The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1874-08-27
Does it Paw to Kill Indians?

JUS now the state of Kansas is calling on
the general government for arms and ammu-
milton, in order that the people may. defend
themselves from the Indians. Moreover, there
is anxiety or actual disturbance at many
other places all along the Indian frontier from
Mexico to Canada. 1t will cost this nation
several million dollars and many lives during
the current year 10 conduct the actual war;
like operations against the hostile part of
less than quarter of million aborisines
within our limits. By curious coincidence
the Indian Commissioner of the Dominion of
Canada has Just returned from tour among
the Indians under his care He not only
came back with his scalp-lock intact, but he
had royal time. His Savage wards every
where turned out en- masse to greet and guard
him. They were most enthusiastic in their
expressions of esteem both for him and for
the government he represented. And it only
costs the Canadians trife of two hundred
thousand dollars year TO manage so success
fully the same sort of men whom we find so
incorrigible!
So that, just as the United States are in
volved in peculiarly ominous complications
with the Indians, and only the characteristic
firmness and humanity of the President saves
complete and final abandonment of what is
known as the Indian peace policy, the Cana
dams. whom we like to regard as dull and
slow, are making money or, what is equiva-
lent to it,, saving money, to say nothing of
lives, by a very simple method-justice. This
contrast between American imbecity and
British common sense in managing the In
dams is by no means new. There has been
on one side of the line continued bloodshed,
on the other continued peace. But the con-
trast is sharpened by the peculiar infelicity of
our condition just now, when the Canadians
are exulting in the cheapness and efficiency
of fair play and humanity.
There is nothing very complicated about
the Canadian method. William Penn knew
the secret of it. So did the early Jesuit
missionaries, who plunged thousands of miles
into the wilderness with no other protection
from violence than the love and kindness for
their fellow men which they lore in their
hearts, As we understand it, the Canadians
the Indians, making treaties with them and
regarding them as independent nations.
They have thus saved themselves from the
temptation Of violating treaties with weaker
powers and affording an opportunity for the
greed and rapacity of private individuals.
The red men have been, like white or black
men, under the protection of the laws. They
have not been Systematically pushed away
from the frontier, but have been surrounded
by the whites, as their settlements have been
gradually extended furtherWest and North If
they have done any wrong individually they,
like other citizens, have been individually
punished. Thus whole tribes have not fallen
victims to the wrath excited by personal
transgressions. All grants of land to them
have been held sacred, while, in the United
States, even the inhabitants of Indian Terri
tory, whose homes have been secured TO them
by the most solemn treaties and pledges that
could by any possibility be framed, are suffer-
ing from a constant and not unreasonable ap-
prehension.that the homssteads for which
they have bartered continent, will be wres-
ted from them through the iGtrigues of land
Spectators and railroads anG the faithlessness
of the government. In Canada, the govern
ment is paternal and is almost identical.
though on larger scale, with that which the
state of Maine exercises over the remnants of
the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy tribes.
The state furnishes them with teachers.
school houses, physicians, roads, bridges and
medicines. They are aided in times of scar
city and are provided with new houses when
they are impoverished by fire. Their chiefs
are paid by the govern alent small salary,
and trifing money allowance is distributed
to them annually. Most important of all,
the sale of intoxicating liquors to Indians is
forbidden under very heavy penalties. Under
this system the ''savages'' are as gentle as
lambs. 1t seems as If we ought to have the
wit to learn what our duller neighbors have
discovered.