New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1878-05-21

facts, but that they VIII not take the troupie
to devise a remedy.
Everybody now sees that General Grants
sentimental scheme of dividing the agencies
among the religious denominations is faii-
ure. Ii is open first to the insuperable oDJec-
ton that il imposes upon the Indians by the
arbitrary authority of the Government a
particular form of Christianity. without
regard to their wishes churches and schools
erected at the agencies by one denomination
have even been fofcibly taken away from
the missionaries who built them and placed
in charge of a rival sect. We are at a
loss to imagine why transaction which would
shock our ideas of justice and Droprlety III the
case of white people should be tolerated in
the case of Indians. Every mission established
and sustained by Government on these rescr-
vations is, for the territory allotted to 1t, a
State church. Another objection to the secta-
Ian agency plan is that it tends to cOnfound
Christianity with annuities; the savage IS
generally suspicious of his agent, and is not
likely to listen eagerly to gospel which Is held
out to him by the same hand which distributes
rotten blankets and bad tobacco. Moreover,
religious character is no guarantee OF business
capacity. General Pope says that the agents
appointed under the new plan are far superior
to their predecessors in point of morals but
as q rule they are unfit for the functions they
have assumed, and they have only succeeded
i'll demonstrating the incompatibility of the
duties of religious instructor and secular
manager. "The business of the Indian has
been very inefiiciently done, and badly as it
has been done, it has been at the expense
" of his moral or industrial Improvement"
The causes of nearly all Indian wars, says
General Pope, are the maladministratiOn of
agents and the encroachments of the whites.
The General recognizes with cOmmendable
frankness a truth which, for some I'M
explained reason, the American people
have been reluctant TO admit, that no treaty
Stipuations will protect the savage from the
advance of the white pioneer. Let it once be
discovered that the huntng-ground contains
mineral wealth, or lies in the pathway of the
advancing settlements and there is no law
that can keep the white man out of it, nor,
after he has once got in, is there any way OF
preventing a murderOus conflict Our plan
heretofore has been to establish reservations
beyond the frontier towns, and as soon as
the white man presses upon these lands, and
begins to coyet them for himself, there is
war and new treaty, leading to the crea-
ton of another reservation little further
OF, where the same process is to be
repeated few years later. 1t is n mere
sense,ess, cruel aud costly scheme Of tempo
rary makcshiits. General Pope proposes new
departure. All the Indians, he thinks must
sooner or later be placed upon reservations
and he would have it done as rapidly rs pos
siblr. But he would remove them to the
"rcar and not to the front of advancing emf
"gration TO the vicinity of communities where
emo feeling against Indians exists or If eXer-
"cised. where the law is equally enforced
against ALL and where provisions are plenty
"and cheap" In such locations the red man
would have an opportunity, which be certainly
does not have now, OF acquiring more deslra-
bic habits of civilization than the use OF
whiskey and rifles. He would be under the
influence of settled and industrious cOmmuni-
ties. He could not support himself by the
chase; he can hardly do that now in the most
favorable seasons, and the time is near at
hand when the game will have wholly disap-
reared. But it is not the duty or the policy
of the Government to feed him III idlencss.
Farming he is not fit for; no people ever
passed at once from n nomadic to an agricul-
tura lie but he can be made hcrdsman'
as General Pope himself has proved by
some experiments in a small way. Then under
ciyilizng influences instead of the degrading
and irritating ones which now surround him,
he may be gradually absorbed into the rest of
the population. One way or another the
Indian difficulty ought to be settled at once, if
we expect to save our character ms Christian
nation. We speak of it as "perplexipg;'
perhaps we should he reader to do our duty il
we cleaned to regard it as what ii really is,
orr " disgraCcp