Morning journal and courier., 1882-01-19
Thursday Morning, Jan. 19, 1882.
PROGRESS IN A GOOD WORK.

PROGRESS IN A GOOD WORK.
 Walter Allen, the Washington correspon- dent of the Boston Adcertiser, thinks there has hardly been a more notable example of the influence of public opinion and the con yictions of the serious, thinking people of the land upon the politicians. than is now manifest in the temper of Congress touching Indian affairs. From all over the land there are coming petitions and memorials asking Congress to take measures for the better management and the more certain elevation of the Indian race under the care of the gov ernment. Three demands are prominent. They are for education, for individual owner ship of land and for the protection of the laws; and these demands are made not only by 'sentimentalists" and by philanthropists, but by hard headed men of affairs who have awakened to a sense of the real condition of matters as regards the Indians, and by the Indians themselves, who have been taught by several recent events to see more clearly their way out of the life of the past into indepen- dence and better relation with their white neighbors in the future. These reiterated and emphasized demands producing an 4ApI0SblOu uJOu u1luuS OI 41OL1DCAo OA Congress, and Mir. Allen thinks it doubtful if we see many more such exhibitions of con- tempt and bitter hostility towards Indians because they are Indians as have been seen in the past.
 The Indians themselves, says Mir. Allen, see, as they have not seen before, in what respects the white race is their superior and they are becoming ambitious of attempting to share with white men all the advantages of citizenship and civilization. The great work done by the schools at Hampton and Carlisle and Forest Grove has produced it's effect, and there are many more requests on the part of Indian parents that their children may be placed in these schools to learn the arts and the ways of life of white men than can be granted. They are beginning to show a hunger for education not unlike that shown by the colored race when it was freed from slavery. With regard to the ownership of lands they are also deeply interested. They understand we'll enough that the reservation system heretofore applied to them affords them little real protection and no security They want to own land in seyeralty by 8 white mans title, which they know cannot be arbitrarily and wantonly wrested from them. They are beginning to understand also, especially those who live in the near vicinity of the whites, the great difference between being subject to the will of man, be he agent or great father, or great soldier, and being subject to laws binding upon all and protecting all equally They are more than ever convinced that there is nothing more to be gained by war. They know that the game is disappearing, that hunting af- lords only the most precarious means of subsistence, and if they and their children are to continue to live in the land, they must necessarily learn to live upon what is pro- duced from the earth by labor, as white men do.
 All this is very cheering. It has taken a long while for the idea that the Indians should be treated justly to really penetrate Washington. It is to be hoped that it is there to stay and have it's proper influence.