St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-01-05
10. THE POOR INDIAN.
Rev. William Wilkinson Arraigns
the Governments Policy.

Rev. William Wilkinson APraignS
the Governments Policy.
Yesterday morning at st. Andrews
Episcopal church, Rev. William Wilkin-
son, tue rector spoke OH Law and Law
makers" He paid particular attention
to the Indian question. On that point
he said:
I'VE are in the midst of important
events, both in the nation at large and
in the state in particular. The papers
give reports of Indian affairs which
make us blush if we have any shame
for the name we bear, and the poor In
dian is often spoken of as though he
alton whatever, He is made to ''bte
the dust" we are told in language of
glee. We are jubilantly informed that
Indian women anu children are killed
by an Infatuated set of soldiers, and in
some quarters no word of blame is
spoken. This, however. is not the day
in which the moral sense of an enlight-
ened world is goin to applaud or even
tolerate these things. and the men who
do them are murdertrs, foul and vile.
Might the white man has, but the sane
tionS and authority of righs are alike
the same, whether those who have
them are weak or strong, many or few.
This great people, who boast the name
of liberty and who say. 1--WE are Amer
icanS." ought to be able to plan more
satisfactory ways of dealing with the
Indians than any yet devised. We
should deal with him, not with what
seems to the multitude just. but in
way which many, would call extrava-
gantly generous, but which is not.
fNhn Indian had thQcp uiOriOuc chOrQc
all his own, the game was in countless
herds, and the rivers swarmed with fish.
The paleface came and he had to recede;
his happy hunting ground was thing
of the past; his most lordly game was
killed in wanton sport and left to rot
under burning sun OF bleach in winter
snow. We made hisn the ward of this
great nation, and we made ward heelers
his guardians. His rationS, when he
got them, were often very poor in kind
and very short in quantity. Even
handed justice was not given to the Door
Indian. Removed from the highway of
travel, unused to the pen, an
inferior race. he was despised, and
it became a prOverb that the only good
Indian was dead Indian. Men grew
rich who, at $1,000 or so year, had
been in charge of him. His valuable
1utO UIlCI UOOh lOI llllhClSs dIu blCE
stole his bread. Under our Christian
rule the Indian sank to degradation
his heather fathers never knew. When
he said he was oppressed, he was made
TO fell authority, and the Indian wars
are disgrace to historic pages in in
stances not few. 1.-The time has come
to change our Indian policy. to repeal
our treaties, and make better terms for
these children of the sun; to give every
one his own land and home as near as
may be to the home of mis- ancestors
and make it so no white man or any
other can buy or steal it; to build him
school houses every three miles; to
place good, patient, sympathetic teach
erS who can and who will teach Indian
children as we'll as they would teach
white ones; to have public, practical
farmers teach him how to grow all he
needs. Make it so any Indian can
make any white man pay whatever is
due. We shall. by education and such
moral and religious education as would
Justice, love, help. education and APP
piled Christianity will do what sharp
practice, uukindneSS and 0ppreSSiO Il
have not been able to do.
''We require new Indian policy. In
our own state the men chosen to do the
states law making are to meet this
week. The men who are elected to this
high position are to be held in high es-
TEEN, for they are the representatives
order, and order, we are told, is heav-
ems first law. When man is elected
in district he. does not speak for the
party which elected him, Democratic
or Alliance; he speaks for the whole
people, just as much for those who OPP
posed him as for those who helped him.
1.-The lawmaker has TO remember that
he is not to be dwarfed in his SYM
pathies by his own narrow district. He
is man in a state, and the state one in
a confederation of states. The law
maker can increase, or ne can retard.
the growth of the state and nation in
way many people do not think or under
stand. He is man fraught with vast
and most varied power. The people
who intend in all ordinary times to do
right and to be right on all public ques-
tons, when they understand this to be
the view, and this the ruling principle
of those who make law, will take care
to see that those who have to admins
tar it sh-h ha men of honor, probity