Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, September 27, 1903, Page 27

—— - )R MORE than twenty years the people of the United States have sought to find the solution of the Indian problem in education, and large sums have been appropriated and used for this purpose. Let us con- sider some of the figures. There are not more than 250,000 Indians in the United States, For them the government holds in trust funds amounting to about $24,- 000,000, They own about 116,000,000 acres of land. that is held for them by the govern- ment, which would give about 460 acres and $100 in money to every man, woman, and child After giving 160 acres of land to each Indian, there would still remain 66,000,000 acres which could be sold for their benefit and thrown open to white settle ment If the Indians had their own, and were free from government care, they would be the richest peaple on the face of the globe Out of the N,000 total, 180,000 Indians are now self-supporting. During the last thirty years $240,000,000 bas been spent on an Indian population not exceeding 180,000 The appropriations of the United States government for Indians in 1901 were $9,040,475.89, und more than §3,- 600,000 was used for education. In 1 only $20,000 was appropriated for Indian schols. There has been a large and constant in- crease to the present time, until in the #nst twenty years $45,000,000 has been spent by the government for the education of not over 20,000 Indian pupils. In addition, a very large amount has been spent by the mission schools of the various Christian denominations. There were, in 1901, 2,508 Indian school employes. The education of each pupil cost the government more than §180. Have we commensurate results? Is not the solution of the Indian problem apparently still far away? Why? The government's Indian work has been done through the agency of a complicated, cumbrous machine called the reservation or agency system, apparently constructed without an intelligent purpose, or, if it had a purpose, it was to prevent instead of ac- complishing results. It has constantly been the enemy of progress, but its aboll- tlon could never be secured because an army of officcholders and poiiticians worked for its retention, as it provided some 3,000 offices, handled many millions of dollars annually and offered unusual chances to make money by the unscrup- ulous—all potent arguments with politicians for its continuance. There are some sixty reservations, forty-nine of them in charge of agents; the others are in charge of school superintendents. It is generally supposed that the control of Indian affairs is vested in the Indian commissioner. It should be so, but is rot. Indian affairs are under the divided juris- diction of the Interior department, the War department and the Indian bureau. There is an Indian division in the Interior depart- ment through which the secretary of the interior may take up and determine the most important matters, without the con- ment or even knowledge of the commissioner of Indian affairs. The commissioner has mothing to do with the appeintment of agents and inspectors except as he carries out the orders of the secretary of the in- terior. The Indian bureau is only one of the many departments supervised by the Interior department. Indian affairs should be administered by one head—the commis- sioner. He should have such power and such help as are demanded for the proper discharge of his duties, and be he'd to the most rigid accountability, not only for his own action, but, so far as he can control, for the action of all his subordinates There should be no di- vided responsibility and no difficulty in locating blame for maladministration. The agent is the most important official. He has absolute authority, not only over the Indians, but also over the school em- ployes and the missionaries, His power has grown to the overthrow of all self- government, and he is often an irresponsi- ble despot, with no laws (o execute but rules and orders from the department at Washington. The agent is rarely selected on account of his fitness for the place he is given, or for his interest in the civilization, edu- cation, or Christiaization of the Indians. The exigencies of politics, not the needs of the Indians, dictate the appointment of agents, The local politicians of the states and territories nearest the Indian reserva- tions demand, and are generally allowed, the right to nominate the Indian agents, and they are too often selected from second and third rate politicians to pay political debts. Such officials teach inefliciency and immorality. The reservation line is a wall which fences out law, civil institutions, social order, and trade and commerce ex- cept through the Indian trader, and fences in savagery, despotism, greed and law- lessness. The Indian under the reservation system is a helpless and pauperized de- pendent, over whom the agent has even the power of life and death, with no restraints upon him except such as fear may exert. He has immense opportunities to demor- allze those under his power and to enrich himself at their expense, and doing so is often largely his business, He knows that if his wards outgrow the necessity of a guardian, his occupation is gone, Laws for the punishment of certain crimes have in recent years been ex- tended over the reservation, but they have been practically nullified on account of the absence of all machinery of law. There are no courts, prosecuting attorneys, or judges, except the Indian judges, who are generally creatures of the agent, and ap- pointed by him from those subvervient to his will. They have no code of laws to enforce, other than the rules and orders of the agent. The crimes over which the laws have Dbeen extended seldom result in trials, because concealed by witnesses, A trial means going a dis- tance, sometimes hundreds of miles, to the nearest court outside of the reserva- tion. It means that all who have knowl- edge of the crime shall be taken from their homes and imprisoned and held for months as witnesses. It means annoyance, loss, Evils of the Reservation System expense, and frequently the i1l will of the autocrat who rules the agency; involving S0 much hardship and loss that few will ingly testify in relation to crimes that have come under their observation. For a cer- tain class of whites, an Indian reservation is a veritable house of refuge. Here are no laws, no writs, no sheriffs, no jails. Here is the secure home of the forger, the hors thicf, and the murderer; here He shall take who has the power, And he ghall keep who can, Here the example and influence of corrupt and immoral officers and employees coun teract and nullify the training of the teach- ers and The missionaries, The Indians are Keen observers of character, and example is stronger than precept, If the Indian agent takes a dislike to any school employe or missionary, he can easily bring charges against him, and by intimidation, bribery, and perjury secure almost any amount and kind of evidence he desires, 1 have known cases during the past year where this has been done by an agent, whose past will not bear thorough investigation, against some of the best em- ployes in the service, whose reputation and character had been established by a lifetime of unselfish and splendid devotion to the Indian cause, and who were re- spected and admired by all good people who Kknew them as beyond reproach in every respect. But their presence inter- fered with plans of the agent and his minions; so, to secure their removal, he brought charges against them which, if true, would forever blast their reputation and ruin their characters. The best people on the reservation rallied to the support of the accused. Counter charges were made showing the unreliable character of the accusers and the absolute falsity of their charges. Two inspectors were sent from Warshington to investigate. The first con- demned the accused in a report so full of contradictions and evident falsehoods that a second inspector was sent out to make another investigation. The second report, while it whitewashed the agent, had to admit that the parties he accused were in- nocent. 1Is it any wonder that twenty- five years of education have not solved the Indian problem, when the educated young men and women must choore to be either farmers, herders, or agency employes, and have to live under the blighting and dead- ening restraints and influences of the reser- vation, the corrupting examples of im- moral employes, and the despotism of the agent, where the corner stone of free civilized society—government by law-—has been omitted? We have had Indian com- missioners for the last dozen years who were noble, true, unselfish Christian men, who labored unceasingly and intelligently for the good of the Indian, The school em- ployes of their selection have been of the best; the American people, through con- gress, have been exceedingly generous. Yet the Indian problem seems still far from solution. Why? Because there is an ir- repressible conflict between a free civilized government based on law, and the reserva- tion system. They cannot live together. Frank Wood in The Outlook One or the other must die. Which shall @ be? One of the best commissioners who ever held office, General Thomas J. Morgan, said to me at the close of his service: I have borne many indignities; my wishes havo been set aside and my decisions overruled, 1 have apparently stulified myself, and I have borne these things in silence beenuse I thought my staying in the office might be of some advantage to the Indian Proesi- dent Harrison is my personal friend, and desires me to remain during his term of office. But it is impossible for me to re- main and retain my self-respect and the respect of others who would attribute to me acts and policles for which 1T am not re- gponsible and to which I am wholly op posed.” And he resigned the work for which he was so well fitted, and in which he could have accomplished so much if his hands had not been tied, There will be little improvement until we abolish the reservations, 1 have reason to believe that some of them would have been given up during the last year, if the exigencies of local partisan politics had not forced their continuance Porty politiclans would not permit the removal of their workers who had received places on reservations. What shall we do? Turn on the light; procinim the facts about the reservation system, The American people, who have always responded to the pl for the suffering and the wronged, ar both just and g erous When they know the facts, will demand the abolition of the reserva- tion and that the government cease to keep the Indians in barbarism and hold them as prigsoners, paupers and wards, and instead that we should give the red man the full privileges of free Ameriean citl- zens; that we should extend over them the protection and the penalties of law, and give them all the officers and machinery for its enforcement, and that Christian missfonaries should have unrestricted 3 cess to them; then give them the same schools as the whites and distribute their great wealth in land and money among them, safeguarding it as well as we can. The Indian problem, if we do this, will come to an end within ten years; and we shall have added to our American citizen- ship an element of which we will Dbe proud: a people who have many fine quali- ties, and who have already contributed to our history great soldlers, statesmen and orators, The first step toward this de- sirable end is to put aH the Indian busi- ness of the government under the absolute control of the commissioner of Indian af- fairs, with the right to appoint and re- move, under civil service rules, all his subordinates, and to abolish reservations, when demanded by the welfare of the In- dians, When the reservation disappears, and the Indians are under protection and penal- ties of law, then the church, the school, and the various occupations of civilized life will have unhindered opportunity to do their beneficent work, and the Indian will become one of the best elements in our great American civilization, Our Ancestors Lived in the Sea (Copyright, 1903, by T. C. McClure.) N THE fables and legends of the peoples there sounds and re- sounds a steadily recurring strain —the “motive” of the water from which all sorts of good things came to man. In the Dblue past, when all things still swam in mist, wise fish-folk arese out of the deep in the orient and taught brave truths, which still remain partly unobeyed by evil humanity. Kind heroes came to the cultured nations of Central America over the sea. Kind heroes sailed over the ocean to the nations in North America, dragged them from the morass of barbarism, and behaved themselves much more respectably than was the case later with the real visitors from the east, tho Spaniards. Shipwrecked men found wise nymphs on lonely islands, who gave them ambrosia to eat and solved for them the riddles of the future. For us also there arises many a truth out of the waters. Especially so the more we advance on the things of the world as naturalists. The wave, which fawns at our feet on the strand, and throws shells, snails and sea stars in our path, ever and again, now here, now there, drags in a good building-stone that helps to build . further on the proud structure of unfettered world and nature study. To the toil that gnaws rocks in order to depesit fine mud there, later to harden itself again to rock, we owe almost our eutire knowledge of the long- gone life of the world, because animal and plant remains have been preserved in this mud that turned to stome. And, conversely, we would hardly under- stand these remnants of a past that lies probably millions of years behind us if the animals and plant world in fresh and salt waters today did not give us the riehest of material for direct recognition of past formas. In the water there was, perhaps, the eradle of life. There surely it first reached @evelopment and attained certain first and great goals of evolution, and in it today there grow and flourish a mass of the strangest, most instructive animal forms— among them many survivors of the older forms that we seek in past epochs, and in whom we seek the ancestors of the animals of today. With truth has it been said that the whole science of zoology and biology of the last sixty years is in the “sign of the water.” ‘Within a short time zoological stations have appeared on ocean bights and fresh water seas, true ‘“‘observatories of the water,” as somebody calls them in jest; only they hunt not for fixed stars and comets, but for sea-stars and other representatives of the animal circle of the prickle-skins, that are without a representative on the land; or they hunt for those splendid stars of the midnight sea, the medusas and sea mantles, that produce the magnificent enchantment of the glowing of the deep. Man had forced himself with cunning apparatus into the chasms of the ocean holes, where, in ever stormless water, the sea lilies (most dainty animals and net lilies at all) wave their tender stems; where gigantic mollusks creep; where crabs, some entirely blind, some with eyes colossal, teem in darkness that is illuminated only when a lamp-fish darts along wrapped in phantasmal emerald glows. But now that this is all under way, the appetite grows naturally with the eating. How many seas lie still unexplored? How many networks of streams in the lowlands of far regions may hide the most wonder- ful material for botanical zeological, Dar- winistie study? That expedition of Challenger has al- ready led us to the southern hemisphere of the earth. And there lies the “promised land” of all longing seekers after nature’s secrets— Australia. Since July 14, 1779, when Cook and his men scared up a troep of giant kangaroos on the east coast of the Australlan mainland, them discovered for the first time, Australia has maintained its reputa- tion as a zoological wonderland. There was the black swan, which still is the symbel of a world topsy-turvy to the layman, although not particularly re- markable to the naturalist. And thence came the story of the duck bill, whose dried pelt appeared such a mad thing— a mammal with the shape of, say, the beaver, and with a regular duck's bill in its head—-that they who received it sus- pected that it was an elaborate practical Joke. At last, when the world had accepted the fact that the animal was “genuine,” there came the report that it lays eggs, contrary to the honorable practice of mammals. Circumstantial evidence was produced to the effect that this egg laying story at least was not true, and scientists breathed freely again, believing that they had saved something at any rate out of the world of paradoxes. For a little while they warned each other against too ready a credence in this curious field. The aborigines reported ter- rible monsters in the impenetrable interior of the little continent, for example, a colossal black lizard. The aborigines evi- dently were humbugging. But then, in 1839, Richard Owen, the ex- cellent English authority on the remains of extinct animals, by chance bought a large bone that came from Australian ter- ritory, the island of New Zealand. The anatomist recognized it as the bone of a gigantic bird having relationship with the ostriches. It was determined then that such gigantic birds had Indeed lived in New Zealand not so long before, although they are extinmct today., And these finds opened the way to an entire series of similar ones on the Australlan mainland. Then were found the skeletons of veritable monsters, all of which lived there, marsu- pial animals to whose family the kangaroo belongs, but fully as large as lions and even rhinoceroses. After men bad become accustomed to this new knowledge, the duck-bill appeared again in the foreground. There réma.ned nothing, after all, but to acknowledge that it really did lay eggs, and therefore we, in that respect as in the others, find a most wonderful Darwinistic link between (he mammals and the reptiles. In the meantime the list of “incredible’ yet “real' Austra ian animals had been in- creased with the lizard Hatterla, of New Zealand, not a black giant, it is true, but combining so remarkably the typical form of lizard of tcday with the forms of long extinet saurians that at last we had to create for its benefit an entirely new order of the reptiles, quite distinct from lizards, snakes, crocodiles and turtles, Everywhere else, the deeper we peered, wWe saw more wonders, be we skeptic as we might. Cuckoos ran along the ground like pheasants and an ow!l cried *“‘cuckoo,” Chicken-like birds laid their eggs Iin enor- mous hill mounds of wet leaves and left them there to be quickened by the heat en- gendered by fermentation as in an artifical oven. In mating time the bower bird built himself true marriage bowers of branches and decorated them with gaudy blossoms, shells, bones and all kinds of dainty knick-knacks in a manner really aesthetie, On the related island of New Zealand, where the mammals seemed to be missing altogether and the birds to be developed the more grotesquely, one parrot lived en- tirely in the manner of the owl, a second attacked cattle on the pasture with ravage hooked beak like a bird of prey, and in the fern-forests they moved in the gloom " family of tiny ostrich birds—the kiwls, most of them not mueh larger than snipe, and so doubly striking in comparison with the same island’s mighty moa ostriches, now extinct, which were larger than our lrgest African ostrich. So Australla was and re- mained the land of zoological wonders, To the thinking observer there appears in at least a great proportion of these marvels (Continued on Page Fifteen.)