OCR Text |
Show WAK OK INTERIOR DEPARTMENT? Every man in any way connected with the war department, from the sec-. sec-. retary down to the rawest recruit, Is crying lustily for a transfer of the Indian In-dian bureau to the war department. There is a bill for tho increase of the army ponding before congress; thorn are sundry perquisites attaching to an Indian agency; and there is some glory to be achieved in the field against hos-tiles, hos-tiles, and therefore the present excitement excite-ment is taken for a text and pretext to urge tho transfer. We trust congress will keep a cool head and sound judgment and reject any and every bill aiming at this object. ob-ject. There was a time when the war department did have charge of the In- uians, aud it was found advisable to transfer them to the civil department. We are not aware that under the old I regime the Indians bad less cause to ! complain than now or that there were fewer wars. Tho contrary is indeed in-deed the case. In the period during dur-ing which the Interior department, almost since the war, has had control of the Indians, the outbreaks diminished, civilization among them improved, forts were abandoned and military reservations res-ervations made available for industrial uses. Of courso the advance of the railroads and pioneers contributed largely to this end; but the Indians did not resist this advance any more under civil than under military authority. Now that the Indian problem, notwithstanding notwith-standing the pending conflict, is practically practi-cally settled it would be manifestly unjust un-just to make a trausfor which would rob the civil administration of all the fruits of its policy. The most plausible claim advanced by the advocates of a transfer of the Indian bureau to the war department is that the soldiers having to tight the savages when they go on the warpath should be in a position to prevent their escapade. According to tho same argument, argu-ment, the war department should have charge of tho labor bureau, for may not the workmen, resenting certain indignities, indigni-ties, go on a strike like that of 1S77, when the regular army was called out to quell the disturbance? The tendency of the day is to restrict, not to etilargo, the authoiity of the army except as an aid of the civil powers. Thus only last session the signal sig-nal service was transferred from the w ar department to tho agricultural department, de-partment, the incongruity of charging soldiers with scientllio resoarvh being about as marked as their teaching the aborigines in the art of civilization, in the school and on the farm. |