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Show THE CITIZEN 8 the Indian Bureau had been abolished twenty-fivyears ago. Here are 300,000 human beings of a race which for ninety years has been under complete control of the Indian Bureau. During that time they have been forcibly driven off their homelands of the eastern states and herded into reservations west of the reservations These Mississippi. whose bounds were laid out in sacred treaties have been cut in two, oftentimes without a word to the Indians concerned. Not a treaty made by the United States government with the Indians has been kept and these acts of faithlessness have either been initiated or approved by the Indian alleged protector of a helpless people! ter BUREAU DEALS UNJUSTLY WITH AMERICAN INDIAN. , i e , Natives Have No' Representation and ;.Are Handled as Slaves; Public Foots the Bills. . ,. . . i - t Millions spent on Indians declared wasted by a member of congress who shows folly of one agent for every ten families. Congressman M; Clyde Kelly of the Thirteenth district of Pensylvania' has thoroughly investigated the matter which he fully explains in the ' Dearborn Independent, and which facts are causing a great deal of comment from all who reads the article. Thirteen million dollars will be spent next year by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the Department of In- teriora greater sum than is spent by the entire Department of State with its;wnrld wide activities, and twice as much as the entire Department of Labor costs the American people. Such ii sum would more than maintain the entire Custom Service or the complete Coast Guard organization. What is the' good of it? It is spent to enable 5,000 government employes to supervise and superintend 50,000 Indian families. It agent to every assigns ten families for 1923 as has been the case for many years. The public pays Indian , Bu-reauth- the bill. Costly System. If there was deadly danger that the Crows and the Blackfeet, who refused to shed the blood of the white men even while they were being robbed of their hunting grounds, might descend upon Chicago and ravage tlie Windy City with knife and fire, the money would be well spent. If the Sioux and the Apaches were threatening to go on the war path against Omaha and St. Louis! the expenditure of $10,000,-00- 0 would be amply justified. But the difficulty is that no advocate of the costly system of Indian Bureau control will say that this great sum is necessary to protect the American people against the Indians. No, they say that America must sacrifice these millions in tax money for the. benefit of the Indians! These 50,000 families must be protected and guarded! One agent must be allotted to every ten families, not to help the American taxpayers but to help the Indians! ! ! That, then,; is the crux of the The whole case of the matter. Indian Bureau is based on the declaration that it benefits the Indians to the extent of the millions raised by the severe taxation of the American peo-- It is loudly declared that the great tax appropriations must continue because it would be cruel and brutal to reverse our policy of ninety years. "friends of the Indians" cry out that the Indians do not want freedom and its responsibilities. Oh, no, they exclaim, the Indians are begging to be allowed to remain under the sheltering wings of the Indian Self-style- -- ple. , is Indians Are Rich. The Indian reservations, diminished even as they have been, have become very valuable. The building up of the west has added to the value of every acre. On some reservations great deposits of oil have been discovered and minerals of various kinds have been found. There are valuable forests on others. Not because of the Indian Bureau but because of the national growth of America, and in spite of the Indian Bureau, the lands still left to the Indians became valuable. In all, the 50,000 and more families under the control of the Indian Bureau have lands and other property worth a billion dollars today. That means that every Indian family possesses wealth to the extent of $15,000 and more. It means an average income of $900 for every Indian family, which is more than the average income for all the families of the United States. These Indians, possessors of this great wealth, are starving for lack of the necessaries of life. Economically independent, the Indian is still kept dangling to a pauperizing, degrading bureau system. Does it benefit tne Indian to have bureau agents dissipate his property while they spend millions of the public tax funds as well? Excessive Cost. t Not Satisfactory. If it be shown that no such benefit comes to the Indians through the bureau, the case falls. And if it be shown that the expenditure of the millions taken out of the pockets of the American public in fact works an Incalculable injury to the Indians themselves, then the appropriation of further funds is Infamous. Kelly denies that this $13,000,000 appropriation benefits the Indians, and will prove that to the satisfaction of any person save those who may profit from the present bureau system. He believes that the Indian would be bet off today if . d Bureau." It has cost millions of American dollars to build up that falsehood and foist it upon the American people. The officials of the Indian Bureau know that statement is not true. They know the tricks and schemes and foxlike watchfulness necessary to give it even a semblance or reality. They fight to death any plan to settle the question by fair vote. They oppose any investigation which would show that the wings of the bureau give shelter to the Indians just as the hawks wings shelter the partridge. The desires of the American Indians wherever a free opportunity is given, have always been shown to favor freedom and to oppose bureaucratic con trol. This fact is so well known to the Indian Bureau that it has for years ar-- . rogated to itself the right to supervise and control the election ' of council members and tribal delegates. Abraham Lincoln) in a message to Congress in 1864, said: I submit for your special consideration whether our Indian system shall ' not be remodeled. Many - wise and good men have impressed me that this can be porfitably done. Sixty years have passed since that recommendation. The Indian Bureau, which then was beginning to show its possibilities for evil power, has become a- Frankenstein creation. For every, reason that Lincoln had for re--' modeling the system, there are 10,000 e now. The solution is simply the command, "Let this people go." All Indians born within the limits of the United States should be declared citizens and entitled to all the rights, privileges and immunities of such citi- sens. . ; The superintendent of the reservation must put his seal of approval on the Indians who vote. He must approve the delegates elected. He assumes the right to fill all vacancies. - As a final quencher of free representation, the Washington office exercises the right of recognizing only such delegates as it desires. And all this on old-tim- an Indian tribal council! The Flathead Indians had a council in 1921 which represented them. They selected Max J. Barnaby and Mary Lemery to go to Washington to correct certain abuses in administration. The bureau could not deny the election, but nullified it by officially declaring that the business committee of the Flatheads was the real tribal council. Since the superintendent had named members of the business committee, he felt justified in making it the official body representing the Indians. Two regularly elected delegates came to Washington with their credentials. They were not recognized' by the bureau and when Senator Thomas J. Walsh took up the question of the payment of expenses from Indian funds he received this answer: thority GRAVEYARDS. IN COUNTRY . (Roselle Mercier Montgomery in New York Times.) We are the old, the unremembered . dead Forget, we lie In . the country graveyards high on lonely hills; We are unwept save by such tears as sheds The pitying sky Above lod, huddled graves in city streets, sometimes A passer finds The time to pause and sigh remembering! But none pass by us here. Above us sigh Only the winds. The hands that laid us here long, long are dust; The passioned tears Shed then for us are dried; the faltering feet. ' That followed us in grief- - have now lain still. Unnumbered years. And strange hands now till the fields we cleared; Strange voices ring . Beneath the roofs we raised; beneath Bribery. not an , : No Representation. The Lemery -- council from which Miss and Mr. Barnaby claimed auto come to Washington was official tribal council of the . Flathead tribe and both are familiar with the order against coming to Washington at the expense of the tribe without procuring authority in advance." It was not an "official council," because it was not completely under the control of the bureau officials. Authority in advance" is only given those who represent the bureau rather than the Indians. These are not all the powers and-thplots used to silence the Indians. Officials on the reservation and in Washington promises special favors for the silence of leaders who have voiced complaints. It is very easy to throw money arid position in the way of the man who is a potential trouble maker for the bureau. To live at the whim of bureau officials is the last and worst misery that human beAn old Indian ings can. feel. said: Our grandfathers died in slavery; our fathers died In slavery; we may die in slavery, and our children may die in slavery, but something will come of it at last." Something will come of it now, if Congress has Americanism enough in its make-u- p to deal with this institution. It is high time to reverse the. maxim of bureaucracy, the Indian is made for the bureau and not the bureau for the Indian. Lincolns Advice. These appropriations benefit the Indians? You will never say so when you study the history of any of these tribes and know the audacious injustices perpetrated upon them down the the trees e We planted, strange young lovers make their vows Each passing spring. The alien plow that draws so near, so near, . Disturbs our rest Here in our sunken and neglected graves, We stir yet well we know that there is none Who will protest. We are unclamoring we only ask That we may lie Safe from the plow that threatens old, old graves Covered by vines, mourned by the passing winds, Wept by the sky! un-Americ- an - years. TRUE AMERICANS. ' It is worth noting, now and then, : that the negro people of this country, never have to be taught American-ism. Newark (N. J.); " Star-Eagl- e. -- , . - , 0 Talking about the pacifist, theory of preventing war by; not being prepared, do you hear of many folks trying to pick. a quarrel with Dempsey? ' |