Evils of
Ton MORE than twenty years the
I Yi " people of the I'nlted States have
I sought to rind the solution of the
lv'Sw Indtun problem in education, and
J large sums have been appropriated
and used for this purpose. Let us con
sider some of the figures. There are not
more than 250. ouo Indians In the I'nlted
States. Tor them the government holds
In trust funds amounting to about $24,
OOO.OUfl. They own about llti.OHO.OHO acres of
land, that is held for them by the govern
ment, which would give about 4'W acres
and $!() in money to every man, woman,
and child. After giving liiO acres of land
to each Indian, there would still remain
frj.OW.onn acres which could be sold for their
benefit and thrown open to white settle
ment. If the Indians had their own, nnd
were free from government care, they
would be the richest people on the face of
the globe. Out of the ISO.Oon total, 1SO.O00
Indians are now self-supporting.
During the last thirty years $1:40,000,000
lias been spent on an Indian population
not exceeding ISO.ono. The appropriations
of the United States government for Indians
In 1P01 were $11,040,475.89, and more than J3.
600,001) was used for education. In 1877 only
fjn.ono was appropriated for Indian schols.
There has been a large nnd constant In
crease to the present time, tintil in the ist
twenty years $45,000,000 has been spent by
the government for the education of not
over 20.000 Indian pupils. In udditlon, a
very large amount has been spent by the
mission schools of the various Christian
denominations. There wire, in 1901, 2,'M
Indian school employes. The education of
each pupil cost the government more than
$1S0. 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 aboli
tion could never be secured because an
army of officeholders and poltthiana
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
ulousall potent arguments with politicians
for Us continuan.ee. 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 tha control
of Indian affairs Is vested in the Indian
commissioner. It should be so, but is not.
Indian affairs are under the divided juris
diction of the Interior department, the War
department and the Indian bureau. There
la 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
went or even knowledge of the commissioner
of Indian affairs. The commissioner has
Bothing to do with the appointment of
(Copyright, 1903. by T. C. MeClure.)
IT
N THE fables and legends of the
peoples there sound and re
sounds a steadily recurring strain
the "motive" of the water from
which all sorts of good things
came to man.
In the blue past, when all things still
swam in mist, wise fish-folk arose 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
vixitors 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 & 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 sheila, 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 deposit fin mud there,
later to harden itself again to rock, we owa
almost our entire knowledge of the long
gone life of the world, because animal and
plant remain have been preserved In this
mud that turned to stone.
And. conversely, we would hardly under
stand these remnants of a past that He
probably millions of yars behind us If
the animals and plant world in fresh and
salt water today did not give us the
richest of material for direct recognition of
past form.
Irt th water there was, perhaps, the
cradle of life. There surety It flrwt reached
tevelopiaent and attained certain first and
the Reservation System
agents and Inspectors except as lie carries
out the orders of the secretary of tho In
terior. The Indian bureau Is only one of
the many departments supervised by tho
Interior department. Indian affairs should
be administered by one head the commis
sioner. He should have such power and
such help as are demunded for the proper
discharge of his duties, and be hod
to the most rigid accountability, not
only for his own action, but, so far
us he can control, for the action of all
bis subordinates. There should bo 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. Ills power
has grown to the overthrow of all self
government, and he Is often uu irresponsi
ble despot, with no laws to execute but
rules and orders from the department ut
Washington.
The agent Is rarely selected on account
of his litness for the place he Is given,
or for his interest in the civilization, edu
cation, or Chtistiaization of the Indians.
The exigencies of politics, not the need
of the Indians, dictate the appointment of
agents. The local politicians of the states
and territories nearest the Indian reserva
tions demand, und are generally allowed,
the right to nominate the Indian agents,
and they are too often selected from second
and third rate politicians to pay polith al
debts. Such officials leach Inefficiency and
immorality. The reservation line la 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
alise 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 octgrow 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 subvervlent 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 been 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.
Our Ancestors
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 piickle-sklna, 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 not
lilies at all) wave their tender stems; where
gigantic mollusks creep; where crabs, some
entirely blind, some with eyes colossal,
teem In darkness that la 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 moat wonder
ful material for botanical zoological, Dar
Wlnistie study?
That expedition of Challenger has al
ready led us to the southern hemisphere
f the earth.
And there lies the "promised land" of all
longing seekers after nature's secrets
Australia. Sine July 14. 1779, when Cook and hi
men scared, up a troop of giant kangaroo
on the east coast of the Australian
mainland. thea discovered for the first
expense, and frequently tho ill will of tho
autocrat who rules the agency; Involving
so 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 white, an Indian reservation
Is a verllablo house of refuge. Here Hre no
laws, no writs, no eheriffs, no Jails. Hero
is the secure home of the forger, the horst.
thief, and the murderer; here
He shall take who has the power,
And he shall keep who can.
Here the example and influence of corrupt
and immoral officers und employees coun
teract and nullify the training of the teach
ers and file missionaries. Tho Indinns are
keen observers of character, and example
is stronger than precept.
If the Indian agent lakes a dislike to any
school employe or missionary, ho 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 dono by an
agent, whose past will not bear thorough
Investigation, against some of the best em
ployes In the service, whose reputation
und character had been established by a
lifetime of unselllsh and splendid devotion
to the Indian cause, and who were re
spected and admired by alt good people
who knew them as beyond rcprouch in
every respect. Hut their presence inter
fered with plans of the asent nnd his
minions; so, to secure their removal, he
brought charges against them which, if
true, would forever blast th.-lr reputation
and ruin their characters. The best penplu
on the reservation rullied to the support of
the accused. Counter charges were made
showing the unreliable character of tho
accusers and the absolute falsity of tin Ir
charges. Two Inspectors were sent from
Washington to investigate. The first con
demned the accused in a report so full of
contradictions and evident falsehoods that
& second Inspector was sent out to make
another investigation. The second repjrt,
while it whitewashed the agent, hid to
admit that the parties he accused were in
nocent. Is 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 c'.th'T
farmers, herders, or agency employes, and
have to live under the bllght'.ng 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
1 the Indian problem seems still far from
solution. Why? Because there Is nn Ir
repressible conflict between a free civilized
government baed on law, and the reserva
tion system. They cannot live together.
Lived in the Sea
time, Australia has maintained its reputa
tion as a zoological wonderland.
There was the black swan, which still
Is the symbol 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 Mil
In Its head that they who received It sus
pected that it was an elaborate practical
Joke.
At last, when the world had nccepted
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
rolocsal black lizard. The aborigines evi
dently were humbugging.
But then, in 1839, KIchard Owen, the ex
cellent Kngllsh authority on the remains
of extinct animuls, 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 bird had Indeed lived In
New Zealand not so long before, although
they are extinct today. And these finds
opened the way to an entire series of
similar ones on the Australian 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 Urge as lions and
even rhtnoneeosee.
After moo bad become accustomed to this
Frank Wood in
The Outlook
One or the other must die. Which shnll H
be?
One of the best commissioners who ever
held office, tieneral Thomas J. Morgan, said
to me at the close of his service: "I have
borne many Indignities; my wishes havo
been set aslile and my decisions overruled.
I have apparently stulltied myself, and I
have borne these things in silence because.
I thought my staying In the office might Ihi
of some advantage to the Indian. l'rel
dent Harrison is my personal friend, and
desires me to remain during Ills term of
office. Hut It Is Impossible for me to re
main and retain my self-respect and the
respect of others who would attribute ti
mo acts and policies for which I am not re
sponsible and to which 1 am wholly op
posed." And lu resigned the work for
which he was so well fitted, and In which
ho could have accomplished so much If his
hands had not been tied. There wilt bo
little Improvement until we abolish tho
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. 1'ntty politicians would not
permit the removal of their workers who
hud received places on reservations. What
shall we do? Turn on the light; proclaim
the facts about the reservation system.
The American people, who have always
responded to the pleas for the suffering
and the wronged, are both Just and gen
erous. When they know the facts, tiiey
will demand the abolition of the reserva
tion and that the government cease to
keep the Indians in barbarism and 'hold
them as prisoners, paupers and wards, and
Instead that we should give the red man
the full privileges of free American citi
zens; that we should extend over them the
protection and the penalties of law, and
give theni all the officers and machinery
for Its enforcement, nnd that Christian
missionaries should have unrestricted ac
cess to them; then gle them the same
schools as tho whites nnd distribute their
great weulth In land and money among
them, safeguarding it as well us we can.
The Indian problem, If we do this, will
come to an end within ten years; and wo
shall have added to our American citizen
ship an element of which we will be
prnud: a people who have ninny fine quali
ties, and who have ulready contributed to
our history great soldiers, statesmen und
orators. The first Htcp toward this de
sirable end Is to put all the Indian busi
ness of the government under the absolute
control of the commissioner of Indinn af
fairs, with the right to appoint and re
move, under civil service rules, all Ills
sulxirdlnates, und 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 scho d,
anil the various occupations of civilized
life will have unhindered opportunity (,, j0
their beneficent work, nnd the Indian will
become ono of the best elements In our
great Amerlcun civilization.
new knowledge, tho duck-bill appeared
again in the foreground. There romu.ned
nothing, after all, but to acknowledge that
it really did lay eggs, and therefore we,
in that resject as in the others, find a most
wonderful JJarwInlstic link between ilia
mammals and the reptiles.
In the meantime the list of "incredible"
yet "real" Austra iuu unimuls had been in
creased with the lizard llatteila, uf Now
Zealand, not a bluck giant, It Is true, but
combining so lemurkably the typical form
of lizard of tcday with the forms of lung
extinct BaurlaiiM that at last we hud to
create for Its benefit an entirely new order
of the reptiles, quite distinct from lizards,
snakes, crocodile and turtles.
Everywhere else, the deeper we peered,
we saw more wonders, be we skeptic as we
might. Cuckoos ran along the ground like
pheacants and an owl cried "cuckoo."
Chicken-like birds laid their eggs in enor
mous bill mounds of wet leaves und left
them there to be quickened by the heat en
gendered by fermentation as in an artllical
oven. In mating time tho bower bird
built himself true marriage bowers of
branches und decorated them with gaudy
blossoms, shells, bones and all kinds of
dainty knick-knacks in a manner really
aesthetic.
On the related island of New Zraland,
where the mammals seemed to bo mlnslng
altogether and the birds to be developed
tho more grotesquely, one parrot lived t u
tirely In the manner of the owl, a second
attacked cattlo on the pasture with tavuge
hooked beak like a bird of prey, and In tha
fern-forests they moved in tho gloom a
family of tiny ostrich birds tho kiwis, most
of them not much larger than snipe, and to
doubly striking in comparison with tha
same island's mighty moa ostriches, now
extinct, which wore larger than our largest
African ostrich. Bo Australia was and re
mained the land of zoological wonders.
To the thinking observer there appears la
at least a great proportion of these marvel
(Continued on fage Fifteen.)
