The neighborhood of the trading houses where whisky is sold, presents a disgusting scene of drunkenness, debauchery and misery; it is the fruitful source of all our difficulties, and of nearly all the murders committed in the Indian country.... For the accommodation of my family I have taken a house three miles from town, and in passing to and from it, I have daily opportunities of seeing the road strewed with the bodies of men, women and children, in the last stages of brutal intoxication. It is true there are laws in this territory to restrain the sale of whisky, but they are not regarded....[77]
Col. Snelling added that during that year there had been delivered by contract to an agent of the North American Fur Company, at Mackinac (he meant the American Fur Company which, as we have seen, had one of its principal headquarters at that post and maintained a monopoly there), 3,300 gallons of whisky and 2,500 gallons of high wines. This latter liquor was preferred by the agents, he pointed out, as it could be "increased at pleasure." Col. Snelling went on: "I will venture to add that an inquiry into the manner in which the Indian trade is conducted, especially by the North American Fur Company, is a matter of no small importance to the tranquillity of the borders."[78]
VIOLATION OF LAWS.
A similar report was made the next winter by Thomas L. McKenney, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, to the Secretary of War. In a communication dated Feb. 14, 1826, McKenney wrote that "the forbidden and destructive article, whisky, is considered so essential to a lucrative commerce, as not only to still those feelings [of repugnance] but lead the traders to brave the most imminent hazards, and evade, by various methods the threatened penalties of law." The superintendent proceeded to tell of the recent seizure by General Tipton, Indian Agent at Fort Wayne, of an outfit in transit containing a considerable supply of whisky, which was owned in large part, he says, by the American Fur Company. He then continued: "The trader with the whisky, it must be admitted, is certain of getting the most furs.... There are many honorable and high-minded citizens in this trade, but expediency overcomes their objections and reconciles them for the sake of the profits of the trade."[79]
In stating this fact, McKenney was unwittingly enunciating a profound truth, the force of which mankind is only now beginning to realize, that the pursuit of profit will transform natures inherently capable of much good into sordid, cruel beasts of prey, and accustom them to committing actions so despicable, so inhuman, that they would be terrified were it not that the world is under the sway of the profit system and not merely excuses and condones, but justifies and throws a glamour about, the unutterable degradations and crimes which the profit system calls forth.
Living in a more advanced time, in an environment adjusted to bring out the best, instead of the worst, Astor and his henchmen might have been men of supreme goodness and gentleness. As it was, they lived at a period when it was considered the highest, most astute and successful form of trade to resort to any means, however base, to secure profits. Let not too much ignominy be cast upon their memories; they were but creatures of their time; and their time was not that "golden age," so foolishly pictured, but a wild, tempestuous, contending struggle in which every man was at the throat of his fellowman, and in a vortex which statesmen, college professors, editors, political economists, all praised and sanctified as "progressive civilization."
Like all other propertied interests, Astor's company regarded the law as a thing to be rigorously invoked against the poor, the helpless and defenseless, but as not to be considered when it stood in the way of the claims, designs and pretensions of property. Superintendent McKenney reported that all laws in the Indian country were inoperative—so much dead matter. Andrew S. Hughes, reporting from St. Louis, Oct. 31, 1831, to Lewis Cass, Secretary of War, wrote:
.... The traders that occupy the largest and most important space in the Indian country are the agents and engagees of the American Fur Trade Company. They entertain, as I know to be the fact, no sort of respect for our citizens, agents, officers or the Government, or its laws or general policy.
After describing the "baneful influence of these persons," Hughes went on:
The capital employed in the Indian trade must be very large, especially that portion which is employed in the annual purchase of whisky and alcohol into the Indian country for the purpose of trade with the Indians. It is not believed that the superintendent is ever applied to for a permit for the one-hundredth gallon that is taken into the Indian country. The whisky is sold to the Indians in the face of the [Government] agents. Indians are made drunk, and, of course, behave badly....