“PROVING THE CASE”
“The Indian School on the Ufnatilla
reservation, discontinued 18 years
ago, will probably be reopened, the
red men declaring that the education
of their children with whites has
proved a failure.”—Portland Oreogn
Journal.
“At that time he (William Paul)
was told that, considering for the
moment only the welfare of the In
dians, the time had not arrived for
asking that Indian youths be admit
ted to the white schools, and that it
would be well for the Indians not io
enter politics in Alaska or attempt t'»
make political issues of Indian prob
lems. The item initiating this com
ment, from the Journal, would tend
to prove that the advice that the
time for the Indians to be admitted to
white schools in Alaska had not ar
rived, considered from their own
standpoint, was given advisedly and
with friendly motive.”
When a man speaks with authority
on rnatters relative to races or na
tions, on matters that will affect the
progress of a people, he is listened to
according to the degree of authority
or knowledge of the subject. If the
writer were to go out on the lecture
platform and speak on the science of
electrical engineering he would have
about as much weight as an authority
on that subject as some political
morons who have been attempting to
run the political destinies and affair-:
of Alaskans for a number of years
and who speak “with authority” on
political and educational affairs of the
Indians of Alaska.
Compared with the sickly and
brainless attempt to “prove the case”
by one school that “will probably be
reopened,” we quote the following by
Gen. R. H. Pratt:
“I know also from experience that
it is no more difficult to give children
born in aboriginal surroundings and
under nomadic influences in their
early life, just as full intelligence,
competent purpose and civilized
ability and in the same time as they
could be given to those of our own
race. All that is needed is exactly
the same environment in the same
classes under the same teaching and
the same opportunities thereafter.
There are absolutely no indurated
aboriginal qualities standing in the
way of development. In the Indians
fail to reach these co-equal results, it
is simply because they have not had
co-equal chances. Language, industry,
skill, intelligence, purpose, are all ac
quired and made permanent through
surroundings, environment and oppor
tunity.
“America is a Mecca for all the
world, because of its Declaration of
Independence and its Constitution,
and these are the foundations on
which our national stability must rest.
Beyond all peradventure, no greater
glory could shine forth from our na
tional escutcheon than would have
shown hatl we fully, kindly and fairly
applied the principles of our Declara
tion and Constitution to the nati/os
we found here, who have all alon&
been not one whit less better materia’
to make competent and useful citizens
out of than chose of us of any and
all nations who have migrated to
these shores.
“Had we applied our segregating,
reservating Indian policy to the peo
ple of the many tribes of men who
have crossed great oceans in order
to become of us, our present high
position would never have been
realized.”
The writer of the above quotation
spent a long half century educating
and studying methods of educating
the Indians of the United States. He
was not a half baked educator ex
ploiting the Indians in order to hold
his job and he was not vaunting his
patriotism for political purposes ind
dodging drafts. He served his “bit*’
during the Civil War and then spent
his later years in army service as
head of the Carlisle School, which was
famed in its time as producing “men”
on the football, baseball and other
fields of sports; and no less famed for
the men it turned out in the profes
sional and industrial world. So farm'd
did this school become that it has (.ft
been called a “college” when in real
ity it was only a grammar school.
But the opportunity and environment
given the students of this school wu •
the opportunity given every cnild in
the “public school,” and is the only
opportunity that we have been urging
and demanding for our own Alaskan
Indians.
Prof- Henderson and Prof. Troy
certainly cannot class themselves a
having the knowledge that General R.
H. Pratt had, for he spent a good half
century studying the needs of the
American Indian, and his great serv
ice as superintendent of the Carlisle
Schol for twenty-five years gave him
opportunity to see the Indian in all
parts of the United States and under
all conditions. He did not just take
the little “Auk Village” of Juneau
to set his criterion and he did not
damn all the Indians because of the
failure of one or two. Were we to
damn men because of their failure to
measure up to standards we would be
damning graduates of many universi
ties and colleges, and we would not
have to go out of Alaska to begin.
There are just as many collegiate
failures and more than we care to
♦mention—look for instance at the
penitentiary records of some of them
and tell us that the Indian, ignorant
and illiterate, is less desirable than
them.
-*
When in Wrangell go to the
Wrangell Restaurant.
FILIPINO ELIGIBILITY TO
CITIZENSHIP
WASHINGTON, Feb. 27.—United
States Attorney Gorman applied to
the Supreme Court of the District of
Columbia for a revocation of the nat
uralization certificate issued on De
cember 4 to Ambrosia Javier, a native
of the Philippines, who had not been
in the United States military service.
United States Justice Hoehling had
admitted Javier to citizenship over a
protest by the Naturalization Bureau,
asserting that civilian Filipinos are
entitled to become American citizens
because their allegiance of 25 years
was sufficiently permanent to meet
the demands- Counsel contends that
Javier is not a free white person nor
a person of African nativity, therefore
he is not eligible to citizenship.
THE FLAG
The work that we do is the making
of the flag. I am not the flag; not
at all. I am but its shadow. I am
whatever you make me, nothing more.
T am your belief in yourself, your
dream of what a people may become
I live a changing life, a life of moods
and passions, of heartbreaks and tired
muscles. Sometimes I am strong with
pride, when men do an honest work,
fitting the rails together truly. Seme
times I droop, for then purpose has
gone from me, and cynically I play
the coward. Sometimes I am loud,
garish and full of that ego that blasts
judgment. But always I am all that
you hope to be, and have the courage
to try for I am song and fear, strug
gle and panic, and ennobling hope. I
am the day’s work of the weakest
man, and the largest dream of the
most daring. T am the constitution
and the courts, statutes and the sta
tute makers, soldier and dreadnaught,
drayman and street sweep, cook, coun
selor and clerk. I am the battle of
yesterday, and the mistake of tomor
row- I r*n the mystery of the men
who do without knowing why. I am
the clutch of an idea, and the reasoned
purpose of resolution. I am no more
than what you believe me to be and
T am all that you believe I can be.
T am what you make me—nothing
more. I swing before your eyes as
a bright gleam of color, a symbol ot
yourself, the picture of suggestion of
that big thing which makes this Na
tion. My stars and my stripes are
your dream and labors. They are
bright with cheer, brilliant with cou -
age, firm with faith, because you have
made them so out of your hearts.
For you are the makers of the flag;
and it is well that you glory in the
making.—Franklin K. Lane.