Los Angeles herald., 1891-04-12
The Indian Commissioners
Preposterous Proposition.
Indian Children to Be Sent to
the Public Schools.
The People of Arizona Opposed 10
Such an Arrangement.
supertntendent of Instruction Cheyney
Speaks His Mind Freely on the
Subject.
Associated Press Dispatches.

PHGNrx, Ariz., April 11.-Several
months ago Indian Commissioner Nor
gan addressed letter to George W.
Cheyney, superintendent OF public in
struction for Arizona, asking if Indian
children could not be placed in the ter
ritorial public schools, the national gov
ernment to pay tuition fee of $40 a
quarter. The Arizona Republican will
tomorrow publish Cheyney's reply, bear
ing date February, 1891, in which he
says:
Out of 1877 schools in the territory, but
thirty-five responded to the circular let
ter sent them containing your communi-
cation, and only six favor taking the
Indians into the public schools. The
whole question is answered in nutshell
from Mohave county, whose reply reads !:
"We have too much respect
for our children to think
of educating them in such mixed schools.
No white person, familiar with Indian
habits and manner of living, could con-
sent to have his children educated this
way. The Indian children are low in
habits; wear little or no clothing, ex-
cept breechclout, and are very filthy
and lousy"
Continuing, Cheyney says: You are
at the head of particular branch of the
government charged with the care of
the Indian; his swelfare occupies con-
stantly your attention; but you suggest
a plan that would not result in the ele-
walton of the Indian and would result in
lowering the whites. In the Hampton
Review, in an article credited to you,
you ascribe to the Indian all of the vir-
tues of the highest civilization, and say
he only goes on the warpath when stock
is stolen, women and children shot
down and men murdered. Can it be
possible that you would permit the bud
ding infant minds of these poor victims
of the white mans avarice and barbar-
ity to mingle with the cubs of their OPP
pressors? Would not there be danger
of our instilling into them some of our
fiendish proclivities? We might teach
them to steal, lie, debauch and murder.
No, Mr.. Commissioner, your plan is not
a feasible one, and in proposing it you
show an ignorance of our standards and
aims. We have no desire to found a
race of "squaw men," nor to encourage
the mania for Indian miscegenation now
applauded and practiced in certain
prominent Indian circles. In your
own city you provide separate schools
for the negroes and whites; yet the ne
gro is infinitely superior to the Indian.
Our children are as dear to us as yours,
and dare say you would not dream of
suggesting to the mother of your chill
dren that she turn her children over to
the companionship of such naked, dirty,
barbarous and diseased little pieces of
humanity as the Arizona Indian chill
dren. The records of our settlements
TEEN with stories of rapine and murder
inflicted by the Indians. Our territory
still suffers. At the present moment,
within fifty miles of Tom bstone,
where / write, band of your
gentle wards are depopulating the
country, led and generated by an Apache
named Kid, who was educated at Car
Isle. am fully aware OF the fate of
this report, and that you will regard it
as another evidence OF the antagonism
to the Indian and the opposition to his
advancement, which you have deter
mined to believe exists in the west, and
which you perpetuate and intensity by
every means in your power. Our years
of trial, peril and loss have taught us a
lesson we would have you learn-teach
the Indian to submit to the sources of
control, and punish him for crime as
you would punish white man for the
same Offense.