The Hartford herald. [volume] (Hartford, Ky.) 1875-1926, 1879-10-29
CORRESPONDENCE.
Washington Letter.
From our regular correspondent

" ho'iE>"io+>i ~ -, po'opei i''''
The Indian troubles, which have oc-
cupied so much attention for some days
past, are likely to pass over without so
serious an outbreak as at first seemed
imminent. But what has already tran
spired revives the talk about our Indian
policy generally, and of the proposed
transfer of the Indian Bureau to the
War Department i'm part ocular. The
Indian problem promises to be one of
the most important questions before
Congress at the approaching session.
Some time ago Congress called upon
the Treasury Department for informa-
t,On as to the amount of money that
had been expended for the Indian SER
vice since the beginning of the Govern
ment, but for the lack of an appropria-
ton to print, hestatement prepared has
not yet been put i'm type. Ii may bc
stated, however, that the footing of this
immense mass of table show that to the
LIST of last July the Government had ex-
pended on account of the Indians, to-
tai of SlSl 100000. The estimated
number of Indians now living is 800, 900.
Indians say that a white man is very
uncertain, and in this Mr.. 10 appears
TO have learned something by expert
ence. Abstractly viewed, a Ute In
dian may be one of natures nOblemen,
but in the concrete, so to remark, the
unadorned reality, he is dirty, thieving
rascal, whose moral sensibilities, if he
ever had any, have been corrupted by
long ASSOCIATION with bad white men.
reservations for such elements, located
in rich mining or grazing regions, have
been, and always will he, adelusion and
snare To both Indian and white man.
Maj. Carson, who has just returned from
the West, says that, while he is not an
expert in Indian matters, the origin of
the present difficulty presents no mys-
terry to him. He says the excitement
in all parts of Colorado over the miner
al development is almost inconceivable.
Everyone has the mining fever, and
stories of suddenly-acquired wealth are
on every tongue. The daily arrivals at
Denver number from 800 to 1000 indi-
viduals- People scarcely stop to talk of
profits amounting to less than millions,
and, more significant than all else, is
the fact that myteriOus rumors are cir
culating of mines i'm the Ute country
richer than have yet been found in the
Leadville region. The Indians know
As well as others that all this means ex-
patriatiOn or determination for them
unless the Federal Government holds
its word as sacred when it pledges it to
the red man as it does when it pledges
it to the white man. Mai. Carson fears
that an army ten times the strength of
that of the Federal Government could
not long protect the Indians under the
circumstances.
After all that has been said about our
Indian policy, and all that has come
from the doings of rascally agents, the
trouble is not so much the result of
that as of an inherently bad system.
The reservation system has been pro-
ductive of i'll results under whatever
policy it has been administered. In
dams will not STAY ON their reservations
and white men will not STAY offofthem.
Year after year the army has been en-
gagged i'm putting Indians ON and white
men off; and one has cursed the army
while the other has fought il. III the
hunting is better offthe reservation than
ON it. the Indian will go off to hunt and
trouble begins. If there is gold or sill
Yer on the reservations, real or sus-
pected, white men will go there to delve
and dig, and again there is war. And
so, if the Indian Bureau cannot take
care of the redskins without the army.
it can take care of them without the aid
of the bureau, and by the transfer all
interests would he as well served. while
several millions would he saved annu-
ally to the Treasury. The fellows who
held STAT POSITIONS" with stealings, i'm
the bureau would be the only sufferers
by tsse change.
The POst-office Department is making
some lively times lately. In his war
on the lottery companies, and refusal to
deliver mail to them, the Postmaster
General will be sustained by public sem
timent; but in one of his late orders
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