Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 November 1885 — THE INDIAN PROBLEM. [ARTICLE]

THE INDIAN PROBLEM.

Friends of the Untutored Savage Lay His Grievances Before the Great Father. The President and Secretary Lamar Outline the Indian Policy of the Administration* The members of the committee appointed at the Lake Mohonk Conference to call on the President and the Secretary of the Interior were very much pleased by their reception by both functionaries, though neither unreservedly assented to all that the committee asked, and the Secretary differed radically from the committee in certain important particulars. Gen. Clinton B. Fisk headed the delegation, and presented the members to the President. Hon. Erastus Brooks, of New York, read an address embodying the views of the conference as to the best methods of improving the condition of the Indians. He reminded the President of his remarks on this subject in his inaugural, in which he said the Indians should be “fairly and honestly treated as wards of the Government, and their education and civilization promoted with a view to their ultimate citizenship.” He also recalled the words of Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson in her death-bed letter to the President, to wit: “I am dying happier for tho belief that it is your hand that is destined to strike the first steady blow toward righting the wrongs of the Indian race.” The questions, Mr. Brooks said, which seemed to them to demand most immediate attention are those relating to land and education, homes and families. What is now needed in regard to lands, he said, is severalty and individuality, with the protection of law for persons and families. This would result in settlements, in homes, and in land cultivation, and in that way make the Indian a self-supporting citizen, endowed with all the rights, privileges and duties of citizenship. The proof of the ability of the Indian to work profitably for himself and for the Government is found, said he, in the fact that those who are the most civilized now have under cultivation more than 250,000 acres of land, upon which in a year was raised 1,000,000 bushels of corn, 1,000,000 bushels of wheat, and nearly 1,000,000 bushels of oats and barley, besides 103,000 head of cattle, 1,000,000 sheep, 235,000 horses and mules, and 68,000 swine. These figures, he said, do not include the products of 60,000 civilized Indians, ready for Territorial government. The speaker dwelt eloquently upon the evil effects of the lack of laws to protect the Indians, and said they needed just what the white man has—the force of law in their behalf and the freedom of the ballot. To secure these ends, it was urged that the tribal relations and reservations be abolished, and the diffusion as speedily as possible of the Indian in the United States encouraged, so that he may secure, by association with his white brethren, pure civilization and full citizenship. Remarks were also made by Rev. Lyman Abbott, Mr. M. E. Gates and Gen. Fisk, each of whom advocated the abolition of the present system of Indian reservations, and favored the adoption of a policy in regard to them similar to that so successfully employed in the case of the colored population.

The President listened attentively to the speakers, and assured them of his deep interest in the Indian question. He reviewed briefly the many difficulties encountered in dealing with the question, which he acknowledged was a very important one, and said the great trouble to his mind was as to the first practical steps to be taken in improving the condition of the Indian. Shall we give more schools and churches, and agricultural implements for use on their reservations, or shall we deed them lands in Severalty and leave them to their own resource? One trouble be found was to get rid of the influences of the old chiefs. Then, again, if we leave them to themselves, and one gets hungry, a loud cry goes up that they are starving. How are we to get the Indians to mingle with the whites? We certainly cannot drive them off their reservations. Is it better to keep them under tutelage where they are, or could their civilization be better accomplished in some other way? “The question is surrounded with difficulties,” continued the President, “and the most important consideration to my mind at present is, ‘What is the most useful thing to be done?”’ He said that while it might not be well for the cause to disturb the Indians in their present homes, he said that their reservations would ultimately be given to them in severalty, and the Indians thrown on their resources. The President reminded the committee ■that the cause which they advocated wouldrequire years to consummate, but intimated that he hoped to be able to make a beginning in the right direction during the remaining years of his administration. ‘ The committee after leaving the White House proceeded to the Interior Department, where they had a long interview with Secretary Lamar, and through their chairman presented him a written statement of the view of the conference. In reply to a brief address by General Fisk, Secretary Lamar said he would, in his forthcoming annual report, acknowledge his obligation to the philanthropic and benevolent associations and individuals in the work he had to carry on. The ultimate object was the civilization of the Indian. A crisis had been reached in the history of that race that must be met by some methods different from those heretofore pursued. His own knowledge df the Indian’s wants was as yet too limited to permit him to formulate a general policy adapted to the present and the exigencies of the future. The process must be one of improving the Indian out of his present condition into civilization, and it would be a gradual process. The first point should be to secure their reservations to them (either as now located or compressed into a smaller space) in fee simple so that their title shall be inviolable. At the same time he did not advocate th > division of the entire reservation among the Indians, and believed the abandonment of the reservation system at this time would be premature. It was the end to be sought, but the first step would be, after bringing the Indians, with their consent, into limits proportionate with their numbers, to protect them from the destructive influences of the stronger civilization surrounding them. Whites should be rigorously excluded, and whgn the reservations had bean partially subdivided a considerable portipn ought to be IfepE undivided and undistributed. .In • the' transition state the tribal system must be adhered to.'