IV. Two changes must be wrought in our Government before these wrongs can be permanently righted.
1. The people must be aroused. In 1862, Secretary Stanton said to a committee who went to him demanding justice for the Indians: “If you come to Washington to tell us that our Indian system is a sink of iniquity, and a disgrace to the nation, we all know it. This Government never reforms an evil until the people demand it. When the hearts of the people are touched, these evils will be reformed, and the Indians will be saved.” When the people demand justice to the Indian, and officers know that swift retribution will be meted to those who longer trifle with his interests, Indian Commissioners will no longer dare to condone corruption, and Interior Secretaries will cease to stand in the way of righteousness.
2. There must be a reform in our system of civil service. In British Columbia, for the last hundred years, there has been spent not one dollar for Indian wars, and not one life has been lost. In the United States, thousands of lives have been lost, and more than $500,000,000 expended. What do these facts signify? That in British Columbia they have had able and honest men in the civil service; and in this Republic, imbecile and corrupt men. Contrast parts of the two systems. With us the Indians are under the control of the Secretary of the Interior, and the Indian Department is but one of numerous important and complex departments under the supervision of that officer—each one enough to tax to the full the ability of a trained statesman. With us, the Indian Department must take its chances with others, and he who ought to give it his entire attention is “Jack-of-all-trades and master of none.” In British Columbia, the Minister of the Interior is the actual superintendent of Indian affairs, and directly responsible for them as the most important part of his official duties. With us, in our Indian, as in our civil, service, which is as vicious as any system can be, officers are continued only during party supremacy.
In the Dominion, officers are continued for life or good behavior, with the obvious benefit, in matters requiring special skill and experience, produced by a civil service well established, on a correct system of selection, which with us has only recently been attempted.
The trouble with us has been, we have not chosen our best men to do our most difficult work. We have had two vast problems to solve in our history—the problem of Reconstruction and this Indian problem. “In both cases, where France, England, Russia, would have used the flower of their educated youth, their most honored soldiers, their wisest lawyers and scientific men, we collected a large horde of broken-down men of all trades and callings, and men of none, the riff-raff of caucuses and nominating conventions, in fact, the very refuse of our busy and prosperous society,” and gave to them to solve, the most difficult and delicate questions of public policy which statesmen have ever faced on this continent. The failure was inevitable in the one case as in the other.
V. In the light of the experience of the last century, I think we may safely make the following affirmations.
All tribal distinctions ought, as soon as possible, to be abolished by the Government, and the Indian treated the same as any other man.
The Reservation system should be given up, and Indians be allowed to go and come whenever and wherever they may choose. Land should be allotted in severalty. If the Indian has a hard time, the discipline will probably educate him.
Education should be compulsory, and for a reasonable time, under patronage of the Government.