INDIANS AS POLITICIANS
In almost every state there are some Indian voters, and in South Dakota and Oklahoma there are counties officered and controlled by Indian citizens. It is interesting to note that the citizen Indian is no ignorant or indifferent voter. If he learns and masters anything at all, it is the politics of his county and state. It is a matter of long experience with him, as he has been handled by politicians ever since he entered the reservation, and there is not a political trick that he cannot understand. He is a ready student of human nature, and usually a correct observer. I am sorry to say that the tendency of the new generation is to be diplomats of a lower type, quick and smart, but not always sound. At present, like any crude or partially developed people, politics is their hobby.
Yet there remains a sprinkling of the old Indian type, which is strongly averse to all unfair or underhanded methods; and there are a few of the younger men who combine the best in both standards, and refuse to look upon the new civilization as a great, big grab-bag. It is not strange that a majority are influenced by the prevailing currents of American life. Before they understood the deeper underlying principles of organized society, they had seen what they naturally held to be high official duties and responsibilities ruthlessly bartered and trafficked with before their eyes. They did not realize that this was a period of individual graft and misuse of office for which true civilization was not responsible.
Among the thinking and advanced class of Indians there is, after all, no real bitterness or pessimistic feeling. It has long been apparent to us that absolute distinctions cannot be maintained under the American flag. Yet we think each race should be allowed to retain its own religion and racial codes as far as is compatible with the public good, and should enter the body politic of its own free will, and not under compulsion. This has not been the case with the native American. Everything he stood for was labelled "heathen," "savage," and the devil's own; and he was forced to accept modern civilization in toto against his original views and wishes. The material in him and the method of his reconstruction have made him what he is. He has defied all the theories of the ethnologists. If any one can show me a fair percentage of useful men and women coming out of the jail or poor-house, I will undertake to show him a larger percentage of useful citizens graduating from the pauperizing and demoralizing agency system.
There was no real chance for the average man of my race until the last thirty-five years; and even during that time he has been under the unholy rule of the political boss and "little czar" of the Indian agency, from whose control he is not even yet entirely free. You are suffering from a civic disease, and we are affected by it. When you are cured, and not until then, we may hope to be thoroughly well men.
INHERITANCE AND OTHER FRAUDS
Here is another point of attack for the men who continually hover about the Indian like vultures above a sick or helpless man—the law providing that the allotments of deceased Indians may be sold for the benefit of their legal heirs, even though the time limit of twenty-five years protected title may not have expired. I consider the law a just one, but the work of determining the heirs is complicated and difficult. It is only last year that Congress has appropriated $50,000 for this purpose, although forty thousand inheritance cases are now pending, and much fraud has already been accomplished.
Representative Burke has shown that the bulk of the minors and incompetent Indians in Oklahoma have been swindled out of their property by dishonest administrators and guardians. Hon. Warren K. Moorehead, of the United States Board of Indian Commissioners, who investigated the situation in that state, intimates that as many as 21,000 such cases exist there. He says the handling of estates in Oklahoma costs often from 30 to 90 per cent., whereas the average rate in thirty states is 3 per cent. "Why do not our laws prevent the robbing of Indians? Because they are not enforced," declares Mr. Moorehead, who also investigated White Earth, Minnesota, a few years ago, and uncovered a scandal of large proportions, relating to the theft of over two hundred thousand acres of valuable land, as a result of suddenly removing all restrictions on the mixed bloods at that agency, many of whom were incompetent to manage their own affairs.
Much of this graft might readily be stopped, and the ignorant Indian protected, were it not for the fact that the relationship between the shysters and certain officials is very much like that between the police of New York City and the keepers of illegal resorts. When complaint is made, big envelopes with "U. S." printed in the corner pass back and forth—and that is too often the end of it! The Sioux call the U. S. Indian inspectors, who are supposed to discover and report abuses, "Big Cats"; but an old chief once said to me: "They ought rather to be called prairie owls, who are blind in the daytime and have rattlesnakes for their bedfellows!"
At the suggestion, I believe, of Dr. George Bird Grinnell and Hamlin Garland, an attempt was made under President Roosevelt to systematize the Indian nomenclature. The Indian in his native state bears no surname; and wife and children figuring under entirely different names from that of the head of the family, the law has been unnecessarily embarrassed. I received a special appointment to revise the allotment rolls of the Sioux nation. It was my duty to group the various members of one family under a permanent name, selected for its euphony and appropriateness from among the various cognomens in use among them, of course suppressing mistranslations and grotesque or coarse nicknames calculated to embarrass the educated Indian. My instructions were that the original native name was to be given the preference, if it were short enough and easily pronounced by Americans. If not, a translation or abbreviation might be used, while retaining as much as possible of the distinctive racial flavor. No English surname might be arbitrarily given, but such as were already well established might be retained if the owner so desired. Many such had been unwisely given to children by teachers and missionaries, and in one family I found a George Washington, a Daniel Webster, and a Patrick Henry! The task was quite complicated and there were many doubts and suspicions to overcome, as some feared lest it should be another trick to change the Indian's name after he had been allotted, and so defraud him safely. During the seven years spent in this work, I came upon many cases of inheritance frauds. In the face of what appear to be iron-clad rules and endless red tape, it is a problem how these things can happen without the knowledge of responsible officials!