Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1870-05-11
Correspondence Of Chicago Tribune.
INDIANS AT THE CAPITOL.


correspondence of Chicago Tribune.
INDIANS AT THE CAPITOL.
Stories of White Refugees.
WASHINGTON, April 26.
If YOU ever come to this peculiar
city, you will someday see, as you
stroll along the avenue amongst the
foreign legation people, the soldiers,
and the Office holders, few persons
of a red clay color, with stolid burn
ing eyes, like Goals of fire that burn
without desire, and with a strong
smell of whisky. They wear mixed
clothes, a scrap of Mexican blanket
over clerical cloth breeches, or a
bright scarf, or a long blue flannel
hood and robe, and they make the
most hideous negroes saint-like by
their reptilian contrast. These are
the best civilized savages we have to
show in all the United States. These
are the trading, or ruling, or politi-
cal Indians-big Indians-whO have
come to Washington on missions of
lobbying, or complaining, or treaty
making, or sightseeing, and they
have fixed boarding places, where
they sleep or grin out the day like
set of witches, or idols, or alligators.
These effigies you will never meet in
society, or in the pleasant parts of
life and pleasure, yet they are the last
visitors of some two and a half CEN
turies of honored guests who have
caroused. or envied, or received bdk-
sheeSh in the white mems capitals.
Indians have been coming to Wash
ington since it was first established,
and one would think they had been
the tutelar divinities of our State to
see in what pictorial and monumental
rank they are cOmmemorated here.
The Capitol building is an Indian
museum; in the Presidents room,
and by the wide marble stairways,
the ugly busts of these heathens stare
under their bronze war feathers; they
keep the great clock of Congress,
scowling down upon the delibera-
tions; in the crypt where the bones
of Washington were to lie, the "Dy-
ing Tecumseh" stretches his huge
length, and Crawford has fastened
him in the pediment, and put nom
descript presentment of his squaw on
gregational burytng ground there are
many Indians, who died of hospi-
tality, amongst them Mr.. Push-me~
tank, who has a marble monument
on the chest of himself, which pa
thetically says:
This Noble Friend of the White
Man, in his Dying Moments,
Raised Himself
UP
And Exclaimed,
In a Tone which Struck Pity
To the
Hard Heart of the
White Man,
Let the Big Guns be FiredOrer Ne p"
But the great palace of the red
man is in the Patent Office building.
There a Special Commissioner, him.
/ self an Indian, has a pair of parlOrs,
and long suite of offices, and he is
the Superintendent of the Indians
of this country. His name is Eli
Parker, and he is probably the first
Indian who ever held so important
an office. Being q sensible man, he
probably regards his business as that
| of wholesale undertaker-to smooth
the way of the dying red man to
extinction, and keep the Sairy Camps
the Indian Agents-from drinking
too much gin and Cruel of the pass
| ing Mr.. Lo. Let us see what this
soldier and brave Col. Parker-this
fat, yellow skinned, grave gentle
man-has to do.
HOW MANY INDIANS ARE THERE
Col. Parker is the Presidents clerk
and overseer of all the Indians in the
country-in all 100000, or the total
population of Chicago. 1t is these
few people who give us so much trou-
BILE. If they were collected in one
reservation, they would not be as
populous as the State of Vermont.
| But we are indebted to them, of our
acknowledgment, more than twenty
millions of dollars, and we are bank
ers of more than seven millions OF
dollars of their money. These raga-
mullins of the plains and woods
actually own about seven millions in
cash, and many millions of acres OF
of land. The chief business of the
Indian Office is to get possession OF
/ this money and these lands, together
1
| the Indians. The ostensible purpose
of the office is to take care of the
Indian property, but outside of the
annual report of the Commissioned,
nobody is practically concerned with
this work. The present Commits
sioner, is, no doubt, in earnest, but
he has merely clerical power, and the
work of this country is antagonis-
tic to the Indians eXistence-not to
speak of his purposes, if he has any.
a democratic form of government is
a worse enemy to a savage than a des-
potism-not only because a despOt-
ism is half savage itself, but because
democracy assumes that every man
must take care of himself, which the
Indian has no disposition to do. The
brains and power of the nation have
been exercised for two centuries tC
solve the problem of how to save the
Indian and yet civilize the land.
The facts of the Indian Office itseli
show that every attempt to preserve
the Indian has been a series of con.
dign failures, rs great as if we had
attempted to make an eagle or 8
panther human. The Indian office
reports are the most worthless doeu.
ments issued by any part of the fed.
eral government. Their figures are
unreliable, and in many cases they
are merely swindling circulars in,
tended to deceive. Where they are
responsible, they are without interest
for they make no attempt to deduc'
the social, economical, and episodica
features of the various tribes they
are not indexed and if they ever dc
show anything clearly, it is that tn,
Indian has no history except as he i!
a shoal, a snag, or a quicksand in thu
stream of civilization.
At the close of the war, a join
special committee of Congress wa
J sent travelling over the plains to not,
the situation of the tribes, and they
reported that in New Mexico alont
the Indians cost S4,000,0O0 a year
\ uvhila GaDaraI Sumner repOmmandaf