Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 February 1891 — WRONGS OF THE SIOUX. [ARTICLE]

WRONGS OF THE SIOUX.

Farber Stepban on 1 heir Grtevaucw Washington Poat. Father Stephan, who .is at the head of the Bureau of Indian Catholic Missions in this city, and who has just returned from Pino Ridge, was seen this afternoon by a representative of the Sun. Father Stepban said the one underlying cause of the trouble with the Indians sprang from the radically wrong system of their management, or rather mismanagement, by the government, by means of which they were made merely the prey of party politicians. The government employes at the agencies were placed there solely in reward for party work or in fulfillment of political bargains. Whether honest or dishonest, they regarded their offices in tbe light of a personal' perquisite out of which they were to make as much as possible before their successors stepped into their shoes, what one set of employes did the next set was sure to undo, and between them> the Indians were sure to suffer. The chief cause of tbe recent outbreak is undoubtedly the non-fulfill-ment of tfce treaty of 1889. The rations last year were insufficient, espedaily in view ol the serious deiay attending their distribution. The appropriation bill was passed in August, but the first consignment of clothing arrived at Rushville only on Jan. 6 this year. Father Stephan was present when the goods were received by Inspector Gardher. The consignment ought to have arrived, at Rushville in September Or October. Meanwhile the Indians have been without hats, coats, shoes, etc., throughout two or three months of severely cold weather. Their last years’ clothes were worn out, and they are no longer able to make garments for themselves, as the buffalo and deer are gone, Excited and irritated by these privations and by the failure of Congress to fulfill the agreement to increase the rations and pay for the ponies taken away from them some years ago, it was no wonder that the Sioux revolted. Father Stephan bears emphatic testimony to the good behavior of the Indians whenever they are treated property. His experience with them establishes beyond contradiction the foot that the Indian will worg if he has the incentive,op portunities and facilities tor work which all men need and demand. He cites his experience at Coeur d’ Alene, where the Flathead Indians have developed a splendid system of farms, under as excellent cultivation as any white man could show; also at Standing Rock, where he once acted as agent, the Indians evinced the greatest desire and most admirable aptitude for farming. But under the present system of management the Indian is told to go to work without the means and implements to .work successfully. The offer of farms In severalty is highly commended by Father Stephan, but what can the Indian do with lands unless he has the tools to work with, and unless the lands are fenced? At Pine Ridge, for instance, he says, there are 5.000 Indians, more or less, capable of working on farms, and most of them are willing to do so, but only forty plows are there to be distributed among them all. Then, even if they had a sufficient number of plows and other implements, they would yet be without seed, and if they had both plows and seed in abundance and started crops in good condition, of what avail is it to them so long as their lands are unfenced? While the Indians are gone away to get rations at the agency, thirty or forty miles off, the cattlemen and other white raiders invade their possessions and destroy or carry away all that they possess. A number of such cases have come under the notice of Father Stephen. He would have a radically different system inaugurated at once. Whatever Government control is to be exercised over the Indians should be vested in practical, sensible men, who would treat the Indians fa the same way as other men are treated, neither as savages by the army nor as children by the sentimentalists. The Indians must be civilized and saved through work, education and religion. just as other races are civilized and saved. In order to work, the Indian must have the means for working. In order that they may be educated, schools must be established among them. In Father Stephan’s opinion the Government schools are not at all satisfactory, because they are officered by incompetent teachers and superintendents, selected by tbe same political methods that obtain in the choice of the agents and other Government employes, and besides, the school-houses are made a part and parcel of tbe Government fortlfica-. tions, and represent to the Indians the idea of force and compulsion. He does not approve of the policy of bringing the Indians East for their education, only to make a few favored ones ashamed of their origin and neighbors, and unfit them to live afterward with their own people while creating envy among the mass of less favored Indians, who have not thus been singled out for special education. They should be managed just as sens sible men manage people everywhere. Given the same conditions, there would be just as much violence and lawlessness fa New York City or Washington as among the Sioux.