Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-04-12
BELroRD ON THE INDIAN QUESTION:.
Judge Bedford, of Colorado. is said to

homestead entry have not all been taken
up. In fact the country is scarcely popu.
lated at all, and therefore it cannot be in
ferred that Judge Bedford is inspired by a
desire to make room for settlers. His
theories in regard to the Indians are per-
haps characterized by western vigor,"
but they certainly do not warrant the con-
clusion that he has given any attention to
the history OF the relations between the
| Government and the Indians. He com.
plains that the latter occupy 236, 900
square miles of territory, and that they do
not cultivate it. And he holds that they
should not be allowed to occupy any land
which they do not cultivate. But he ap.
parently fails to remember that originally
the Indians held the whole country that
they were the owners of it when the white
man came here that they have gradually
been dispossessed, by force and fraud, of
their patrimony and that in consideration
of the fact that the white man has robbed
and abused them from the beginning, they
may be assumed to have some right to the
comparatively meager territory which has
been reserved for them.
The Indians have been treated by the
American people and Government with
scandalous baseness, cruelty and dishon-
esty, and it is adding insult to injury when
hair-brained, clustering demagogues like
this an Belford thrust their worthless
and Guide opinions upon the public, and
demand, under cover of buncombe plati-
tudes, thai the nations victims shall, after
all the solemn pledges made to them, be
oncemore stripped of the little property that
remains to them, for the benefit of con.
scienceless land sharks and knavish specula-
tors. The pretense that land for purposes of
settlement is needed in Colorado is false
and fraudulent. The proposition to deprive
the Utes Of their reservation is impudent
and shameful. In the first place the Gov
ernment cannot do such thing without
committing breach of faith which would
disgrace it, and in the second place it
could not do it without bringing on an In.
dian war. No doubt Belford would like
to produce just this result, for he and his
supporters in Colorado have already ac-
CURED an evil notoriety for the audacious
disregard of treaty stipulations which they
have advocated, and it is we'll known that
they represent that dangerous class of ad.
venturers who are always endeavoring to
foment trouble with the Indians for the
profit to be made of it.
The principal objection to the new Sec
rotary of the Interior is his relations to
these men. He himself has become asso-
ciated with thorough vicious and indie
feasible Indian policy, and it is to be feared
that he too will try to introduce vigorous
Western ideas into his course on this
question. But it will be an eternal dis.
credit to the nation if men of this stripe
are allowed to apply their pernicious the
cries. The Indian question owes nine
tenths of all it's perplexities, not to the in.
capacity of the Indians for civilization,
but to the inability Of the United States
Government to secure the Indian admins
tration from the thieves and rascals who
for generation after generation have fiocked
to 1t as their most profitable field for en-
terprise. 1t is not permissible for Belford
to assume that the Indians cannot be civil
lied. The actual fact is that no earnest and
at the same time intelligent effort to civil
ize them has yet been made. 1t is, of
course, not to be supposed that the habits
and customs which are the growth Of ages
can be changed in few years. There are
many of Belford's constituents who, after
all their civilized associations, are infinitely
more dangerous savages than the Utes
The froAtier territory has developed class
of the worst ruffans that ever travestied
civilization, and unfortunately the Indians
have seldom came in contact with any
other specimens of American culture and
progress. If we wait only until they are
the equals of these people, we shall not
have long to wait, but it is hardly worth
| while to give them an aborted civilization
as their model.
The influence of men like Bedford upon
the Indian question is prejudicial. Their
superficial and brutal views may be ap.
proved and echoed on the borders, but the
public opinion OF those regions is not by any
means the voice of the American people,
and it must not be taken as guide. The
men who assert that "The only good Indian
:" is dead Indian, are, nine times out OF
ten, men who have never treated Indians
otherwise than as brutes, aud who have
earned and deserved all the enmity they
have experienced at the hands of the red
man. If these people had their way the
Indians would no doubt be exterminated
in a few years, and their last acre OF land
would be seized by land thieves. But the
American people owe some duties to the
race they have despoiled and wronged,
and we do not believe that they are pre-.
pared to indorse the policy of greed and
treachery which Belford of Colorado and
his school advocate. The United States
Government is bound in honor to employ
every rational method for the gradual
civilization of its wards, and since this
must under any circumstances be long
process, it is also bound to provide for
them, during the transition period, the
means by which they can follow the modes
of life to which they have been trained
and accustomed, and to deprive them of
which would be unpardonably cruel and
unjust.
A REMARKABLE STATEMENT.
1