New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1889-09-13
NEU- yORE,S INDIAN PROBLEM.

The Indians living in this State number
about 5000, and control nearly $4,000 acres
If land. Nevertheless, Newly ork cannot be
said TO have an Indian policy worth speaking
Of. Certainly she has none to be proud Of
II is MANY years since the State has made any
serious effort to improve the condition of these
wards. In 1888 the Assembly appointed a
sDecial committee which was charged with the
duty Of investigating and ascertaining the
social. moral and industrial condition of the
several tribes Of Indians in this Stateo This
committee handed in it's report last February.
II was interesting and valuable. 1t proved
concIusively that New FORK owed it to herself
to grapple with the Indian problem without
DELAY As result of its Investigations the
committee made a number of recommendations.
The chief Of these was that the lands of the
several reservations @ be allotted in severalty
among the members of the tribe" This allot-
ment. the committee pointed out, Fought not
to be limited to division of the possession
Of the land, but should comprise radical up
roofing of the whole tribal system, giving to
each individual absolute ownership of his share
of the land in Fee"
Interest in this subject is revived by the adj
dress which Judge Draper, Superintendent of
Public Instruction, made before the Buffalo
prcsbytery few days ago. In his annual re-
port for 1888 the Judge, in paragraph treat
ing Of the Indian schools, used this plain Ian
guage:
There are eight reservations covering mora than
1000 acres of land llable and beautiful as any
I'm the state. Not acre in a hundred IS cultivated
Upon each reservation there is tribal organization
which assumes to allOt lands and TO remove settlers
at will, so that no permanent Improvements are pos
siblc In numbers they Increasing rather than
dyndIing away The reservations nests Of un
controlled vice where wedlock IS commonly treated
with indifference, where superstition egns supreme
and where impure ceremonies are pracilsed by pagans
with an attendance of both and all ages, where
there Is 10 law 10 project one or punish another
where the prevailing social and industrial state is one
Of chronic barbarisni and where the English language
IS not known or spoken by the women and children
aud by only a part OF the men. All this IS In The
heart Of our orderly aud Christian state
The Buffalo presbytery contended that this
Indictment did not hold good so fan as the
reservations which it supervised were Gon-
cerned, referring to the Cattaraugus, Allegany,
TuScarora and Tonawanda. Judge Diapers
address was in the nature Of reioinder. He
stood by his original assertions, and referred
to the fact that they had been practically sub
Stantiated by the testimony taken before the
Assembly Committee. He denied that he had
been guilty of making hasty congratulations on
insufficient data. 81 have relied,' he said,
upon sworn statements of numerous persons
hotter informed upon this whole subject than
any others in the State. The long list of wit
ncsses comprises many of our most prominent
rhiIanthropists who have Investigated the sub
iect for the good they might do some of our
public officers who have come into official re-
lations with it, many professional and business
men who have had dealings with this people,
farmers who have lived upon their borders
clergymen at their msSion-stations, teachers
employed in their schools and many of the more
prominent Indians themselves" Before con-
Guiding his address the Judge expressed him
self emphatcally in favor Of the abandonment
of the reservation system, arguing that after
one hundred years of trial it stands oVerwhelm-
ingy condemned as protecting and perpetual
ing all that is opposed to Christian civilization.
IT is to be hoped that the address will serve
to stimulate public discussion of this important
subject. and that the next Legislature will take
decisive action upon the report of last year
The Committees on Indian Affairs OF the two
houses are commonly regarded As OF no ac-
count so that their charmanShipS go begging
But it is clear that there is a splendid field for
a lofty aubition in those bodies. The legis-
ator who successfully addresses himself to
Ncw-York'S Indian problem will be regarded
bv his fellow -citizenS as a public beneGactor
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