St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-12-11
The Proposition to Establish Indian Ware
houses at st. Paul and Other West
ern Points.
Such a Movement Likely to Bring the Red
Man Much Nearer to Self
Support.
How an Increase of Commissioners
Would be Likely to be Productive
of Good Results,
Advantages ana Disadvantages of the
Establishment of Ware houses
in the West.
Special to the Globe.

York to the West is one which has great
deal more Importance than mere local in
terests seem to place upon it. 1t is queS-
ton which is Intimately connected with the
whole question of the administration of the
Indian office. r. V. Belt. who is chief of
the Indian commission, in the office of Sec
rotary Lamar, and has had long years of
experience in Indian ADMINISTRATORS
man of ripe views ON Indian civilization,
and who is consulted constantly by the sec
rotary and commissioner, says that it would,
in all probability, be the wisest thing to
place Indian warehouses at different points
in tie West, rather than concentrate the
whole machinery of distribution of supplies
in one warehouse in New York city. AS
the Indian Office is now organized. there is
no executive official stationed near the In
dian agencies and tribes. The reports
have to be made from very distant parts of
the country to Washington. where not al
ways the fullest information and compre-
henSiOn OF circumstances are had, and Or
ders are sent out, which, with more init
mate acquaintance with the field from
nearer standpoint of observation, would be
very much modified and for the better. It
is, in all probability. a matter which will
be thoroughly discussed in the Fiftieth
congress, if not this coming session, but
the weight of suggestion and argument
will lie in the direction of dividing the eX-
ecutiye board of the Indian office into at
least three, if not six, Offices, so that there
might be one Of three or two of six sub
commissioners On the Pacific coast and the
rest
THIS SIDE OF THE ROCKIES.
rorN1 <,ffs nj oil To no fo+i OF
points which would be controlled and where
they could receive directly the reports from
agents, inspectors and special officers of the
de Dartment and be able to issue orders
more directly and promptly and effectively
to meet emergencies Mr.. Belt thinks St.
Paul and Kansas City. possibly Denver, San
Francisco and Portland, might be very
wisely taken as points OF distribution where
Indian warehouses might be kept up with
not very greatly increased expenses in the
aggregate. and where sufficient quantity
OF supplies might be in stock, so that when
urgent necessities arlSe-caSeS Of starvation
and OF sudden and unexpected cold weather
-VictualS and clothing might be directly
dispatched to just the point where they
were most needed with great saving of
life and of suffering, and of greatly in
creased usefulness and effectiveness to the
whole Indian service. With this division
of the executive board of the office there
would follow opportunities for introducing
such surveillance of the Indian tribes
which might in very few years result
splendidly for their progress in the arts and
industries of civilization. AS it is now,
the Indian agents are entirely engrossed in
making up their accounts, ordering sup
plies, seeing that they are given to the In
dams at proper weight and proper intervals
and the whole bookkeeping business of the
agencies constantly crowd upon them so
that they
HAVE NO TIME
for anything else. An Indian agent can
not, if he would, go out among the Indians
under his charge and see that they are
blowing their grounds, planting their seed
and gathering their crops as they ought to;
or whether they are sending their children
to the Indian schools and bringing them up
in way to make them self-supporting and
intelligent. So that there really is now no
set of officials, beyond one or two that
might be named, that have for their specific
and exclusive work, charge of the great
problem of civiliZng the Indians. and it is
owing to this insufficiency and incomplete
ness of the Indian office that we are to-day
so much embarrassed by the Indian prob
lem. We have treated the Indians as tribal
nations. and at the same time as wards to
be assisted and protected by the general
government. so that while for years tools,
seed and draught animals have been sup
piled to the Indians to assist them in be-
coming self-supporting by farming, they
are STILL for the most part. backward and
The only way to approach
TO- to- Ind
''Here are the means Of supporting your
selves. Use them as you have agreed to
do in all your treaties for the last twenty
years, or else starve." If there should be
three or six commissioners distributed over
the country there could be placed under
them sufficient staff of special inspectors
TO visit each agency and spend several !
weeks at each in going out among the |
Indians and see that they are making |
progress, to let lands to them in severalty |
and see that this year at each agency so or
100 Indians take farms The next year the |
same official could at the same agency in
duce 100 or 200 Indians to take more farms, |
and in few years the whole question or |
the Indians would be met by |
the fact that the Indians themselves would |
discover the greater advantages in support
ing themselves. They would have more !
money for themselves, better houses, more |
to eat, and their children would grow up to |
know how to
TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES,
TO read and write and to become like white |
men. OF course, there are connected with |
the question now of moving the warehouse
to the west number of difficult problems.
If the warehouse is moved to st. Louis or
Chicago. for instance, as proposed, New
Y DIRK bidders will be obliged to send large
,onsignments of samples to the West at in
creased expense. and as New York can
7ery largely control these bids in certain
ines, especially in clothing or dry goods,
he result might be an increase of cost to
he govern ment in some things. At the
same time Western bidders would have the
advantage of difference in freight and the
government in the cost of shipping from
Chicago or st. Louis to the Indians over the
,ost of shipping from New York to the
indian agencies. But bidders in Chicago
IT st. Louis, having the advantage of
,heaper rents and approximate sources to
God supply, might bid sufficiently lower to
rive the government a considerable adj
To show how this matter of
government bidding goes, Mr.. Belt says
hat for some time Philadelphia bidders
AVE taken contracts for blankets for the
indians. and that the last time contracts
we're let for California mission blankets the
California bidders offered to sell the
blankets required Tor the Pacific coast
indians, laid down in San Francisco. for
higher price than they would sell the same
blankets laid down in New York city.
They supposed they would have no opposi-
ion on these goods, and so proposed to
AXE advantage of the government The
esult was that the Philadelphia people I'M
erbId them and took the contracts. 1t is
,ossibIe that the removal of the warehouse
O the West would considerably upset the
rasont roIat,ons between merchants of the