Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1890-05-30
And Says They Are Destined to Be-
come Absorbed Into National
Life as Americans.
Industrial Training Schools Are to
be Established at or Near the
Reservations,
And Bismarck Stands a Good Show
OF Getting the School for
North Dakota.

lhoPOoAN"A'J
When Justice Lamar was secretary of
the interior, he declared in the first an
nual report of his department that the
Indians must become civilized and adopt
the habits of the whites, or become ex-
tinct. In the discovery of this alterna-
tive destiny of the aboriginal races "a
sort of rain or shine prognostic,) the
secretary was thought by the demo-
cratic press to have clipped into the
future as far as the human eye could
see,'' and little farther than any of his
predecessors had. A preponderancc of
official opinion inclining to extinction,
may account for the failure of the de-
partment under the democratic regime
to have pursued a more enlightened
policy.
With the present administration there
are no crossroads of policy. Commits
sioner Morgan, in one of his circulars
says: ''Ihe Indians are destined to be-
come absorbed into the national life, not
as Indians, but as Americans:
The commissioner, with corps of able
assistants, has surveyed the route by
which the Indians are to march
FROM THE WILDERNESS OF sAvAGERY
to the promised land Of civilization. The
theory is that if Indians are by Ameri-
cans kept on the level of savagery, it is
because Americans themselves have
never risen to the highest plane of
humanity.
Aristotle defines citizen as one en-
titled to share in the government OF his
country. Treaties are international in
their character and the use of such in
struments by the government IN nego.
tiating with the Indians emphasizes the
fact that we have never recognized the
community of interest in this country
between Americans and Indians
In an address to the Massachusetts,
club some time since, General Morgan
said ian agent not now in the service ar
rested and had brought before hin an
Indian preacher, an intelligent man. He
tried, condemned and sent him to prison
for what? The man had been guilty
of instructing his people in the constitu-
tion of the United States, and of dwell
ing upon the idea that they we're men,
with the rights of manhood
It is exactly this idea the commissioner
desires to inenlcate and the whole ener-
gy the department. will be devoted to the
the scheme.
# Americans as we'll as Indians will have
) to be educated to this idea Of
POLITICAL PARTNERSHIP;
+ but the latter must also be prepared and
i qualified for the performance of the i'm
portaa 1t functions of citizenship.
Citizenship, with us sovereignty, is not
] to be conferred upon the untutored
I Indian, until
Ills soul. proud science shall haze taught to
r Far from the habits of his lowly way.
This duty pertains Immediately to the
administration of the Indian bureau.
The obstacles are numerous and formida-
EDle, involving the ultimate abolition of
the agency system; but nothing daunted
/ the commissioner has set vigorously to
work to surmount them. -
The cornerstone Of the system, which
the present administration has inaugura-
i ted, consists in the education of the
rising generation mot wholly upon the old
lines at the eastern colleges, whence the
! &Fhuudtes ieuuIu ~ coAUauI conuACAJn
4 1as Senator Pettigrew remarked, half
1 dude and half Indian, unable to with
stand the ridicule Of their tribe), but in
home institutions where the reflex effect
upon The elders will perceptlbly elevate
/ the morale of the tepee. a
Anyone who has examined this sys-
tenn, which is in vogue at Standing Rock
under the efficient management OF Maj.
{ Me- cLaughlin, will not doubt it's success
! full application to other agencies.
John Stuart Mill says that what nature