The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1891-01-09
THE klMBALL
CLATE II. THAN.
0ffisisiPaper Of the City and County
TIE IND1AN l.Ronx.EM.

WV = .
lar with Gen. MILES recent suggestion
to the government that tho Indian agents
in the Dakotas be relieved and army Of
dcers be placed in charge Of the agencies
pending the Indian disturbance. Gen.
ScoFIELD and the president approved the
plan, as did all OF the cabinet excepting
Secretary NOBLE. He thought he saw a
suggestion of future action by congress
to transfer the control Of the Indians to
the war department and ne very promptly
sat his foot upon the proposition. The
dispatches tell us that oat of courtesy to
NOBLE nothing was done. Courtesy be
hangedl
In Harper's Weekly Of the 9th ulto..
the well-known artist, FREDERICK REM
INGToN, expresses his views very forcibly
OF the Indian question, and scores the
government numerically for its misman-
agement Of these wards. The gifted
artist has passed most of the best years
of his life on the plains and no man,
probably, can treat the subject more in
diligently. His article is too lengthy
for our columns or we would publish it
entire. The gist of it Is that the Indians
should be turned over to the wal depart
ment.
"The lowest type Of italian or Hunger
ian. immigrant has little or ne compre-
hensi0n Of American government or civ
ilization," he says. "Most Of them could
not tell the difference between the Con-
%stitution and a coal scuttle. The Indians
are more enlightened, for they have at
least Il distinct impression regarding
the government. They know that it
never keeps its word. Any old chief will
tell YOU that white men are all liars, and
ii you press him regarding it he will
prove it, and the only exception he will
make is the white soldier. This class of
men has formed a decided respect for the
Indians, OH the principle Of that strange
liking you have for a man after you have
once fought him. Every young West
Pointer learns early in his career never
to speak anything but the exact truth to
al Indian. Above wealth, wife, children
and civil renown, there is one thing an
Indian holds next to his God, and around
their mind is emblazoned a halo of him
who can fight and die. A soldier-that is
the man whose image fills all Indians
eye. The how and the lance were the
embicms of all that vas noble in the old
days, and u little man in q blue uniform
10 the only thing good about the white
people which an Indian ever saw. He
represents courage, courtesy, justice and
truth; and while the civil agents sent out
from Washington to dole cut bad and in
sufficient ratiOns to aconguered race NAV
receive the homage, they can never com
mand tho respect of the wild tribes" and
he asks:
After two centuries Of civil alministra
ton with its agents, its treaclery, It's in
etiiciency,and at times its horrible cor
ruptions, where are jhe Indians? Such
as have survived the aooao white immi-
grafton are living in poverty and ignor-
ance. They have never attained even an
ordinary state OF industrial progress. 1T
seems no amount of explaining will ever
suppress that inevitable question "Why
do they not faTm?'
Mr.. REMINGTON then shows that while
farming is carried on to q more or less
extentln the Indian territory the progress
OF the tribes there is due to the fact that
many Of them are half White in their
blood and that they Were corn-plaAters
from remote times, "0n theotier hand,''
he continues. 'tle buff l,p-eating inIi ans
ara steadily Tetiograaiag. The Chpy-
canes, Sioux, %Comanctlrs, Kiowas and
Arapahoes live west OF tharain belt, aud
it is exceptional when a corn crop can be
raisel once in four years. That seems
to be reason enough to deter white men
from farming there and ought to at least
account for the Indians lack of success
All these reports of Indian agents to their
departments about the industrial and
especially the agricultural progress
of their wards are gilded, to say
tho least and i'll a great many in
stances You can rub off the gilt and dis
close simple, commonplace lies, with no
foundation whatever in fact. But the
Indian agents are simply men who are
occupying a political appointment for a
brief term, and they do many things
which are not high-minded."
"The Northwest is dotted over wit h
soldiers sleeping out in the SHOWS of the
winter because Of the mismanagement of
the Indian Bureau. With an instance of
this incompetency before their eyes nearly.
half the time, people in the East ought to
understand, and every mar who in the.
West comes near enough tie get the stencil
cannot but know its rottenness. It's I'M
christian, it's inhuman, it's vile. 1t is a
constantly recurring old story--a gross
case of Encouragement. And then tho
army is called in to be responsible-to
protect the lives of the settlers, and in
hese days to shoot down a people who
have the entire sympathy Of every soldier
in the ranks"
As said at the beginning, Mr.. REMING-
TONS idea is to turn the Indians over to
the war department. The wal depart
ment could then organize them into a
semi-industrial military force. Put uni
form on an Indian and he will do any
thing, he says, and work at anything.
He says that il is no new experiment,
but that it has been tried thoroughly
and With the most satisfactory results,
many instances Of which he cites.
Minncsota's beautiful Lake Minnetsnka
seems to be sharing The fate OF the ponds