Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-12-01
sEoRErARY TELLER,s REPORT.

The report of the Secretary of the Inter
ior for the past year is the first of the
series of department reports that has yet
come to hand and an extended portion
of its contents, taken from advanced sheets
will be found in the columns of GLOBE
this morning. In his discussion of Indian
affairs the secretary makes some sweeping
but salutary recommendations. He de-
clare5 the time has come when the Indian
must either be raised from his
existing condition of barbarism, by
the adoption of the white mans ways or
be swept away by the vices of savage life,
intensified by contact with civilization.
AS the Indian has given evidence that he
is capable of advancement, Mr.. Teller
urges the government to bestow upon him
the necessary aid for accomplishing that
end. The principal provisions which he rec
| ommends are, briefy,as follows: The Indian
should be placed in a permanent home;
the reservations should be reduced and
! the surplus in excess of the requirements
of the Indians be bought by the govern
ment and be parcelled out to actual set
| tiers, tho proceeds from such sales to be
| used in the purchase of stock and farming
implements and in the edu-
| cation of their youth; and
above all he should be disarmed and laws
should be enacted for his protection, not
however at his dictation but such as en-
Iightened philanthropy determines for his
| benefit. He must not only have the pro-
of 1or I,rf ba la -
| it's provisions. In word he is to be made
| to adapt himself to civilized methods by
gradual but imperative process, calcu-
lated to wean him from his barbarous in
clinations and to stimulate his ambi-
ton for becoming self-sustaining.
A majority of Secretary Tel
ler's recommendations have been
suggested before, and many of them have
already been practically tested. But such
experiments have only been made in isol-
| ated cases, such as the captured Cheyennes
now engaged in farming in eastern
Montana, and some other similar in
stances. The plan has been found to
work we'll, and it's adoption by the
| govern ment, as a settled and uniform pol
ICY, to be enforced upon all the Indians in
the country alike, will, after the first natura
antagonism on the part of some tribes has
| worn OFF, result to the advantage OF both
races, bat especially that of the red man.
tary's suggestions, and one which in the
light, past history there is small reason to
/ believe can be carried out in its full
spirit, is the assumption that under the
new dispensation the Indians will
be treated with absolute justice
by the government in the matter of re-
ceiving compensation for his lands and
for the abandonment of his cherished ira
ditions. But at all events he will be great
ly raised in the ocial scale, and 1t is hard
lily probable that the new system
will subject him to any greater degree of
imposition and fraud than he at present
enjoys.
In reference to the public lands the sec
retlry's report shows an enormous in
crease in the cash receipts and acreage of
settlement under the various land
laws over those of previous years. He
advocates the adjustment of the pre-
smption law as superhuous and of the
timber caItgre law as being so great an
instrument of fraud. On the subject of
land grants he reiterates the
well established proposition that
forfeiture by railroad companies on &C
account of non-fulfllment of their con-
tracts, cannot be declared by the execu-
tive department of the government, but BY
lhe legislative branch only.
The report comprises in addition, state
ment of the condition of the Pension Bu-
reau and variety of suggestions in connec-
ton with the National park, the census, the
educational bureau, Mormenism, the gov
eminent of Alaska, and the other branch
es of the public service over which the
multifarious interior department has cog
nizance.