Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 November 1903 — SCHOOLS KILLING INDIANS. [ARTICLE]

SCHOOLS KILLING INDIANS.

Btartiiag Pacta Presented to the Government for Consideration. Rev. D. A. Sanford, pastor of the Episcopal Church at Bridgeport. Okla., is continuing his investigations regarding the cause of the great and increased death rate among the Indians of this 'country. In hie work as a minister ha has been connected with Indian missionary service aud is well informed regarding Indian conditions generally. He makes the statement that an investigation of the Indian school system would more sensational developments that, (he alleged Indian frauds'in Indian Territory. Rev. Sanford hat returned from a trip to Wisconsin, where he visited among the Winnebago Indiana, and gives out the following statement for publication: “George Kingsley, an educated Winnebago, employed ns a government interpreter, told me that the death rate is large—that 70 per cent of the deaths are from one source alone, consumption. From various sources I learned that the use of whisky is very common. One well-informed man said that one-half of the Winnebngos drink whisky when they can get it. He told me how whisky is openly sold in the saloons in ons town to the Indians. “I visited the government boarding school for Indians at Tomah. The children are Winncbagos, Menomonees and Chippewas. In many respects the equipment of the school is excellent; the teachers and employes are evidently well qualified and are earnest in their work. Like many other boarding schools, however, I found very marked overcrowding in the dormitories. The beds were placed close together, with only a narrow passage between. In this way twenty or more Indian children were sleeping in rooms, which, in my judgment, ought not to have more than three or four at the utmost For healthy white children I should consider this very imprudent; for Indian children, tainted with a communicable disease, such overcrowding In dormitories is evidently dangerous. And is it not plainly culpable? “I noticed in one school room a boy with a bandage on his head. Scrofula, I was told, was the trouble; on others I saw the scars where scrofulous sores had been healed.. Evidently, as among other tribes, these Indians were markedly tainted with tuberculosis. Under these conditions, with such overcrowding in dormitories, a boarding school becomes a hotbed for the propagation of disease. For a time the children may appear robust and healthy, but In a few years the hotbed does its work; the disease, tuberculosis, la developed. Seventy per cent of the deaths among the Winnebngos is a condition that telle the story. The boarding schools are evidently to blame in the matter. Other conditions, it should be said, also help to make this enormous death rate."