Minnesota it will be necessary to either buy farms, or permit Indians to continue as paupers, or move them to Montana, Idaho or Nevada. The great Navaho tract, including a portion of the Public Domain, is now crowded. There can be no further increase of Navaho population in the present area. Either the Indians must have more land, or suffer. Omitting all other reservations and Indian areas, and classifying them as satisfactory (although some of them are not) the situation confronting us today may be bluntly stated as follows:—You can take no more land away from the Indians, unless you desire to make of them paupers. You cannot expect them to hold their own with the white people, unless you change their status from a paper citizenship to a real citizenship. Making of them citizens, without the ordinary protection enjoyed by other Americans, produces instead of citizens, paupers. The detailed evidence of this has been presented in previous chapters.
We all admit that we owe the Indian much. Nobody denies that we have done the individual Indian a service, through our education and civilizing influences. Why, then, is it that there is not more land under cultivation today than in 1871? Because of the conflicting rulings and laws, the breaking of treaties, the cancelling of agreements entered into by States, and, finally, the taking of individual farms. This has discouraged the average Indian.
Far be it from me to be disloyal to my own Government, but I express the firm conviction that our particular form of government is such that administration of Indian Affairs is rendered extremely difficult. Put plainly (if not bluntly), our form of government is not conducive to satisfactory management or supervision of a dependent people. The reason, as every thinking man and woman knows, is because we make the high office of Indian Affairs a political appointment. The Commissioner no more than learns his duties, and becomes competent and efficient, than he is removed and another installed in his place. Since 1834 there have been thirty-one Commissioners, and the average tenure of office is a trifle over two and one-half years. The same is true of Indian Superintendents—formerly called Agents. I never could understand why they changed the name, for the Superintendent is still an Agent. I am perfectly willing to accept the shrewd Indian’s definition—“It is the same man, only he wears a different coat.”
The frequent changes in the office of Commissioner has not worked to the advantage of the Indians. Since 1907 we have had three Commissioners and an acting Commissioner—F. E. Leupp, R. G. Valentine, F. H. Abbott, and Cato Sells. All of these men have been energetic and intelligent, as were their predecessors, but they have been removed, or they resigned under political pressure; and as a result those who are fighting for the Indians’ rights must go over the same old story, again and again, submit and resubmit the same evidence as one appointee succeeds another. This is even true of the Honorable Secretary of the Interior himself. As an illustration, I would cite the case of French-Canadians of northern Minnesota.
After the White Earth investigation, we begged Secretary Garfield to strike from the White Earth rolls the French-Canadian element—headed by one Gus H. Beaulieu. It was contended that those persons had come down from Canada and settled themselves on the Ojibwa, and were a continual source of trouble. Enough evidence was presented to make our position impregnable. Secretary Garfield hesitated to act, and passed the matter to his successor, Mr. Ballinger, who in turn transferred it to Mr. Fisher, and it is now before Secretary Lane. If the Honorable Secretary, Mr. Garfield, had acted in the first place heroically and promptly, he would have placed the burden of proof on the shoulders of the French-Canadian element (where it properly belonged), and several pages of unpleasant American Indian history would not have been written.
Be these things as they may, they exist, and until our Congress appoints a national and paid commission to take over the entire Indian body and their property—so long as the Indian, and the Indian Office, remain political footballs, just so long will the games continue played in the old way, with no new rules, and since coaching from the side-lines is permitted, the strongest and the most brutal teams will win.
The freest and most varied opinions regarding Indian affairs are expressed at the Lake Mohonk Conferences. I have referred to them elsewhere, but I desire to repeat that at the conferences, where hundreds of missionaries, philanthropists, sociologists, Government employees and others assemble, we obtain the facts, hear recommendations, and debate on the policy concerning our wards.
The addresses delivered at these remarkable gatherings carry great weight throughout the country, for the reason that those who address the audiences have made extended observations in various parts of the field. A summary of these many opinions delivered during the past five years, indicates one general trend of thought. And that is that the end of the tribal system among the Indians is not so much at hand, as already accomplished. It requires no prophetic vision to observe the setting of the Indians’ sun. All agree to this general proposition. The many scientists of our research institutions, both large and small, are energetically seeking out what little remains of tribal and aboriginal customs and beliefs. They know that in a few years it will be too late to make scientific researches among Indians. They employ patient search and much discrimination to here and there discover a smouldering ember of the ancient council fire. And, I think, it requires further energy and patience on the part of the ethnologists to fan the feeble ember until it bursts forth into flame!
The Government employee is pushing his educational problem, persuading most of the Indians to work, and improving the daily life of these people. The doctors and the field matrons use their best endeavor to establish sanitary measures, and proper home life. The great Indian schools are discharging hundreds of competent graduates; the Congressmen are removing restrictions, according citizenship, selling surplus lands, and doing all that they can to hasten the end of the Indian as a dependent body. And last of all, comes the undesirable class—the grafter and the bootlegger—one taking away the Indian property in many sections of our country, and the other debauching all Indians who have not the moral stamina to resist. The good people, and the majority, are uplifting, saving and preparing the Indian for citizenship. Working together, they are acting in the best interests of that great and new movement, known as “Social Service.” Fighting against them is the undesirable element—that class responsible for the pauperizing of the Indians of Oklahoma, Minnesota, California and elsewhere. I have pointed out in previous chapters of this book both the good and the evil. The real workers—whether in the Government Service, employed by missions, members of philanthropic organizations, state officials, or private citizens—are doing their part. We may criticize some of their rulings or methods of procedure, for we all make mistakes, and no man or woman engaged in the real work of the world can avoid error. Frequently we make enemies—particularly so if we stand up for the rights of the Indian. But while this is true, the general trend is in favor of just treatment of the Indian, and the great object in view is his absorption into the body politic.
MISS KATE BARNARD, OF OKLAHOMA. See pages [137], [150], and [170]
She is waging battle for the protection of Indian minors and orphans.
Whether this shall be accomplished depends entirely upon the relative strength between those who build up, and those who destroy. The issue is between the grafter and bootlegger, and the respectable citizen. The great Navaho is as yet unspoiled. The Sioux, the Apache, the Crow and others are doing very well. If we permit foolish or unwise legislation to dominate in the region inhabited by the tribes I have named, we shall destroy the best of that which is left, even as we have destroyed in Oklahoma and Minnesota. I have clearly pointed out the high character of the Ojibwa and the Five Civilized Tribes forty years ago as compared with the present, and that the responsibility for this decline rests with us, rather than with the Indians themselves, or the Indian Office.
Since 1834, we have gone on in a well-meaning but stupid and blundering way. We have persuaded scores of bands to take the white man’s road, and by foolish legislation, wars, the crowding by Whites, etc., destroyed their original confidence in us. As if these were not sufficient, in the great State of Oklahoma, where one-third of the entire Indian body is located, we have had brought before us through reports of Commissions and individuals and a cloud of witnesses, the result of our policy. In spite of this, we have recently deliberately removed, or forced to resign, some of the persons most competent and longest in the Service in that State—Messrs. Mott, Gresham, Frost, Kelsey and Wright. What was the real reason? Did the great majority of citizens of Oklahoma—the law-abiding and upright—desire that faithful servants, who understood their duties, should be forced out? No! Because a relatively small number of oil, coal, land, timber and stock men wished to become rich. Public sentiment through the newspapers has been influenced, persons who were not interested in politics have been accused of the very thing which dominated their accusers. Politics is at the bottom of it all.
The agitation in Oklahoma, begun by the small coterie referred to, and, at the insistence of interested persons and newspapers, and not prevented by Congressmen from that State, has resulted in the present removal from office of the men best able to protect the Indians. Does all of this indicate that the Commissioner, Mr. Sells, will not protect the Indians? By no means. As I have said, he and his able assistant, Mr. Meritt, and all the officials are honorable and upright men. But they cannot stand against the wishes of Congress. The Congressmen are all honest and upright in their intentions—although two or three of them are on record as dealing in Indian lands—but they are compelled to act in accordance with the desires of their constituents. Witness the statement that the candidates for office, with very few exceptions, ran on the platform that all restrictions were to be removed and federal safeguards withdrawn (pages [139] and [144].)
The Commissioner, although he may prepare a method of procedure for the Judges handling Indian cases in the Probate Court (as Mr. Sells has done), is really powerless, if Congress decides to remove the few remaining safeguards in Oklahoma, or to divide up any other reservation. All Commissioners have said practically the same thing: that they stood back of the Indian, protected his rights, were in favor of progress and education, etc., etc. Statements embodying this sentiment are found in every public address of the various Commissioners during thirty years.
The Commissioner may spend years in upbuilding industry among a certain band of Indians. The moment the reservation is thrown open to settlement, most of the Indians are speedily dispossessed. If he desires to protect the water rights of the Pimas and the white people living along the Gila River wash the water, all the Inspector’s reports, and all the Commissioner’s speeches, and all the Agent’s protests, are in vain. The Congressmen from any of the affected districts must agree with their constituents, else they will be defeated at the next election. There are many exceptions, such as Honorable W. N. Murray of Oklahoma, Honorable Charles H. Burke of South Dakota, Honorable James M. Graham and others, who have, in spite of popular clamor, stood for the rights of the Indians.
The lack of true publicity in Indian Affairs, is also a factor working powerfully against the Indian. Between 1900 and 1909 we were given the impression that the Indian generally in the United States was in splendid condition. This had a very evil effect, in that there was no public agitation outside of the Indian Rights and the California Indian Associations for protection. The very best thing that ever happened to the Indian was the making public of dreadful conditions in California, Minnesota, Arizona, and Oklahoma.
This aroused both the officials and Congress. Victor Locke, Chief of the Choctaws, said regarding the Oklahoma exposé:—“The very day after Commissioner Moorehead’s report was made public, I saw one of the county judges in the Choctaw country going from a printing-office with 750 printed notices to guardians with respect to settlement with their Indian wards.”
If we had such publicity applied to every reservation, while it would be unpleasant, the taxpayers of the United States would soon realize that, unless our policy is radically changed, they will be called upon to support a vast number of homeless paupers. Beyond question, either the nation, or the respective States, will soon assume this burden. I desire to go on record as making this prophecy.
As a concrete illustration of how those high in authority have misled the public, I desire to state that Honorable James S. Sherman, Vice-President of the United States, and for some years Chairman of the House Committee on Indian Affairs, in a public address before the Lake Mohonk Conference in October, 1911, stated that the United States Government had kept all its treaties and obligations with the Indians. Respect for the high office he occupied, prevented anyone replying to this amazing and preposterous utterance. The audience was composed of 400 or more persons of prominence, and Mr. Sherman’s address was reported in many newspapers, with the result that the average reader naturally concluded that those who were seeking to better the condition of the Indians were sentimentalists, and that the Government had done its full duty. If the Committee of which he was chairman took that view, we have the explanation of many of the evils of the past fifteen years. For every agreement or promise, faithfully kept by the Government, I can cite a score which the authorities either ignored or made no effort to fulfill.
“The treaties with the Indians have been gathered and published in a single volume. It may be said with confidence, that leaving out the merely formal ratifications of existing friendly relations, there is not one treaty that was negotiated in good faith by the United States.”
As the final proofs of this chapter were struck, the announcement came from Washington to the effect that the Honorable Secretary of the Interior intended to grant the Indians more freedom. In Mr. Lane’s report, just issued, he takes the position that as many of our Indians are intelligent, the Government should hasten the day of removal of restrictions, or withdrawal of supervision over individual Indians.
CHIEF PEO-PEO-TOLEKT. NEZ PERCE WARRIOR. CHIEF JOSEPH’S WAR, 1877
Photographed and copyrighted by L. V. McWhorter, 1911
A careful study of the field, indicates that somewhere between one-third and one-half of our Indians might be immediately merged into the body politic. As against this statement, the evidence is indisputable that the remaining two-thirds (or one-half) if made free, in the full sense that term implies, will be in the same condition as the Indians of California, Minnesota, and Oklahoma. If all of our Indians were made free, and permitted to progress as the Cherokees did, prior to their removal west of the Mississippi, and until about the year 1900 in the State of Oklahoma, the Secretary’s plan would succeed. But so long as the white people discriminate against Indian citizens, and the citizenship of the Indian is different from that enjoyed by ourselves, the setting free of all our Indians at this time will end in certain disaster.