We ask the special attention of our lady readers to the present number of The Missionary. They will find Miss Emerson’s report and the papers presented by Miss Robertson and Miss Ilsley at the New Haven meeting, which we print elsewhere, to be most interesting reading. We are very sorry that space does not permit us to also print the most excellent address of Mrs. St. Clair. Any lady who has the January Missionary in her possession and allows the next Woman’s Missionary Meeting to be a dull one, ought to be disciplined for not living up to her privileges. Just read this number through and see if you don’t think so too.
Immediately following the annual meeting, under the charge of Secretary Shelton, Rev. A. L. Riggs, with Pastor Ehnamani and the Santee School Indian students, started through New England upon a speaking and singing campaign in behalf of our Indian Missions. At the same time, Secretary Roy, accompanied by Rev. Geo. V. Clark, of Athens, Ga., an ex-slave and a child of the A. M. A., started in upon a similar campaign through Ohio. For six weeks, meetings were held almost every night in the week, with occasional meetings in the afternoon. On Sundays three meetings were usually held. Large audiences, sometimes crowded, even on week nights, have greeted and with interest listened to them. At Cleveland both forces joined, devoting a Sabbath to the Congregational churches in that city. The Monday evening following, a final meeting of the Ohio campaign was held in Oberlin, where the magnificent audience and spirit of the meeting were a worthy close to the series and in perfect keeping with the historic record of Oberlin on the subject of missions. Here the bands separated to meet at the end of one week in Oak Park, where Secretary Roy with his family resides, and where Secretary Shelton formerly resided. The Congregational church of Oak Park was crowded to its utmost capacity with those who came to attend the final meetings of the two campaigns and to listen to the singing and the speaking of both forces. A beautiful incident in this meeting was the solo singing of a slave song by Mr. Clark, the chorus to which was taken up by the Indian students; and another incident in the same direction was the rendering of a slave song, in the chorus to which both the audience and the students responded.
To repair the damage done our mission home and school buildings by the earthquake at Charleston a careful estimate calls for not less than $2,500. One of our teachers, Mr. E. A. Lawrence, has been meeting the emergency by holding school in a barn. The time has come when the necessary repairs must be made, both upon the home and school. Hundreds of scholars are waiting and parents are begging that Avery Institute be again opened. In response to our former appeals for Charleston some special donations have been received, but they are entirely inadequate to meet the emergency. We beg leave to remind our friends that the money needed to make these repairs must be furnished either by special contributions or else taken out of money already appropriated to other work. We trust they will not leave us to be compelled to do the latter. It may also be added that to delay these repairs much longer will result in the ruin of the buildings.
REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS.
The Second Annual Report of Commissioner Atkins is a candid and comprehensive document, dealing briefly but frankly with the several problems growing out of the relations of the Government to the Indians. We have not space for a review of the Report, but we wish to call special attention to the facts which it incidentally presents as to the neglect of Congress, and especially of the House of Representatives, to act upon a number of important bills touching Indian affairs. No less than eight such bills are mentioned—six of them passed the Senate, but failed to receive final action in the House—and some of these are by far the most essential to the welfare of the Indians. Three of these bills we wish particularly to name: The Dawes’ Bill for the Allotment of Lands in Severalty; the Sioux Bill for the Division of the great Sioux Reservation into six reservations; and the Bill for the Relief of the Mission Indians in California. The first of these is fundamental to the settlement of the Indians in separate homes, and consequently to their becoming American citizens; the second has the same end in view; and the third is a simple act of justice, long and shamefully deferred, to the suffering and deserving Indians, whose sad case has been so pathetically depicted by Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson in her touching story of Romona.
We ask attention to these bills for a practical purpose. Congress should be urged to act upon them at once. The present session is the short one, ending March 4th. If this session closes without passing these bills, the whole subject will be deferred almost indefinitely. The next Congress will be a new one; the Members to some extent will be new; the committees maybe wholly so, and they may need years of petitioning, educating and inspiring to move them to proper action on these essential topics. No time can be lost. No influence is so great upon the average Congressman as letters directly from his constituents. We therefore urge every reader of these pages to write at once to the Member of Congress from his district, or to others whom he may know, asking for prompt and energetic efforts for the passage of these bills.
On another page of The Missionary will be found the admirable address of President Seelye, presenting the paramount importance of religious effort on the part of the churches in behalf of the Indians. We are in full accord with this view. But the Government has also its responsibilities, and all that it does in the lines we have suggested will only facilitate the work of preparing the Indians for what we wish them all ultimately to be, intelligent, self-supporting Christian citizens.