“I have known the whiskey Indians use to contain poison. The full-blood Indian leaves the payment party with little money. This may be a rather broad statement, but I think I can prove it. The country is full of people, supposedly the Indian’s friends. If I wanted to find one this afternoon, I would at once go to the grafter’s office, and there be sure to locate him.”
Correspondent, Durant, Oklahoma
“Within this jurisdiction the Indians have leased the railroad sections of five townships to retain control of a portion of the range they need, but the Whites have leased many more townships and some of them are trying to keep the Indians out of the townships leased, or to confine them to their allotments. Such conditions are unbearable; allotments are valuable mainly as a foothold to control the surrounding range. One hundred and sixty acres in that part of the country will support no more than about ten sheep. Recently a man from Chama leased all the Santa Fe railroad lands in San Juan country, excepting a half-township which a Navaho had leased, and brought in about 30,000 head of sheep.
“Why should a dozen stockmen and politicians have control of the range to the detriment and ultimate destruction of the 2,200 Navahos in that part of the country?
“Again: Why should a dozen sheepmen be permitted to supplant a hundred or thousand Navahos supported through the sheep industry?
“Those who are educated at a distance and return—and they all return sooner or later—are dissatisfied. With a few exceptions they are adverse to taking up stock-raising and farming in earnest; they clamor for positions in Indian trading stores and for Government positions, which are too few to ‘go around.’ If the main school of the tribe, the one at Fort Defiance, were well equipped as a trade school, much good would accrue to the tribe; in fact, I consider this a prime necessity for the advancement of the tribe.”
Correspondent, St. Michaels, Arizona
ALASKAN INDIAN CHILDREN; NULATO, ALASKA
Two have trachoma, four are normal. Photographed, 1914
“Years ago the Indian chief and headmen kept strict order among the people, punished the guilty by fines or imprisonment, kept all Indian doctors from the place and fined them as much as fifty dollars if caught on the reservation. After a while the Government abolished the ruling of the chief and headmen by appointing paid Indian judges. If the guilty were fined they hardly ever paid their fines, if put in jail they managed by some way or other to escape, and many years ago the jail was destroyed by fire and no attempt has ever been made by the Agent to rebuild it. For the last year or two the judges have been dismissed so that now there seems to be no more law or authority on the reservation.