The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-08-04
CHEROKEE CIVILIZATION.

CHEROkEE CIVILIZATION.
The Cherokee election took place yester-
day. The Cherokees have no taxes to pay;
there is no public debt; there are no pau
pers; the law furnishes the Indian with
home; little work gives him food and
clothing; his schooling he receives for
nothing; his land is at his disposal for
ever. Nevertheless the Cherokee, because
of this extreme state paternalism, is with
out ambition; non-progressive; generally
dirty, and not seldom ignorant. The
Cherokee constitution secures the ma
tionaiization of land as the property of all
that cannot be given away to the few. The
improvements descend to the heirs of the
citizen, or may be sold by him, but the
land can never be his. although he may
devise and sell his tenant right Here, then,
ifanywhere, the national ownership of land
ought to produce fiattering results. The
climate is excellent, there is good sys-
tenn of police laws and government and
good degree of material civilization.
The nation owns the land; there is more
than enough and the national revenue
does away with all necessity of taxing the
land. The state furnishes the citizen with
oil the land he wants; every public want
and expense is paid by the income from the
nations bonds. leases of mines, lands, etc.,
and yet the result is that half of the Chero-
kee nation is contented to eat, drink and
sleep as effortless and spiritless creature
as the indolent, giided youth that stare all
day long out of the windows of a fashion,
able New York club, because they can, as
they fondly believe, afford to do no manual
labor except when they need cut off a cou-
pom in order to buy pool or charter
concubine. Paternal support in govern
ment works the same mischief to the aver
age Cherokee that paternal support or in
herited income works to the average idle
rich mans son.
The state furnishes the average Chero-
kee with ample and secure opportunity to
eat, drink, sleep and be merry, and, there
fore, the average Cherokee, feeling no spur
on his flank. behaves just like the average
gilded youth who knows from early bow
hood that he is either rich in his own
right or will be ultimately rich when he
inherits his fathers millions. 1t holds
generally true that the average man is Just
as lazy as he thinks he can afford to be; or,
to put ii in another form: "No man will
work any harder than he is obliged to-"
The Cherokee and the gilded youth both
are content with the effortless existence Of
a man who feels that he can afford to be as
INDECENT as gypsy and as purposeless as
tramp. The Cherokee is failure
because of the extravagant paternalsm of
his government: just as the gilded snob
and yawning dude is a failure because of
the extravagant paternalism of his private,
social and family circumstances.
Every Cherokee child is born with sill
yer spoon in his mouth furnished by the
state just as the rich city lounger and
yawning dude is born with a silver spoon
in his mouth marked with the family
crest. In both cases you get an non-progres-
sive class that fails to fulfill any of the
conditions or attainments of true civil-
cation. If every white child in America
was born with silver spoon in his mouth
or give the spoon away, we would
have Cherokee civilization in its
absence of ambition, aspiration and
| progress; it might be comfortable. mechan-
| ically moral; free from pauperism, except
| universal poverty of brains; il would be
utterly eiiortless, and without influence,
because by force of circumstances all
Il.
eliminated from its scheme of social exist
ence. The Cherokee and the New York
listless lounger, who is lazy because he is
well fixed for life, are both limited by the
satisfaction of animal content The dirty
Cherokee SHORES like a swine in sleep,
belches at his meals, while the more re-
| fined ioafer would be content to purr forth
his satisfaction like a kitten, bat both in
| the interval between sleep and feeding,
| listiessly chew their cud ike COW. from
the cradle to the grave.
All that either the lazy Cherokee or
the non-produetiye, yawning Caucasian
asks is 10 be well housed well
feed, and physically well treated,
| under no obligation of necessity 10
work hard for living. Any community
of whites would be a Cherokee civilization,
if the George theory of the naturalization
Of land should ever become realized in the
general practice and government of the
| world.
| The same results have been revealed in
the history OF the oommunistic expert
| ments that have obtained certain degree
of industrial success in America. They
are successful IN the production of s. non
/ progressive, uufruitfui, unin duenual kind
/ al civilization thar is as destitute of soul
| llle and any sort of spiritual progress as a
! well managed cattle ranch. They seek In
| eliminate individual effort, struggle and
conquest from this life. and offer Us
soulless, barren substitute for
8 true, progressive civilization which lives
and moves forward because of its complete
freedom fer individual effort and attain