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Show "THE SAME OLD STORY." We have received the following from a staunch champion of Indian rights, and very willingly givo place to it: Under this heading The Trlbuno published pub-lished an editorial rcentlys complaining: because the best lands are reserved and nllolted to tho Indians when openlni; their reservations to settlement by whites. I ask. why not? Why should not the government allot (not give, because tho lands already belong to the Indians), the very best homestead to each Individual Indian that can be found Inside their reservations'' Why not? Their right, as the original possessors of the land, to at least a good homestead for each is too long established by numerous decisions de-cisions of the Interior department and bv decisions of the courts, from the great Chief Justice Marshall down, to be denied at this late dnt One such decision, by way of Illustration, Is the case where the Northern Pnclllc Railway company, when building Its line through the Crow reservation In Montana, claimed the right to take timber and stone wherever It wished to inside that reservation, because be-cause its route had been located before tho proclamation dellnlng the boundaries of tho reservation wns issued. The government, gov-ernment, in denying the clnlm of the railway rail-way company, stated that In defining the boundaries of the Crow reservation It did not grant nnything to the Crows, but merely defined, and rather limited, what had b'een originally theirs for lone years pnst There was no appeal from that decision. de-cision. It uffords the writer much satisfaction to know and feel that he was able, when agent, to defeat the opening of the best portion of this reservation to settlement, when an attempt was made to do this in ndvunce of the allotment of the lands to the Indians. No man who wishes to do what Is right to his fellow men will ask for the opening to sottlcment any Indian reservation until un-til each Indian has his nllotment selected and secured to him. And the only argu ment any person can piu iorwo.ru lor ue-nylng ue-nylng the Indian's right to a good homestead home-stead Is the same that leads some men to declare that any man In the enemy's country Is an enemy If the man happens to hnvc a good horse which the other fellow covets. Tho fact that the Indians are a low-down, low-down, worthless race. Is no argument. Every being, man or animal, is entitled to justice as Its. or his. natural right. The fact that the Indians are what they are Is very largely the fault of our government. gov-ernment. It Is because our government has never governed tho Indian people. Its whole policy has been to coax and persuade per-suade and bribe. Suppose, for Instance, that In the beginning, when our government govern-ment flrst began to exorcise authorlty ovcr the Indians, it had held them wherever wher-ever It found them, patenting a homestead home-stead to each one, making It innllcnablo for a long term of years, whether they wanted It done or not; opening tip all the rest of the country to settlement: can anybody doubt thnt the Indians would bo good citizens today? Of course they would. There would have been no Indian In-dian problem. During tho past five or six years we have heard that song entitled, en-titled, "The Flag Without a Stain." sung many times. This sentiment may be true a.-i regards our dealings with other nations, na-tions, but it is not true as far as our government's authority over our own people peo-ple goes. A member of congress, a loader, told me that there wns no government on earth ns unjust to Us own citizens as our government. It Is certainly true ns regards Its dealings with tho Indians. While It has been too kind to them In some wnys, It was in ways that would cnuso thn foremost people on earth to retrograde and become barbarous; consequently conse-quently was an Injury to them. In one respect, at least, it has been positively unjust to the Indian people. And that Is In forever breaking them up after they had made a good start to live rightly, and moving them oft! to the wilderness, nearly always against their will. There Is one case on record where- nn Indian trlbo In Ohio, many years ago. had become practically civilized. Every family fami-ly lived In a house, cultivated the soil, had orchards and livestock. Those Indians In-dians were so averse to selling their lands and moving west that the government govern-ment had to send twenty-six commissioners commis-sioners heforo It could get their consent and even then it wns accomplished by bribing the leading members of the tribe. Thoy were moved away off to the west of the Missouri river, which wns a wilderness wilder-ness at that timo, but those Indians wore so noarly civilized that they did not go to living In tents and tepees In the new country! ns you might suppose they would, hut Immediately built houses for themselves; them-selves; some of thm wonderfully good houses, for thnt rarly time. I Iiodq 1 shall never airaln see an cdl- V torlal like Unit in Tim Tribune, complaining com-plaining becauhe the Indians are each secured se-cured In si good home. JACQL'ES. The editorial complained of appeared in those columns on July 21st, ultima. It is as follows. A dispatch from Butte yesterday morning morn-ing told how the Indlnns are getting all the best lands In the Flathead reservation. reserva-tion. Tin- signatures for the drawing In the apportionment of the surplus land of this reservation among the whites now number upwards of 2500 names, but prior to the tnklng of any land by the whiles, the Indian allotments must bo taken out. It Is now said that the Indians have "inken all the choice. well-watered tracts." and thnt this will be a tremendous tremen-dous disappointment to the whites who are seeking good lands upon which to sot-tie. sot-tie. Hut what else wns to be expected? Precisely the same thing hnppenn In other reservations. It was conspicuously conspicuous-ly In evidence In the opening of the IMntnh reservation In Ttah. When tho whites who had drawn many numbers at l'rovo came to select their innrls on the reservation, they found that, under the Judicious and kindly guidance and old of Major Kandlott. tin' Indians had ao-leoted ao-leoted for their allotments all of the bottom lands, everything that was easy to reclaim and Irrigate, besides taking all the easy water rights. The consequence conse-quence was that that left praotleully nothing Immediately available for the whites. The result was great dissatisfaction dissatis-faction and distress, and at the late session ses-sion of the Utah legislature nn appropriation appro-priation for tho relief of the suffering settlers had to be made. The fact of It is that tlmsp reservation reserva-tion land openings have got to be a Kood deal of a farce and political Job. The opening of tlie Clntah reservation was decidedly of that character. A great deal of the same sort of thing wns charged at tho opening of the Rosebud reservation; and now It In evident that the story Is to be repeated on the oncoming on-coming openings of the reservations In northern Idaho nnd northwestern Mon-tana. This seems to be simply a recital and reminiscence of facts. It makes no complaint, much less does it assail any right, cither legal or traditional, of tho Indians, Jt is probable that the writer of the complaint will sec many more such presentations of facts in this pnper. TI103' have appeared before, and will appear again. The purpose of tho editorial was to point out to those who might be disposed dis-posed to rush to the land drawing referred re-ferred to, the slim chance they had of yetting any desirable lands, and the illustration of the Uintah drawing was properly used. The ethics of tlie reservation reser-vation to the Indians was not in the lenst entered into, nor do we care in tho least, to challenge tho action in this respect of Major liandlett and others in the protection of their Indian wards; We wished -merely to point out. Ihe improbability -of the land-seekers getting what thoy hoped, and to show why their hopes were vain. That was all, and we arc at a loss to understand what there was in the editorial to stir up-the resentment manifested by our correspondent. The general question of the abuse and oppression of the Indians by tho whites from the first, as a general gen-eral proposition, does not admit of any excuse or palliation for the whites, so far as tho Indians are concerned. But the whites have always, right or wrong, won; and thoy will no doubt so prevail to the end. though their triumphs have been merciless, treacherous, and lawless. law-less. .But all this is entirely aside from the question; we simply wished to warn hopoful whiles that they had better keep away from these drawings, as what they hopod to get was beyond their reach, and what they could reach was not worth while. |
