Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 139, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 June 1920 — RED MEN FLOURISH [ARTICLE]

RED MEN FLOURISH

Idea That Indians Are Dying Out Is Erroneous. Probably th* Rao* I* Scarcely Laos Nunwrou* Today Than Wh*a Galumbua Landed an th* Sheree of America. Despite popular belief that the dvlUxation forced upon him by the white man means his ultimate extinction, the North American Indian, reviving from a long period of decadence, ba* shown such substantial - increase la. populates in recent? years that be probably is scarcely less numerous today than whin Columbus discovered Aifierica. Startling as this assertion may be 'tp those who have pictured American forests in the discoverer’s time as swarming with red men, it is freely advanced by experts of the government's Indian bureau, who maintain that the Indian necessarily formed an exceedingly scant population which probably at no period materially exceeded the total Of 833,702 Indian* reported by the bureau for last ydar. , “The Indian no longer Is to be thought of as a dying race," declared Dr. Lawrence W. White, an Indian authority of the bureau. “In support of • that statement Jt Is necessary. In the first place, to' 'disabuse the publie mind of the tradition handed down by discoverers and early colonists that American forests in their day swarmed With the dusky figures of the red man. As the Indian neglected agriculture almost completely, it is highly improbable that this country, considering its latitude, could have supported more than several hundred thousand of his race.” “On the other hand,” Doctor Whit* continued, "the Indian in the present day, after periods of sharp decrease following as a natural reaction to sudden contact with the civilisation of the white man, is seen to be making substantial gains in population. “While many estimates *r guess** of the Indian population W» made during the past century," sod Doctor Whl'e, “ranging from less thanlOO,000 to 400,000, the first reliable census. was made by the Indian bureau in 187 u, when the population was placed at 318,712. So figures demonstrate that in the last 50 years the Indian population has made a substantial net gain.” Pointing to statistics which show an excess of births over deaths of- 1,522 in 1918, and almost as great an excess in 1917, normal year* which were not affected by th* epidemic of intlucnza, Doctor White declared these figures “fully reflected the generosity of a government that has increased its Indian health appropriation , alone ftbm 140,000 in 1911 to 1350,090 in 1917 and subsequent years." They demonstrate, he said that with the schools, hospitals and other advantages now provided for them, the Inf dlan, be he tribesman or freedman. Is “not a dying race, but rather a. flourishing one.” Had he been treated as other nations have treated savage tribes. Doctor White concluded, there probably would not be a “vestige of the race within our republic today.” v