The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-04-30
OPPOSITION TO THE 9UAKEB INDIAN


POLICY.
THE old system of managing Indian affairs
affords TOO many chances Of plunder TO be grace
fully surrendered and Senators, especially, are
10th to give up the advantageous opportunities
It affords for rewarding their friends and favor
ties at the public expense. Any or all of the So
called Indian treaties involves a considerable
appropriation Of public money, which is nomi-
nally intended for the use of the savage, but
which, nine times out of ten, serves mainly to
enrich white agents. contractors, commission
ers, and their patrons The popular demand
for reform having become irresistible, the
House of Representatives having successfully
resisted the enormous exactioDs embraced in
the last batch Of Indian treaties, and the Presi-
dent having resolved to try the effect of Quaker
diplomacy, under the supervision of an Indian
Commissioner it was commonly supposed that
the old rings would be effeCtually broken up,
and that a fair trial would be given to the new
pOhcy. 1t appears, however, that
it is still antagoni2ed, indirectly,
and one Of the latest exhibitions OF hostility is
the rejection of the Quaker agents appointed
for the tribes residing in Kansas and Nebraska.
The Senators of those States are said to be in
dignant ut the attempt to place followers Of
Penn in the positions which they desired
to secure for their individual favories,
and it is alleged that among the
other causes for this indignation is the
fact that the Treasury is now drained for the
support of Indians who have no longer tribal
existence. A despatch to the New York Herald
states that all the Delaware Indians have emf
grated from Kansas into the Indian Territory
except about one hundred, who have become
naturalized citizens of Kansas, but that friend
of Senator Pomeroy retains the position of
Agent for the legally extinct tribe drawing
salary and various perquisites, with
out rendering any legitimate service
whatever. The Senator who should have
been aware of these facts, if they are really true
has taken no trouble to apprise the Committee
on Retrenchment of this opportunity for reduc-
ing the public expenditures, but he bitterly an
tagonizes the idea of having such good chance
for plundering the Treasury surrendered to
Quaker who would probably report all the facts,
and thus throw new light upon the corruptons
of the old system.
The Indian has proved capital catspaw to
the Western adventures who have so skilfully
used him to despoil the taxpayers of theInation
The representatives of various tribes have again
and again complained that, while the Indians
have derived little or no advantage from their
treaties the agents and their superiors in Office
have grown rich. The red men have been vic
timized on the one hand, and the toling masses
of the white race on the other. Tribe after tribe
disappears. Attempts at civilization fail. Bloody
wars are not averted. The aborigines are
wronged frontier settlers are massacred the
public treasure is squandered; but amid all these
disasters and tragedies the persons who manpu-
late the system which was devised to prevent
them7 bask in the sunshine of prosperity and
increase in wealth as rapidly as the Johnsonzed
officials of the Internal Revenue Department
AS there must be something radically wrong
in the policy which produced such results, we
trust that the President will persist in his re-
ported determination to effect radical reform,
despite the opposition of Western Senators.
Let him go on appointing one Quaker agent
after another until the attention of the whole
country is attracted to the real merits of the con-
troversy, and until the necessity of infusing
honesty into this branch of the public service is
universally recognized.