“The division line between the present policy and the past is drawn here; in the past the government tried, by fair means or foul, to rid itself of the Indian. The present policy is to make something of him. That policy had its origin almost in an accident. Eight or nine years ago the government sent Captain Pratt with warriors, covered with the blood of a merciless war, from the Indian Territory down to Florida; and Captain Pratt, in the discharge of his duty, undertook to relieve himself of the labor of keeping these warriors in idleness, no matter if the work was of no service to anybody if it would keep them out of idleness. With this end in view he got permission to let them pick stones out of the streets. Then he enlisted ladies to teach them to read. Out of that experiment of Captain Pratt’s has come all the rest. Behold what a great fire a little matter has kindled!”
Senator Dawes further says the following pertinent words on the Indian question; no American can fail to realize the force of his remarks:
“If St. Paul was here and had 250,000 Indians on his hands, whom the United States had sought for one hundred years to rob of every means of obtaining a livelihood, and had helped bring up in ignorance, he never would have said to them, ‘He that will not work, shall not eat.’ You did not say that to the poor black man; you did not say that to the little children whom you sent by contribution out into the country for fresh air, and you ought not to say it to this poor, helpless race, helpless in their ignorance, and ignorant because we have fostered their ignorance. We have appropriated more money to keep them in absolute darkness, and heathenism, and idleness, than would have been required to send every one of them to college, and now we propose to turn them out. We did not relieve ourselves of the responsibility by that indifference; we have got to take them by the hand like little children and bring them up out of this ignorance, for they multiply upon our hands, and their heritage is being wrenched away from them, and good men as well as bad are devising means to take it away.
“What is to become of them then? Have we done our duty to this people when we have said to them: ‘We will scatter you and let you become isolated and vagabonds on the earth, and then we will apply to you the philosophic command, “Go, take care of yourselves; we have every dollar of your possessions, every acre of your heritage; we have killed more of your fellows than there are of you left; we have burnt your little homes, and now we have arrived at the conclusion that it is time to take away from you the last foot of ground upon which you can rest, and we shall have done our duty when we command you to take care of yourselves?” ’ That is not the way I read it; I know how sincere and honest, and probably as near right everybody else is, but I am only telling how I feel. I feel just this: that every dollar of money, and every hour of effort that can be applied to each individual Indian, day and night, in season and out of season, with patience and perseverance, with kindness and with charity, is not only due him in atonement for what we have inflicted upon him in the past, but is our own obligation towards him in order that we may not have him a vagabond and a pauper, without home or occupation among us in this land. One or the other is the alternative; he is to be a vagabond about our streets, begging from door to door, and plundering our citizens, or he is to be taken up and made a man among us; a citizen of this great republic, absorbed into the body politic and made a useful and influential citizen.”
President Cleveland voiced the opinion of all thoughtful and intelligent citizens when he wrote that “the conscience of the people demands that the Indians within our boundaries be fairly and honestly treated as wards of the government, and their education and civilization promoted with view to ultimate citizenship.”
With a chance to work, the Indian needs also the chance to learn, and this he is getting more and more. Whether he will learn is a question no longer open to doubt. General Armstrong’s testimony is given above. Captain Pratt says “scarcely a student but is able to take care of himself or herself among civilized people at the end of their five years’ course.” Bishop Hare, of the Episcopal Church, who has been doing splendid work among the Indians for many years, gives unwearying attention to schools on the reservations, but says, “I cannot shut my eyes to the incalculable service which well-conducted Eastern boarding-schools have done the Indians.”
When we shall have for a few years treated the Indian like a human being, there will be no “Indian question” to discuss.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE PRESS.
THE editor is the great American schoolmaster. None other is worthy to be compared with him.
He is about as numerous as all other teachers combined. His lessons are given more frequently, they last longer and they cost less than any others.