Morning journal and courier., 1886-01-15

Song-The Highland Emigrant. Miss Simpson Song-A Mans a Man for a That D. Barron Quartette-Biue Bells of Scotland (arranged by
 song"Footsteps fHS in the Snow Mir j. C. Campbell Duet-The Crooked Bawbee. ~ 4isS Cardnar aIGGen
 fRemarks by T. McClelland.
 Song-Ye Banks and Braes. .............D D. Barron Song-The Meid O Dundee. Miss McCabe
 Lang GI syHe Led by
 Alter the concert supper will be served, followed by dancing. The committee having the affair in charge are as follows:
 Committee of arrangements Andrew Curri-
 Reception committee-George Stevenson, James McLay, David Backie.
 NEW HAVEN BRANCH
 WOmen's Indian AssociatiOn-Its
 First Meeting-An Auspic1Ous Be-
 ginning-Mrs. Kinney's Address.
 The first meeting of the New Haven branch of the Women's Indian association was held in the chapel of Center church on Wednes- day afternoon of this week. Mrs. Kinney of Hartford, the president of the association, delivered very interesting address, some portions of which are here given:
 You do not need to have rehearsed to you the history of our century of dishonor; its different phases must be familiar to you; the story is as old as the Mayfower, for, as our good Bishop Williams wittily says, "As soon as the Puritans landed in this country they first fell upon their knees and then upon the Aborigines," and it is very cartain that their descendants have ever since preyed upon the Indian with very much more zeal than they have prayed for him. And I suppose it is scarcely necessary to say that the laborers in this field do not expect to entirely revolu- tionize the Indian race in one year. No! nor in ten years. The kind of work that goes to zH ] which we have to contend must naturally be slow. It takes patience and wisdom and faith to do much for Indians. They are childlike without being childish, and yet mature with the innate demandings of man. hood; therefore, it is difficult to approach them in way to permanently win their re- speet and affection. Once secure these, and their implicit faith is pathetic. It will be a mistake if from abusing the Indian, we suddenly invest him with undue propor- tion of virtue. We should not expect to re- verse the habit of generations in few years. Here and there, and the scattering is gen. erous, there are young men and women eager to take on wider life; they are the leaven; but to expect all to be of this class is to expect that which was never found among any people. According to one of the last reports of the Indian com missioner, there are, in the territory of the United States, exclusive of Alaska, 262, ,366 Indians. It is a mistake to suppose that they decreasing in numbers. Major Lowell, the well known western explorer, affirms that there are just as many Indians in the country to-day as there were when it was discovered. It must be remembered that this includes half breeds as well IS full -blooded Indians.
 The Indian is separated from the rest of our population by two great barriers-the difference of race and the difference of his political position from that of every other man ill the country. For the difference of race we are not responsible. For the bar rier caused by his lack of political status we are as reprehensible as we are responsi- ble. It is scarcely worth ones while to try to combat the too often heard expression that the dead Indian is the only good In dian. Whatever one's personal opinions may be in regard to the moral worth and in tellectual possibilities of this people, the stubborn fact remains that there are in this country nearly 300,000 na- tive American Indians, who must either be supported as paupers by the government, or be put in the way of becoming self-support- ing, sef-respecting citizens The pauper system has been pretty thoroughly tried and both races are suffering from its effects. The civilization of the Indian is matter which concerns the honor of the nation. It is for our interest even more than theirs that they should be civilized, and it is yet to be proved that there is anything in the In dian nature to render this impossible.
 Actual statistics go to prove that it costs the government 50 GOO to shoot one Indian; it certainly would not cost that sum to edu- cate him and put him in the way of making a respectable citizen of himself. The num- Der of Indian children who are of school age, exclusive of the five tribes in whe Indian supporting, is about 34 ,662 The mum Der of schools on reservations is 92 boarding, 105 day, and night schools, by which only 10, 202 children can be ae- commodated, leaving a school population of 24 ,460 without aEy possible means of in struction. In 1868 the government, pledged itself to educate the children on the Rose bud agency in Dakota territory and to pro- vide school for every 30 children between the ages of six and sixteen. This pledge was renewed in the treaty of 1876, yet to-day there is not known to be one school among those 5000 people This is a fair sample of the way our national govern ment keeps its promises to a helpless race In a late report its (then) Secretary of the In- terior compares war expenses with the ex- pense of educating annually 10000: Indian l children, and adds: "It is believed | of between five aud six million | dollars during the next fifteen years for edu- ional!purposes of the class named the dan | ger of Indian outbreaks may be obviated and {! Che great mass of Indian youth, at least made self-supportlng.
 
 what is due them, what it has time and again l promised, but failed to pay them, little more l need be asked. The Indians stand before | the government to-day not as beggars, but as | creditors.* 1 Education will make the Indian more keenly | alive to the fact that he is defenceless be- l fore the law. How can man work or trade | when he cannot bring suit to collect debt, l or to recover his wages? Why should we ex- | pect him to drop his nomadic life and be- | come a thrifty agriculturist when the | scratch of pen in Washington | may at any moment deprive | him of his lands, his crops, his home, and | cut him adrift, to make, if possible, a new home, with the certainty before him that this | disgraceful proceeding will be srepeated 1 whenever the rapacious white squatter de- sires it. "Every human being," says Gov ernor Seymour of New York, ''born upon our continent, or who comes here from any quar- ter of the globe, whether savage or civilized, can go to our courts for protection except those who bslong to the tribes who from the Islands of the Pacific, the worst criminals from Europe, Asia or Africa can appeal to the law and courts for their rights of person and property-all, save our native Indians, who, above all, should be protected from wrong"
 A competent authority insiss that more serious mistake could scarcely have man made than to adhere to the res eryation system "This course more than anything else, has prevented their quick absorption. While the negroes, with no national organization to hold them together, are gradually dissolving into our population, occupying positions subordinate, it is true. but honest and re- spectacle, the Indians have remained in- solvable, bound together by their national entity. By deliberately preserving their na- tional existence we have preserved their manners. laws, habits of from the very nature of their position, draw closer together, and rendered them inaccessible to the influence