The New York herald., 1879-02-11

ment.
Senator McCreery delivered yesterday
speech of great interest, which filled the
galleries, on the bill for transferring Indian
affairs from the Department of the Interior
to the Department of War. The HERALD
has long been convinced of the expediency
of this change, and the arguments with
which We have supported it gain new
strength and cogency from year to year.
The steady progress of events demonstrates
the inefficiency, imbecility, bloody cruelty
and needless massacres which attend the
present system, and which grow worse and
worse as time wears on.
We have frequently set forth the nature
of the situation, and do not know that any
possible restatament could add to the clear
ness of our former representations The
controlling facts OF the new situation have
arisen since the construction Of the Pacific
Railroad and the consequent extension OF
mining enterprises in the heart of the In
dian country. Agriculture naturally follows
mining, since the miners must in some way
be fed, and the expense of transporting
their food thousands of miles gives to the
neighboring growers of grain and vegeta-
bles O protection of three or four hum
dred per cent on their products. The
consequence is that the Indian country is
rapidly filling up, or rather is beginning to
be filed up, with enterprising white set
tiers, who need protection against their
savage neighbors. The immense herds of
buffaloes which used to roam over the
plains and supply food to the Indians are
getting thinned out, and since hunger
knows no law the rising settlements in that
region are likely to suffer more and more
from predatory Indians, who will rob rather
than starve, and whose incursions will stir
up the white settlers to vengeance. It is
obvious that the extension of our settle
ments will breed incessant Indian wars.
The situation has become SO grave that it
already demands, and will in a few years
compel, total change in our Indian policy.
Assuredly, we are not to surrender that
vast region to predatory tribes Of roaming
savages. who will be driven by the extinc-
ton of game to prey upon the crops and
cattle of white settlers. The two races can
not live together in peace as neighbors
under the new circumstances, with the ap-
preaching extinction of the buffalo on one
side, and the increasing crops of the settlers
on the other side TO tempt the hunger-bitten
savages to save themselves from starvation
by raids upon cattle and crops. Nothing
is more clearly written in the book of des-
tiny than that we must surrender that vast
portion of our territory to the Indians or
that we must clear them out and relieve
the white inhabitants from the robberies,
scalping, massacre and incendiaxism to
which they will be constantlysexposed II
savage neighbors are tolerated to prowl
about their settlements
Unless we are willing to shock humanity
by the utter determination of the Indians
there is but one rational policy to pursue.
That rational policy is precisely similar to
the one which was adopted forty or fifty
years ago with reference to the tribes east
of the Mississippi. when the government,
actuated by wise and humane considers
tions and with q politic union Of
force and persuasion. caused their re-
moval to the Indian Territory. That re-
moval was the only really great thing
ever done in our management Of the Ind
ians. The tribes SO removed give us no
subsequent trouble, and the statistios of
their crops, cattle and houses, recently pub
lished. prove that they are living in comfort
and abundance in the Territory assigned
them. That great task needs to be repeated
with respect to the trans Mississippi Ind
ians. The successful removal during the
administration of Jackson and the first
years of the administration of Van Buren
of the Creeks, the Chickasaws, the Choc-
taws, the Potawatamies, the Ottawas, the
Chippewas, and, though last not least,
the Cherokees, put an end to the
Indian question on this side of tho
Mississippi. It must be remembered
that our now fourishing States on
he east banks Of the Mississippi were then
new and sparse settlements. and that the
presence among them Of powerful Indian
tribes was constant source OF quarrels and
danger-that is to say, it was o condition of
things similar to that which will soon exist
among our new settlements in the great re-
gion traversed by the Rocky Mountains
The same evil demands the Same remedy.
The rowing tribes of predatory Indians
must be persuaded or compelled to take up
o permanent residence in q restricted terri
tory assigned them by the government.
Whether this is done by persuasion or COM
pulsion, or by both combined, it can only
be done with efficiency, nay, it can only be
done at all, by military methods.
There is species of subiimated but abb
surd humanitarianism which has been
brought into play for tho last eight or ten
years with reference to the Indians. We
are in entire accord with the pacific Quakcrs
and other squeamish Christian philanthro-
pists in their amiable sentiment that per-
suasion is much better instrument than