The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-07-16
THE ARMY AND THE INDIANS.
The Secret of Some of the Charges Made
Against Indian Agents.

San Francisco Chronicle.
Officers Of the army continue if not to justify
at least to palliate the recent Indian uprising
Two reports of General Pope both eight years
old, are published by the Associated Press. in
which it is broadly stated that the government
is starving the Indians to death The General
puts the case epigrammaticallv when he says
that the troops are required to compel the In
dians to starve to death, be killed if they are
not willing to do it, Another officer, who is said
to have high position at Washington, says that
he cannot blame the Indians. They have no
food, and the government is not feeding them.
They get cattle weighing one half or one-fourth
of what their contract calls for, and are system
atically cheated By dealers and agents
Now these are pretty serious charges, and call
for immediate and thorough investigation. We
have no hesitation in saying that we do not be-
lieve them For thirty years the army has been
scheming to get control of the Indians and to
wrest that lucrative branch of the public ser
vice out of the hands Of the Interior Department.
1t has been dinned into our for yeasr that the
Indian agents were all thieves that they were
rObDing the Indians to make fortunes for them
selves; and that the only for the evil was to
place the Indians under the control of the War
Department, and to put every reservation under
the command of an army officer The govern
ment has ever turned deaf ear to this sugges-
ton, because to comply with it would have been
to cumulate two separate, distinct, and often
lrreconclllable duties on one set of officials. The
business of the army Is to fight the Indians the
business of feeding and converting them into cit
liens belongs to entirely different class of per-
An army officer is the right man in the right
place when be takes the command of his regi-
ment or his company; he would be- in the wrong
place if he were appointed to dry-nurse a lot of
Indian squaws and papooses on a reservation
For this reason, though every War Secretary,
and every leading general since the days of Gen.
Pierce, has advised the transfer of the Indian
bureau to the army, the government has always
refused to do so.
We repeat, we do not believe that Geronimo
or the Mescaleros Apaches, or the Utes or the
Cheyennes have been starved Certainly Gen
eral Crook IN his report of last year, limited at
nothing of the kind, so far as the San Carlos
reservation was concerned. But, coming as the
charge does from responsible officers Of the
army in high command, it is proper that it
should be eXhaustivey investigated. Mr.. Lamar
owes it to himself to inquire what foundation
there is for the statements made, and if any of
the Indian agents have been guilty of the
offenses imputed ito them by generals Iof the
army, Their punishment cannot be too swift or
too severe. We are much mistaken if even par
tisanshp would screen Secretary of the In
terror from impeachment if it could be proved
that he had connived at such infamies In the
meantime, stories of Indian starvation, coming
Hom officers who admit they cannot blame the
Indians who massacred Judge McComas and his
wife and carried off their little son to die of cold
and hunger in the mountains had best be re-
ceived with a great deal of caution.