them to the open mardket. for s;il ■.
If he wished to buy he could not go
t( the open market to purchase. The
land, of course, was owned by tin*
tribe in common, and the idle and
industrious shared alike its advan
tages and disadvantages. Industry
received no reward; idleness no pe
nalty. Money due the tribe under
tie treaty was paid with more or
less regularity, generally in rations,
sometimes in guns and ammunition
to tight the whiteman wither scalp
ing knives to take from his head a
trophy of battle. The forms of in
dustry to which the men were ac
eustomed—hunting and trapping—
gradually disappeared; little or
nothing was done to teach new
forms of industry or to inspire tne
mmi to undertake them.
From the reservation all the cur
rents of civilization were excluded by
the federal law. The railroad, tae
telephone, the telegraph, the news
paper, the open merket, free com
petition—all halted at its walls.
py favor of the government, gen
erally freely granted, the missionary
was allowed to establish a church. or
Christian philanthropy to plant a
school in the reservation. Tint as an
educated Indian was rather imped
ed than aided in the tribal communi
ty by education, neither the church
nor the school could do more than
save individuals from a population
shut up by law to the general condi
t?ons of barbarism.
No courts sat in these reserva
tions* no warrants from local courts
ou’side could be executed; no In
dian, if wronged, could appeal to
any court for redress. Such law as
existed was administered by an In
dian agent, a person of ill-defined
and to the Indian mind, of illimit
able power.
There has grown up in America
by no deliberate design but by a
natural though mischievous oppor
tunism a system as inconsistent
with American, principles and the
American spirit as could easily be
devised by the ingenuity or con
ceived by the imagination of man.
It. has denied to tin* Indian those
II i C li T S and IMiKltOd A T1VKS
which the Declaration of Indepond
('lire truly doolaros to belong' inalien
ab’y to all men. It has made a pris
on • * i‘ of him instead of civilizing
him.
The reservation system, in my op
inion, is hopelessly, incurably bad,
< vd and wholly evil and that con
tinually. It was not framed by anv
one. It has grown up under the iu
iiience of careless indifference, po
pular indifference, local prejudice,
and unthinking sentimentalism. The
Indian problem is how to get rid of
it in the easiest and quickest way
possible, and bring the Indian and
every Indian into the same individ
ual relation to the State and federal
g< vernments like any other man in
this count r\ with the least possible
violence or rupture with past and
the greatest possible regard for the
right and the welfare of those who
aie the least responsible for the tire
sent ( onditions—the Indians them
selves.
When are the Indians going to
use the land in the reservation; con
V( rt its timber into boards; rivers
iiFo millstreams; excavate miner
als; and turn the weedy prairies in
to fruitful farms? My answer is
“never.”
If has been assumed that civili
xation can he taught hv a primer in
a school, and Christianity by a ser
mon in a church. This is not true.
Free competition teaches the need
of industry, free commerce the value
of honesty, a savings-bank the val
ue of thrift—all these better than
either the preacher or the pedagogue
can teach the Indian. To those, fo^
t» ey are still many, who think that
the Indian must he kept on the re
servation until he is prepared for
l1': erty, my repjy to them is that
the Indian shall never be prepared
for liberty on the reservation. When
a hoy can learn to ride without get
ting on a horse’s back, or to swim
wiihout going into the water, or to
skate without going on the ice—
i lion ;ui(l not. before, can man learn
I o live without living.
r. lie Indian must take his chance
with the rest of the people in the
Hnited States. Jlis rights must be
protected by law; his welfare look
ed after by philanthropy; but pro
tected by law and befriended by phil
amhropy, he must plunge into the
cmrent of modern life and learn to
live by living. The tepee will nev
er tit him for the house, nor the ca
noe for the steamboat, nor the trail
for highways and railroads, nor
trapping and hunting for manufac
tures and husbandry. Imagine if
we should pursue towards our immi
grants the policy that has been pur
sued towards the Indians—shut the
Poles, the Hungarians, the Italians
the Germans, the Scandinavians,
each in a reservation allotted to
them, and forbidding them to go out
inio the free life of America until
they had Americanized themselves
Hew long will the precess take. In
definitely!
Cease to treat the Indian as a red
man and treat Jiim as a man. Treat
him as lhe Poles t,he Hungarians, the
Italians, etc., have been treated
.Many of them are no better able to
tr.Ke care of themselves than the In
dians: but we have thrown upon
them the responsibility of their own
custody, and they have learned to
li\c by living. The lazy grow hun
gry, H'o criminal are punished, and
the industrious reward themselves
It may seem that I have been a
long time coming to any definite
answer to remedy the difficulties of
the American Indian student. But
in order to set forth a reform it is
first necessary to set forth clearly
and forcibly as possible the evil to
he reformed. That EVIL is the re
servation system. The reform is
very simple. It is “apply to the so
lution of the Indian problem the
American method; treat the Indian
as other men are treated; give him
justice and liberty and let him take
care of himself by ABOLISHING
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