The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-01-23
BOtching the Indian Bureau.
From The ". Y. Times.

From The ~. Y. Times.
The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs
proposes, it seems, to ''effeot compromise"
between the two theories of Indian manage
ment by recommending the appointment Of a
Civil Commissioner, " with sole power over
the Indian tribes, until "the occurrence of
hostilities," in which event, should the Presi-
dent declare that a state of war exists, the
control of the Indians is to be passed over to
the War Department.
In other words, this committee proposes to
give us the old bureau under new name
The old foe with new face. 1t proposes to
give fresh lease to the ineficiency and cor
ruption already connected with the civil ad-
Yninistration of Indian affairs, and to make
the present confusion worse cOntounded For,
under the proposed system, we shall have q
greater division OF responsibility than ever.
AS it is, there is never any body to blame-the
army officers declaring that Indian troubles
are not their fault, because they have no alb
solute coutrol, and the bureau officers always
as stOutly protesting that they are not respon-
sible, because the army has come in and made
war where war there was none. What the
Senate committee POW cOntemplates, appa-
rently, is to make this bad matter worse. We
shall get just enough War Department to
block the Interior Department, and just
enough OF the Interior to disgust the War.
1t will be complete Slipping between two
stools.
But, we shall be told, the civilians will con-
troll Indian affairs in peace and the army Off
GERS in war, according to the natural division
of authority. Exactly. The Indian rings
will do all the damage they can in peace,
with their rascally agents and trai RS, and
when the general ruin and demon ,lizstion
and ill-feelipg against the troops have got to
such point that the Indians begin hostilties,
then the army may step in, as of old, to
restore peace. This being done back goes
control to the Interior Department, or to the
Commissioner, and, with control, the old
round OF trick and dicker, fraud and folly.
Now, what we say of this is that it is no
compromise" at all-it is the old thing in a
new shape. 1t is the tTeadmill of trouble and
relief which we have had ever since Indian
affairs were taken from their original place in
the War Department and given to the newly
created Department of the Interior. Our
army officers, an upright and incorruptible
class, have proved that they understand the
Indian BETTER and know better how to treat
him, than do the civil appointees of any politi-
cal party. The Senate committee claims that
its report "embodies the views of the Indian
Peace Commission last winter" That is true.
But since then, namely, last fall the same
commission, raising its former plan on which
the Senate bases its action, recommended
with solitary negative vote (and that Com
missioner Taylor's), the absolute transfer of
the control of Indian affairs, in peace as well
as in war, to the War Department as the only
way out of our difficulties. On this revised
Judgment the House based its action, and we
cannot but hope that the House bill will yet
pass the Senate.
We predicate these observations on the pub
lished summary of the Senate committed s
plan. We should only be too glad to be COM
PEELED to modify them by finding that this
summary unfavorably misrepresented the bill.
We admit, too, that it is great point that
General Grant will be the President" for
four years at least, who will judge of "the
state of war" authorizing a transfer of Indian
control to the army. Nevertheless, it is the
civilian Commissioner who is first to "report
that hostlities exist" And, on the whole,
the House bill seems TO us the least eumbrous,
safest, direotest, and every way the best plan
for restoring something like order and system
| to our Indian palicy.