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Show 4- 4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4-4 4-4-4-44 iiiiiiiiiiiili.liiili' I i We; have gre.t pleasure in present ing to our readers extracts from the fpoechcs delivered by Senators Carter j and Vest in the Senate Chamber I . last week. These gentlemen defended de-fended a lost cause, and defended it so i valiantly, iv chivalrous! y, so forcibly. that they deserve the gratitude e.f , every American who believes that the ! principles of Christianity, following X . the dicta of George Washington, should j J be inculcated iu- young minus", irre- j spec.iive of color, race or previous condition. con-dition. The Senate procoedod with the Indian appropriation- bill, the pend ing question being the amendment amend-ment of Mr. Joro-n of Arkansas, au-i au-i thorizinff the Secretary of the Interior in certain circumstances to make con tracts for the education of Indian pull pu-ll p:l.. The a men elm out had raised the whole question of prove in merit support I . I J . f : MfiPl, A t : . A : 4- v i'l.r- 4. : W0y : smmm 4 4-! I 4- SENATOR VEST OF I&ISSOURI. ! ' --44-44444-44444444-4 44- 4- 4" 4- 4- 4- 4- 4- 4- 4- 4- 4- 4- 4- 4- -f ' 1 of religious schools. The Senate J r-.irhed a vote on the amendment late I Saturday afternoon, but as the vote 1 disclosed the absence of a ouorum. the I Senate: adjourned with the amend - I ni'-nt per. ding. t The vote was taken the amend- I iiM't being defeated 16 to 30 as fol- i' 1"wf: Yt ar Pate, Carter, Clark (Mont.). Paniel, Hansbrough. Heitfeld, Jones Ark.), Kenney, MrLaurin. Martin, Money', Morgan. Pottigrew, Taliaferro, Turlf-y sir1. Y-st 16. 1 Nays Mdrich, AlMson, Berry, Clark J (Wyn.). Cullom, Davis. P bee. Fair banks. Foraker. Frye. GallingCr, Gear, Harris. Ha wiry, Jones (Ne-v.). Kean. M. Mri ie, MoCumbor. McMillan. I'latt (r.n.). Piatt (N. Y.). Pi'itchard, Quarles. Boss. Sootit, Sc-well, Shoup, St( w art. Teller and Thurston 30. j SPEECH OF SENATOR VEST. j T said a. few minuUfi ago that I was j :, ii .nf.-.tant. I was reared in the old j s'.,.irh Presbyterian Church, my father v-.,A an elder in it. and my earliest im-svior.s im-svior.s were that t!I:e Jesuit? had ii-.rno and h-:ofs and tails, and that . !!.-.-f- was a faint tinge f sulrhur in ;: circumambient air whenever one .;. 1 their path. Sooie yc-ars ago I -.va.s ;itv-igm-d by the Senate to do duty the Committee on Indian Affairs, . -id I was asicrw'd by thf committee, f whk;h Mr. Pawf? was then the very : . Pilous hiirnian. to examine the In-.: In-.: schools in Wyoming ani Mon- i-na. I did so under groat difficulties : ! w ith labor Which I could not : v ohysieally perform. I visited 'iy one of them. T crossed that at buffalo expanse of country where 1 can mov see only the walknvs and , :1s of those extinct rnimals, and I :;r to all thefie sr-hwds. I wish to 1 v row- what I have said before in the rate, and it is nm the popular side : rhis question by any means, that I j rut. V-e-e in. all my journey, which st-d for several weeks, a single )i. .il that was d'oins any educational 1 : k wort hy the name jf educational v k, nnkss it was undor the control f th Jesuits. I did not see a jdngle l- f-rnment school, especially these clay schools, where there was any v.-.-.rk ('one at all. S"tn thing has bren said h'?re about . the diffenmce lrtvi-n enrollment and .ftt.-ndance. I found day schools with l.r.ini Indian children enrolled and not n in attendance, except on me-at days, thfy called it. when beeves were killed by 'the ap'nt and distributed to th-i tribe. Then there va? a full at- tndanc-e. I found schoola where there wwe old. iroken-dow-n preachers and politicians receiving J1.2W) a yoar and a hnu!' to live in for the purpose of eonducting these Indian day schools, and when I vniss-oxamrnod them, as I did in every instance, I found that their actual attendance was about t'hrw? 'to five in the hundred of the enrollment. en-rollment. I do not care what reports Jare made, for they generally come frnrm interested parties. You cannot educate the children with the day schools. In 30 Father Dej Smet, a felf-scri-ficing Christian Jesuit, went at the solicitation of the FlathiacLs to tHtir reorvailon in Montana. The Flatheads stint two runners, young men. to bring the black robes to Iucate them and toac-'h them the religion, of Christ. Both of those runners were killed by . : The Priest Who Christianized and Civilized the Indians of Montana and the ; l Senators Who Defended Their Just Rights. : 14- , 4-4- 4-4-4-4--f4-4-4-4-4 44-4-4-4.4-4.4-4- the Blackfeet and never reached St. Louis. They then sent two more. Ono of them was killed, and the other miade his way down the Missouri river after incredible hardships, and reached St. Louis. Father De Smet a 111 1 two young associates went out to the Flathead reservation and established estab-lished the mission, of St. Mary in the Hitter Hoot, and St. Ignatius on the : Jocko reservation. The Blackfeet I burned the St. Mary's mission, killed two of the Jesuits and thoutrht they had killed the other Father Ravaille. j I saw him, when on thia committee, lying in his cell at the St. Mary's mission, mis-sion, paralyzed from the waist down, but performing surgical operations, for ho was an accomplished surgeon, and doing all that he possibly could do for humanity and religion. He had ba-?n fifty-two years in that tribe of Indians. Think of it! Fifty-two yea.rs. Not owning the robe on his back, not even having a name, for he was a number in the semi-military organization organiza-tion called the Society of Jesus; and if he received ord'era at midnight to go to Africa or Ata, he went without question, because it was hi duty to the cause of Christ, and for no other consideration con-sideration or reason. After nearly twenlty years of this work by the Jesuits they abandoned It and they established a different sys-1 sys-1 torn, separating he boyg and th-a girls, teaching them how- to work, for that is the problem; not how to read cr ne.ll, nor the laws of arithmetic, but how- to work and to get rid of this in-f-Une prejudice t&ught by the- Indians from the beginning that nobody but a spuaw should work, and that it degrades de-grades a man to do any sort of labor, or, in fact, to do anything except to hunt and go to war. I take off my hat, metaphorically. I whenever I think of this negro in Ala- barr.a Booker Washington. He has solved the problem for his-race, and he 1 is the only man who has ever done it. I Fred Douglas was a great politician, j but he never discovered what was I necessary for the negro race in this j country. I have just returned from the I south after a sojourn of five weeks j upon the Gulf of Mexico. The negro j problem is the mosit terrible that ever confronted a civilized race upon the face of the earth. You can not exterminate exter-minate them; you can not extradite them; you must make them citizens as they are and as they will continue to be. You must assimilate them. Exportation Export-ation is a dream of the philanthropist, demonstrated to be such by the experiment experi-ment in Liberia. Mr. Lincoln tried it and took his contingent fund immediately imme-diately after the war. shipped negroes to a colony in the Vcet Indies, and those who were left from the fever after af-ter two years came back to the United Uni-ted States, and every dollar expended was thrown away. Washington, this negro in Alabama, has struck the keynote. key-note. It will take years to carry it out, and he has the prejudices of his own race and the prejudices of the Ignorant whites against him, but he deserves the commendation of all the people not only of the United States, but those of the civilized world. Mr. President, the Jesuits have elevated ele-vated the Indian wherever they have been allowed to do so without interference interfer-ence of bigotry and fanaticism and the cowardice of insectivorous politicians, who are afraid of the A. P. A. and the votes that can be cast against them in their district and states. They have made him a Christian, and. above even that, have made him a workman able to support himself and those dependent depend-ent upon him. Go to the Flathead Res-ervaition Res-ervaition in Montana and look from the cats of the Northern Pacific railroad, and you wiJl see the result of what Father De Smet and his aociates be- 1 ' X Extracts From Speeches of Senators Vest and Carter on I X Indian Appropriations Bill, Taken From the Record. X 4- 4- -..--.... --.XXXAX....--. gan and, w hat was carried on successfully success-fully until the A. P. A. and the cowards cow-ards who are afraid of it struck down the appropriation. There are now 400 Indian children upon that reservation without one dollar to give them an hour's instruction of any kind. That is the teaching of many professors of the religion of Christ in the Protestant churches. I repudiate it. I woulel be ashamed of myself if I did not do it, and if it were the last accent I ever uttered' in public life . it would be to denounce Lhat narrow-minded and unworthy un-worthy policy based upon religious bigotry. big-otry. Mr. President, as I said, go through this reservation and look at the work of the Jesuits, and what is seen? I undertake to say now and every senator here who has passed through that reservation will corroborate my statement that there is not In this whole country an object lesson more I striking than that to be seen from the cars of the Northern Pacific railroad, the fact that these Jesuits alone have solved the problem of rescuing the Indians In-dians from the degradation in which they were found. Mr. President, these Jesuits are not there, as one of them told me, for the love of the Indian. Old Father Ravaille Ra-vaille told me, lying upon his back in that narrow- cell with the crucifix above him, "I am here not for the love of the Indian, but for the love of Christ." without pay except the approval ap-proval of his own conscience. If you send one of our people, a clergyman, a politician even to perform this work among the Indians he looks back .to the flesh pots of Egypt. He has a family, fam-ily, perchance, that he cannot take with him on the salary he receives. He is divided between the habits and customs cus-toms and luxuries of civilized life and the self-sacrificing duties that devolve upon him in this work of teaching the Indians. The Jesuit has no family. He han no ambition. He has no idea except to do his duty as God has given him to free it; and I am not afraid to say this, because I speak from personal observation, obser-vation, and no man ever went among these Indians with more intense prejudice preju-dice against the Jesuits than I had when I left the city of Washington to perform that duty. I made my report to the secretary of the interior, Sena tor Teller, now on this floor, and I said in 'that report what I say here and what I would say anywhere and be glad of the opportunity to say it. Mr. President, every dollar you give these day schools might as well be thrown into the Potomac river under a ton of lead. You will make no more impression upon the Indian children than if you should take that money and burn it and expect its smoke, by some mystic process, to bring them from idolatry and degradation degrada-tion to Christianity and civilization. If you can have the same system of boarding- schools supported by the government that the Jesuits have-adopted have-adopted after long years of trial and deprivation, I grant that there might be something done in the way of elevating ele-vating this race. The old Indians are gone, hopelessly gone, so far as civilization and Christianity Chris-tianity are concerned. They look upon all work as a degradation and that a squaw should bear the burden of life, The young Indian can be saved. There are 3,000 of them today in the Dakotas in South Dakota, I believe who are voters, exercising intelligently, as far as I know, the right of suffrage. Go to the Indian territory, where there are the five civilized tribes, and you will see what can be done by intelligent intelli-gent effort, not with day schools, but with schools based upon the idea of taking the children and removing them from the injurious influence of the old Indians and teaching them the arts of civilization and of peace. If I have ever done anything in my whole career in this chamber of which I am sincerely proud it is that upon one occasion I obtained an appropriation appropria-tion of $10,000 for an industrial school I at St. Ignatius in Montana. A few years afterwards, In pasaing through to the Pacific coasit, I stopped over to see that school. They heard I was coming and met me at the dervot with a brass band, the instruments in the hanfls of Indian boys, and they nlayed without discrimination "Hail Columbia" Colum-bia" and "Dixie." They had been taught by a young French nobleman, whom I had met two years before at the mission, who had squandered the principal portion of hi? fortune in reckless dissipation in. the salons of Paris, and had suddenly left that sort of life and joined the Society of Jesua and dedicated himself to the American missions. He was an accomplished musician, mu-sician, and he taught those boys how Co play upon, the 'instruments. I went up to the mission and found there Indian boyst making hats and caps and boots and shoes and running run-ning a blacksmith shop and carrying on a mill and herding horses and cat tle. The girls and. boysi when they graduated. intermarrying. became head? of families as reputable and well behaved and devoted to Christianity as any we can find in our own States. They were Catholics. That is a crime with some people in this coun'try. Mr. President, are we ito. be told that a secret political organization in this country shall dictate to us what we ought to do for this much-injured race whom we have despoiled of their lands and homie'ii and whom, God has put upon us as an inheritance to be cared for? I accuse no Senator here of any other motive than a desire to do his public duty. I shall do mine, and I Fhould gladly vote for an amendment to this bill infinitely stronger than that of the Senator f0Tn Arkansas. I would put this work, imperative upon us. in the hands of thoe who t-ould best accomplish it, as I would give the building of my house to the beat mechanic, me-chanic, who would put up a structure that suited me and meit the ends I desired. de-sired. If tlhe Catholics- can do it hotter than anybody else, let them- do it. If tho Presbvterian, the Methodist, the CongregaHonalist, or any other denomination denom-ination can do it, give the work to them, but to every man who comes to me ard says 'this is a union of church and fvate. I answer him, "Your statement state-ment is false upon, the very face of it." Instead? of teaching the Indian childiren that they muftt be Catholics in ordeft to be- good citizens, they are simply taught: that work is ennobling, and with the sen?o of self-dependence and net of denendenoe upon others will coma civilization and Christianity. These are my feelings, Mr. President, and I would be glad if I could put them upon the statute books. SPEECH OF SENATOR CARTER. Mr. President, in the state of Montana Mon-tana we have about 12,000 Indians. Some forty or fifty years ago those Indians In-dians or the tribes they reoresent held complete sway over the territory rrnw embracpd within lhat state, fn the gradual development of pur civilization-they civilization-they have been relegated to reservations. reserva-tions. It is contemplated, as I understand, under-stand, to ultimately embody these Indians In-dians in the citizenship of that state. The progress! in this .behalf hag beep somewhat slow and unsatisfactory, but still some progress has been made. We have now- within the limits of the state, in the Flathead, the Blackfeet. the Belknap,' Bel-knap,' the Cheyenne, the Fort Peck and Crow Indian agencies, according to the most moderate estimate made. 1,743 children of school age. There ia no pretense norns there any shadow of pretense that' the govern- ment supplies school facilities or accommodations, ac-commodations, nor is there any tre-tense tre-tense that the government can. during the next fiscal year, supply schoob accommodations ac-commodations for more than 670 of those children. The total school dod- I ulation of these various reservations, as I have suggested, is 1,743. The total capacity ca-pacity of the government boarding schools and the government day schools is 670. leaving unprovided with schoot facilities or advantages of any kind 1,073 of those children. On the reservation to which the senator sen-ator from Missouri (Mr. Vest) referred in such graphic terms, there are children chil-dren of school age entitled to the advantages ad-vantages of education, if this government govern-ment -wishes to discharge its trust, numbering 398, and on that reservation tonight the government of the United States has net school facilities for a aingle solitary child. Now, the mere question ?rorounded to the senate today is: Will the government gov-ernment of the United States, under the burden of a sacred trust to these Indian In-dian children, absolutely deny, unto them all educational advantages rather than avail itself, for the time being, of such as may be obtained under contract? con-tract? If it is the desire of the government gov-ernment to turn these children -Den the open plain, to deny them any school advantages, let that be generally un-i derstood, and let us abandon the entire system of Indian education. If 670 of these children are to be provided with school education and maintenance and 1.073 are to be deprived of it, I prav you select the 670 out of the reservations reserva-tions to whom the benefits of an educar tion should be extended, and select those to whom it should be denied. Mr. President, the senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Lodge) suggested that it was highly improper to utilize, employ or engage the public treasury or its funds in advancing the interests of any church organization in this country. Who can be found upon this floor to debate that question with the senator from Massachusetts? From the foundation of this government to thia hour, in every congress, and all the time the people of this country have insisted in-sisted that there should be an absolute and unqualified separation of church and state. One of the basic rinclrdes upon which this government was founded, found-ed, as contradistinguished frcm the governments gov-ernments of Europe, rested upon the separation of church and state. Nowhere No-where within the history of the repub-t lie can we find a party that has ever insisted upon this undesirable alliance. But, Mr. President, underlying our government there existed another principle, and it was engrafted into the constitution, the fundamental . law of the land, that no religious test should ever be re-quired. So that, whether It be in a state legislature, a town council, coun-cil, the house of representatives, or the eenate, no religious test can be required re-quired of any individual seeking public place or employment in the public service. ser-vice. , - We appropriate from year to year amounts in the aggregate running to about $20,000,000 on the average for rivers and harbors. The contracts for the performance of this work are let to the loweat responsible bidders. Who hast ever inquired as to the religion relig-ion of the contractor? I wish to inquire in-quire if any senator in this presence knows of any form of the Christian religion that will injuriously affect a North American Indian? Can you conceive of any religion that will lower low-er the condition of a blanket Indian? Mr. President, we are the successors upon this continent of those people whom our forefathers found in possession. posses-sion. A remnant of the tribes' remains on the western frontier, or what remains re-mains of..', that frontier. : We are charged, as by a solemn and sacred truat, to elevate, ennoble, educate and Christianize, as best we may, what re- r-TT TTTTTT TTTTTTT rTT. mains of this unfortunate race. This trust we cannot discharge by declining declin-ing to employ any and all the educational educa-tional facilities that our government and any of the agencies of our civilization civiliza-tion have at hand or can employ. It appears, according to the figures and the facts, indisputable and undisputed, that there are within the siate. of Montana tonight 1,073 Indian ohil'.?n who must be driven out upon the prai-,rle, prai-,rle, educated by charity or under the agency of the govByiment or undsr its contract for the Ensuing year. There is not pretense that the United States can give them any school facilities. What is to become of them? Is it aiding aid-ing a church to employ its school houses any more than it is aiding a church to employ a dredge owned by a Methodist or to employ a shovel owned by a Baptist in executing a contract on a canal? Mr. President, these Indian children rely wholly and solely and absolutely upon the congress of the United States for some provision for their education. Must we educate them 'according 'ac-cording to certain lines, employ certain people, and exclude other people from employment, or else let the trust go undischarged? I do hope that in every' government school in tha country some feaiture of the Christian religion ia inculcated into those Indian children. chil-dren. It has been my good fortune to visit many Indian schools, and I have observed ob-served in the exercises of the day the reading of texts from the Bible. It has not occurred to anybody to inquire in-quire whether it was the King James version or any other version of the Scriptures; it has been the reading of the Bible. Songs approved by Christian Chris-tian denominations are sung by those Indian children in de government schools. Who would require that the singing of a hymn approved by any Christian denomination should be discontinued? dis-continued? Yeit, carried to its logical conclusions, the suggestion of the senator from Massachusetts would require re-quire that the reading of the King James version of the Bible and the flinging of hymns approved by any Christian man or denomination should be discontinued, lest perchance we might deal in sectarianism in teaching the North American Indian. It is probably better I have no ooubt'that it is desirable that these Indian children on their way to a point. Which I hope they will ultimately reach, to the enjoyment of American citizenship, citizen-ship, shall be taught in Government rather than in sectarian schools: but I aay that if the Government school is not available, the sectarian school or any other school ffiiould be employed rather than that thte children should ba driven out upon the open plain and deprived of all Christian example or education of any kind. It does not seem to me to be a, debatable question. Mr. Presidents, there axe no bigots in this chamber. I do not believe there are any bigots in 'the American- Congress. Con-gress. It "is uselc';) to argue with bigots. Some man has properly de. acribed a bigot as like unto the pupil of the eye tho mere light you give, the greater the contraction. So. with a bigot, speech is useless, debate is without purpose, and consequently unnecessary and entirely without point. What I desire is, coming clown to tihe geographical point, that the 1,073 children" of Indian blood in the State of Montana shall not be deprived of any education for the coming year, inasmuch in-asmuch as the Government cannot supply them with the facilities in the schools now in existence or in prospect pros-pect for this coming year. It does not seem to me fair. It does not soem to me jusit. I Mr. Tillman: Will the Senator from Montana allow me to ask him a Question? Ques-tion? Mr. Carter: Certainly. Mr. Tillman: If thig new- policy of rion-fisctarianism is to govern us in the matter of elevating and educating and civilizing and Christianizing those racss with whom we have to deal, what is going to become of the Filipinos when we begin, over there? There is no religion at all in those islands except ex-cept the Catholic. Will we not be bankrupted if we have to send sectarian sectari-an teachers there to run those ten or twelve million people? I believe the Senate ought to be a little consistent on this matter and deal with this problem prob-lem in a practical way and look a little ahead. I -see a very big ditch that somebody i going to tumble into presently. Mr. Thurston: I had hoped that we wbulcl not tack- the Philippine question on to the Indian appropriation bill. Mr. Tillman: I am- not tacking it on to the bill at all. It is relevant. Certainly it is not altogether out of the way just to mention the subject of Christianizing somebody somewhere. The Senator is appealing very eloquently elo-quently to us to help continue the little teaching that these Indians are getting, artd I see way down the road yonder, you know, several million Philippine children, who have to be taught by the Catholics, or we are going go-ing to spend a deal of money in sending send-ing people over there to give them ! either no religion or some other religion relig-ion than the Catholic. Mr. Carter I hope the Philippines will develop their own system of education. edu-cation. I should feel somewhat discouraged dis-couraged if we were confronted tonight to-night with the problem of providing American teachers for the Filipinos. I am told there are over sixty different differ-ent languages or dialects in the Philippine Philip-pine archipelago. There are oyer thirty among the North American Indians. If within a century we have net been able to make any more progress 'than the 4 4- 4-444 444444 4 44-44 44 4 commissioner of Indian affairs indicates indi-cates in the education of the North American Indians, with only thirty dialects, dia-lects, I imagine that in the next century cen-tury we would make very trilling prog ress with the Filipinos with some sixty differenr. dialects. The question is too large for discussion between now and the hour of adjournment, and I mu?t implore the senator from South Caro- - any creed. Thf purpose of th-v senator - I from Arkansas is to empower tho sec- . retary of tho interior to provide educa- tioua.1 facilities fir thos- children for t whom the government schools cannuc provide. Ir. is suggested by nthors that thrt J government can ;rovi'l" the facilities. I Well and good. If that bo true the amendment of the s.-nator from Arkan- i sas will never become- operative, be- j cause it only provides for a contingency 1 which the senator from Massachusetts j suggested can never possibly occur. But if, perchance, after the government fa- I cilities have been entirely exhausted. ! 100 children shall remain urmmviiled, t with any kind of edue: tional advantage is it not fair and jtisL and proper and 1 right that the- set rotary of the interior should contract with someNnlv some- I where to give these children educational I advantages for the coming year? The amendment does not provide that M V-aV 1 t : 4- " FATHER DE SMET. X lina to eliminate it -from the present debate. Mr. Tillman If the senator will permit per-mit rne, I had no purpose in the world except to indicate that I agree with him that as a practical proposition we had better let the Catholics teach these people peo-ple than have nobody teach them, and if we can get any kind of a Christian idea Into their heads, it dees not matter mat-ter whether it is Catholic or Methodist, or Baptist or anything else, it is better than to leave them as they are. Mr. Carter I .agree fully with the senator from South Carolina. This is ; not a question of any particular reli- j ion. The amendment of the senator from Arkansas does not relate to nor can it be properly chargeable with a purpose to advance education through a single child shall be sent to anv school: it does not require the expendi- . . ture of a single dollar of public money; but it does provide that when the government gov-ernment schools shall have been entirely en-tirely filled, when a conelition is reacheel when not another child can find entrance en-trance at the school house door, when all the arrangements of the federal government for the education of these children have been exhausted, then, and not until then, the agent of the government, the secretary ofthe interior, inter-ior, may make a contract to provide I an education for the poor struggling I child who remains outside of the door I and cannot be providetl for unless the contract is made. Upon what theorv can opposition to such a proposition be justified? I am at a loss to know. j |