After the White Earth investigation, we begged Secretary Garfield to strike from the White Earth rolls the French-Canadian element—headed by one Gus H. Beaulieu. It was contended that those persons had come down from Canada and settled themselves on the Ojibwa, and were a continual source of trouble. Enough evidence was presented to make our position impregnable. Secretary Garfield hesitated to act, and passed the matter to his successor, Mr. Ballinger, who in turn transferred it to Mr. Fisher, and it is now before Secretary Lane. If the Honorable Secretary, Mr. Garfield, had acted in the first place heroically and promptly, he would have placed the burden of proof on the shoulders of the French-Canadian element (where it properly belonged), and several pages of unpleasant American Indian history would not have been written.
Be these things as they may, they exist, and until our Congress appoints a national and paid commission to take over the entire Indian body and their property—so long as the Indian, and the Indian Office, remain political footballs, just so long will the games continue played in the old way, with no new rules, and since coaching from the side-lines is permitted, the strongest and the most brutal teams will win.
The freest and most varied opinions regarding Indian affairs are expressed at the Lake Mohonk Conferences. I have referred to them elsewhere, but I desire to repeat that at the conferences, where hundreds of missionaries, philanthropists, sociologists, Government employees and others assemble, we obtain the facts, hear recommendations, and debate on the policy concerning our wards.
The addresses delivered at these remarkable gatherings carry great weight throughout the country, for the reason that those who address the audiences have made extended observations in various parts of the field. A summary of these many opinions delivered during the past five years, indicates one general trend of thought. And that is that the end of the tribal system among the Indians is not so much at hand, as already accomplished. It requires no prophetic vision to observe the setting of the Indians’ sun. All agree to this general proposition. The many scientists of our research institutions, both large and small, are energetically seeking out what little remains of tribal and aboriginal customs and beliefs. They know that in a few years it will be too late to make scientific researches among Indians. They employ patient search and much discrimination to here and there discover a smouldering ember of the ancient council fire. And, I think, it requires further energy and patience on the part of the ethnologists to fan the feeble ember until it bursts forth into flame!
The Government employee is pushing his educational problem, persuading most of the Indians to work, and improving the daily life of these people. The doctors and the field matrons use their best endeavor to establish sanitary measures, and proper home life. The great Indian schools are discharging hundreds of competent graduates; the Congressmen are removing restrictions, according citizenship, selling surplus lands, and doing all that they can to hasten the end of the Indian as a dependent body. And last of all, comes the undesirable class—the grafter and the bootlegger—one taking away the Indian property in many sections of our country, and the other debauching all Indians who have not the moral stamina to resist. The good people, and the majority, are uplifting, saving and preparing the Indian for citizenship. Working together, they are acting in the best interests of that great and new movement, known as “Social Service.” Fighting against them is the undesirable element—that class responsible for the pauperizing of the Indians of Oklahoma, Minnesota, California and elsewhere. I have pointed out in previous chapters of this book both the good and the evil. The real workers—whether in the Government Service, employed by missions, members of philanthropic organizations, state officials, or private citizens—are doing their part. We may criticize some of their rulings or methods of procedure, for we all make mistakes, and no man or woman engaged in the real work of the world can avoid error. Frequently we make enemies—particularly so if we stand up for the rights of the Indian. But while this is true, the general trend is in favor of just treatment of the Indian, and the great object in view is his absorption into the body politic.
MISS KATE BARNARD, OF OKLAHOMA. See pages [137], [150], and [170]
She is waging battle for the protection of Indian minors and orphans.
Whether this shall be accomplished depends entirely upon the relative strength between those who build up, and those who destroy. The issue is between the grafter and bootlegger, and the respectable citizen. The great Navaho is as yet unspoiled. The Sioux, the Apache, the Crow and others are doing very well. If we permit foolish or unwise legislation to dominate in the region inhabited by the tribes I have named, we shall destroy the best of that which is left, even as we have destroyed in Oklahoma and Minnesota. I have clearly pointed out the high character of the Ojibwa and the Five Civilized Tribes forty years ago as compared with the present, and that the responsibility for this decline rests with us, rather than with the Indians themselves, or the Indian Office.
Since 1834, we have gone on in a well-meaning but stupid and blundering way. We have persuaded scores of bands to take the white man’s road, and by foolish legislation, wars, the crowding by Whites, etc., destroyed their original confidence in us. As if these were not sufficient, in the great State of Oklahoma, where one-third of the entire Indian body is located, we have had brought before us through reports of Commissions and individuals and a cloud of witnesses, the result of our policy. In spite of this, we have recently deliberately removed, or forced to resign, some of the persons most competent and longest in the Service in that State—Messrs. Mott, Gresham, Frost, Kelsey and Wright. What was the real reason? Did the great majority of citizens of Oklahoma—the law-abiding and upright—desire that faithful servants, who understood their duties, should be forced out? No! Because a relatively small number of oil, coal, land, timber and stock men wished to become rich. Public sentiment through the newspapers has been influenced, persons who were not interested in politics have been accused of the very thing which dominated their accusers. Politics is at the bottom of it all.
The agitation in Oklahoma, begun by the small coterie referred to, and, at the insistence of interested persons and newspapers, and not prevented by Congressmen from that State, has resulted in the present removal from office of the men best able to protect the Indians. Does all of this indicate that the Commissioner, Mr. Sells, will not protect the Indians? By no means. As I have said, he and his able assistant, Mr. Meritt, and all the officials are honorable and upright men. But they cannot stand against the wishes of Congress. The Congressmen are all honest and upright in their intentions—although two or three of them are on record as dealing in Indian lands—but they are compelled to act in accordance with the desires of their constituents. Witness the statement that the candidates for office, with very few exceptions, ran on the platform that all restrictions were to be removed and federal safeguards withdrawn (pages [139] and [144].)