University of Virginia Library

"FRIENDS OF THE INDIAN."

At last year's "Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of the Indian and Other Dependent Peoples," Mr. Bonaparte quoted a naval officer as once declaring that "the service would never be worth a — until all the well-meaning people in it had been hanged." He hinted that something of the same tenor might have been said with equal justice of the activity of champions of the Indian who are merely well-meaning. Knowledge and discretion in those who have undertaken unofficially to influence the conduct of Indian affairs would have tempered their zeal usefully in the years when service was most needed; and, though little fault can now be found with the methods and personnel of the Indian Rights Association and similar bodies, there is still a too noticeable tendency to let good intentions evaporate in earnest, purposeless talk. That "court of final appeal, public opinion," has been appealed to so often that the last advocate must needs be silver-tongued indeed to rouse more than a momentary interest. The Indian service, bad as it has been at times, has accomplished more for the disappearing natives than it has been credited with in the popular mind. It would have done still more if its critics had been inspired by accurate information and good judgment.

Suppose some well-informed, persistent friend of the Pimas in Arizona had taken up the matter of white encroachment on the tribe's water rights along the Gila River eighteen years ago. Is it conceivable that he would have advised the poor Indians to take the matter to the Department of Justice? If he had done that, he would have gone contrary to the teachings of history. He might have foreseen exactly what happened last year when the

district attorney in charge of the case recommended that the suit begun in 1886 be dropped on the ground of the excessive costs of pushing it to a favorable conclusion, and the impossibility of enforcing a decree "because of the varied interests involved." The moral of Indian litigation against the invading settler could have been read as plainly in 1886 as in 1876 or in 1905: The Indian, "not taxed, not voting," has no real standing in the courts organized by and for the American people. The "varied interests involved" was a phrase in common use long ago to explain away apparent miscarriages of justice. Those 960 white settlers using the water from the Gila River which for generations had irrigated the Pimas' wheat fields, were as confident of holding their ditches when they built them as it is in human experience to be. Why, then, did the Indians go to court and patiently watch their fields revert to desert land while the proceedings dragged along for half a generation? Simply because some well-meaning, unhanged friends advised them that they had a good case.

It is not the despairing cynic who advises the Indian, "For God's sake, get the ballot in your hands as soon as possible." Thirty years ago, a Commissioner of Indian Affairs, commenting on the twenty-five years' struggle of the California Mission Indians to preserve themselves, said: "This class of Indians seems forcibly to illustrate the truth that no man has a place or a fair chance to exist under the Government of the United States who has no part in it." It is such elementary considerations as this that have been overlooked by the friends of the Indian. In Congress, the final court where the cause of a dependent people is decided, the white invader has representation, and the Indian has none. Bishop Whipple, in 1863, said: "I submit to every man the question whether the time has not come for a nation to hear the cry of wrong, if not for the sake of the heathen [Indian], for the sake of the memory of our friends whose bones are bleaching on our prairies." In 1877, the white settlers of the Northwest prevailed upon their representatives in Congress to remove the small Ponca tribe of Indians from their old home in southeastern Dakota, where they had built comfortable houses and opened farms, to the Indian Territory, where in a year a third of their number died. The Ponca reservation was wanted for those troublesome Sioux who were keeping the gold-hunters out of the Black Hills. The nation "heard" the cry of wrong, as uttered by Bishop Whipple; but Congress drove the Poncas from the Niobrara in obedience to the demands of a handful of constituents in Iowa, Minnesota, and Nebraska.

On the whole, the Audubon movement has succeeded better than that to protect the Indians. Bishop Whipple and those who meet annually at Lake Mohonk have insisted, and do insist, that the Government deal with the Indians as with human beings whose rights are co-extensive with those of the whites. Theoretically, their attitude is correct. Public opinion has approved them and applauded their sentiments. Practically, they have plodded along without accomplishing as much as could an obscure Western member of the House of Representatives with a vote on a harbor-improvement bill to trade for a vote to dam Salt River and irrigate Grass Valley. The Indian, until he is absorbed and enfranchised, is not a "person." That was settled in California in the course of the degradation of the Mission tribes. Treaties and agreements with Indians may be abrogated at the pleasure of Congress. That was finally and formally decided by the Supreme Court in the Lone Wolf case, two years ago. The attitude of the settler, at whose request every Indian removal has been made and every tribal reservation extinguished, has been plain and consistent from the beginning. It has been equally plain that the settler, with a sympathetic and industrious representative in Congress, would decide the attitude of the Indian Department.

The need for friends with discretion and detailed knowledge of the economic and political history of the tribes is, of course, obvious at this day. It should be just as obvious in the case of the other "dependent peoples" whose welfare under the guidance of our Government is becoming more and more the subject of friendly discussion at Lake Mohonk. The promoter of an inter-island steamship line for the Philippines has his champion in Congress, while Secretary Taft has no vote to trade, and can only offer a trip to Manila for a vote to reduce the duties on imports from the islands.