The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1880-04-23
SENATOR PLUMB's VIEWS ON THE.
INDIAN QUESTION.

I
| his discretion, appropriate an amount
! thereof, not exceeding $4,000, for the
| education, in schools established beyond
the limits Of the lands selected, OF such
| youths of both sexes rs in his judgment
may be best qualified to make profcien-
| cy in practical industries and pursuits
necessary for their selfsupport
Mr.. Plumb-Mr. President, one asser-
| ton Is just As good as another. ! there
fore put on record my assertion against
that of Captain Pratt, and say that edu-
cation will never do anything for the
settlement of the Indian question. have
| seen something of the Indian in nv
| time; and it has not been greatly to his
advantage. There is no possible educa-
/ ton that can ever be given 10 a full-blo0d-
ed Indian. or one possessing Il large
amount of Indian blood in his veins,
| which will ever enable him to compete
10 any considerable degree in an indus
| trial occupation or employment You
might turn all the Indians that could be
educated at Carlisle barracks for the next
| fifty years into Pennsylvania, and the
Indians would staTve to death in com.
petition with the people of Penn
| sylvania. The only thing that the
Indian is lit for, when it comes to an
industrial occupation, is the lower
branches of agriculture; something that
Is in its nature passive, something
that requires no perceptible intelligence.
re is no more capable of improvement
i'll the sense in which we ordinarily use
the term thai wild beast You may
gorge him as you may gorge rattle
| snake, and of course by just as much as
you gorge him his appetite for rapine
and pluuder is lost. The entire effect of
it is that he is simply less savage in the
sense of hostile manifestations of that
sort; but SO far from being of any use to
himself as Il member of society, that idea
| Is, to use common phrase, CANNON.
l say nothing about the obligations of
humanity We have certain obligations
to the Indians which am not disposed
SO far as | am concerned, to disregard
but when it comes TO talk about educat-
ing them and making them factor of
civilization, that is one of those things
which can not possibly result from any
thing we can do.
The opinions that are expressed here
result from an absence of contact with
Indians. The original New Highlander,
for whom | have just as much respect
as its worthy descendant here on my
right MIR. Dawes or any other person,
treated the Indians Just exactly as the
western people do, and made just such a
compact with them as the necessary Gu
pidity which they had for his land and
all sorts of things led them to make, but
by lack of proximity of course their feel
ings are looSened up, so TO speak; they
do not feel so hostile toward them as they
did before. They deal now with the In
dams at distance of fifteen hundred
miles. The Indian is nothing to them
No citizen of Massachusetts or of New
England knows anything of those peo-
pie unless he happens to go out on the
frOnfinr Tho Of
are not related to this question in prac-
teal way II all. If they were there
would be plenty of Miles Standishes and
men of that sort who would come to the
front and solve the Indian question in
the only practical manner.
Mr.. Morgan-I ask the senator wheth
er he thinks that three-fourths of the
adult male members of the Ute tribe
now in Colorado are capable of under
standing and adopting this act of con-
gress which we are about to pass?
Mr.. Plumb do not think they are.
In fact my opinion is quite unanimous
upon that point. They will understand
a thing that is made practical to their
apprehension by the point of the bayo-
net or by hunger or by some equal force
of that sort, and that is all they will I'M
derstand. Still we are bound to legislate
for them. We have got to the point
where this question has to he met We
have got to the end of the string. 1t has
been gush and scntimentalism, and then
something else We have dealt with
them with milk and water, when we
ought 10 have dealt with them with an
iron hand. OF course the result is, when
we have dealt with them in that lenient
way, great outbreaks, and then we must
deal with them the other way and apply
the army.
n great deal has been said about out
RACES committed upon the Indian. and
what is due to him. l have not heard a
word said here upon this floor. and
have not seen anything quoted in the
press about the damages the Indian has
done TO the white man. 1t seems that
the men on the western frontier, the men
who have been killed upon the frontier
endeavOring 10 settle upon the public
lands surveyed and opened to public set
tlement, who were invited to go there,
have not had an advocate or even an
apologist here at all A year ago last
September a band of Cheyenne Indians
broke away from their reservation in the
Indian Territory and went across the
frontier to Kansas. Every single acre of
land they traversed in that state was
public land. There was not an acre of
Indian land on their route. Every acre
of it was land that had been surveyed
many years since. Every acre of ii was
land that the United States government
had by express statute invited the people
of the United States to go upon and set
tie there. Ninetenths of all the people
who were on the frontiers were men who
had gone there from the eastern states.
There were men there from New York
and Massachusetts and Vermont and Hi
nois, and in fact that eclectic compost
nf olI 80
present.
Over forty of those persons living
there, without the least hint or insinua-
ton of danger, were killed. Nameless
outrages were committed upon fifteen or
twenty of their wives and daughters.
Yet that conduct on the part of these In
dlans never has been characterized here
or elsewhere as it ought to have been.
When we come to consider these cues
tions, whether by appropriation or by
treaty or by what not, we have always
considered them upon the basis of JUS
tice to the Indians without reference to
that which is due to the frontiersman
who has been inevitably but necessarily
crowding the Indians to the wall. But
IN this case, as in nine-tenths of the cas-
es of outrages of this kind, there was no
contract except such as was invited by
the government itself. The white man
was not in the way of the Indian; the
white man did not seek an acre ofhis land
he was not within fifty or one hundred
miles of the reservation even. He was
just precisely where the government of
the United States had invited him to go.
He was just where the government of
the United States had said that no In
dams and especially none of those par
ticular Indians ever should go; and yet
they did go there and they did murder
the white settlers and outrage their wo-
men, and it has been spoken of simply
as one of those things which are inevtia-
bic in the settlement of the frontier and
not one that called for the condemnation
of the Indians at all
Mr.. President, shall vote for the bill, |
probably, if it does not get too many
amendments on it of the Kind proposed |
by the Senator from Massachusetts, Just
because l thiuk on the whole it is the |
best thing that can be done. l propose
to accept the inevitable. The people of |
Colorado have rights TO respect. The bill |
Is not up to the sentiment of that coun- |
try or any just sentiment founded upon |
the actuIl knowledge of facts, but we |
have got TO take it, as / said, as we can |
get 1t. Ii IS probably as good as the |
American Congress, formed as II is now,
Will give. 1t is half step in the right |
direction: 1t is halting decision, to go |
forward hereafter in a different way /
from what VIC have heretofore gone, and |
to that extent and for that reason ! shall |
vote for the bill But object To any
anticipation that may be derived from |
the bill of the Kind spoken of by |
the Senator from Massachusetts in /
the way of education, under the direction |
of the president, at Carlisle Barracks or |
Hampton Roads or the Uintah Valley or |
anywhere else on the superstition that |