Arizona republican., 1891-04-12

come into our district we will endeavor to take care of them."
 Maricopa county-Mesa district re- ports: "We have a fine srhoolhouse under way, and by another year would be prepared and willing to accommodate fifty or sixty it desired" Lehi district reports: There are some Indian chil- dren in this district, and we are willing to comply with the request spoken oi."
 Mohave county-kingman district re- ports: "We have more respect for our children than to think of educating them | in such a mixed school. No white per son familiar with their habits and man. ner of living could consent to have his children educated in this way" Pinal county-Vekol district desires to know "who is authorized to make con tracts"
 Yavapai county-Tuba City district reports: "We are willing to make ar rangements for thirty to forty" The main difficulty seems to be that "the parents of the white children cannot af- i ford to let their children go with the | Indian children unless the Indian chil- dren are cleaned up. They are very low in their habits, they wear little or no clothing at all except gee-string, and all are very filthy and lousy. They would have to be provided with a change oi clothing and with their dinners when they came to school"
 It will be seen that in some instances a readiness to enter into the proposed arrangement is expressed, while in others there is the greatest repugnance, but from only school districts out oi l lS7 have received reply intimating willingness upon the part of white par ents to the commingling of their chil- dren with those of the Indian.
 It is true that in a majority of the dis tricts in this large Territory no Indians are resident or were within reach. The inhabitants, if they know them at all, know them simply as nOmads, whose presence is menace to property il not to life.
 To these districts the proposed plan does not seem to have any application, and 1 met their opinion upon it's merits. In others, where proximity to the h. dian has taught the inhabitants, by ex- perience, to know this question in all its phases, there is a wider disposition to ignore the proposition as not even worthy of consideration.
 This information gather from news paper comments and personal conversa- tiOn, and is in my judgment not the proper view to take of 1t.
 You are at the head of that particular branch of the Government which is charged with the care Ot the Indian. | HiS welfare occupies constantly your mind and thoughts. In sOiCitude for his welfare you have suggested a plan | Tor his betteIment by education, and a. 1 said before, 1 believe that you have evolved it in all seriousness, and in aIll seriousness 1t should be considered. iOu have sugges ed this plan lo me, olli- cIally, as the head of the Public School | system Ui this Territory, the other party | ,O the proposed contract, and presuma- ply will be willing 10 listen to my upln- lon upon its merlts.
 1 With the willingness expressed by the responses from some of our districts can scarcely coincide, officially or per sonalIy. l rather incline to the views expressed by the gentleman from Mo nave county, who has put the condition and answer to the proposed remedy into | d nutshell:
 The school laws of our Territory make no distinction in race or color, eX- cepting as to Indians and Chinese. They have been framed and are main tained with the end of making our public school system all that can he required in the education of hls children by any parent.
 That standard could neither be at tained nor maintained under such an arrangement as you suggest, a plan that would inevitably result not in the elevation of the Indian, but in the lowering of the white.
 | The truth of this. as an abstract propo- sition, you will hardly be prepared to deny, but possibly in your anxiety for the welfare of the Indian you have over looked the other side of the question. To me, as an Arizona parent and an oifi cer of it's public school system, it has considerable importance. Or possibly am in error as to the direction of eleva- lion. l am informed by the Hampton ReCieW, in an article credited to you, that "the Indians are not uniriendly to the whites; and will not go to war ex- cept for just reasons, but when we steal their stock, shoot down their women and children, murder their men and break our engagements with them, etc., they prove that an Indian war is often the expression Of the very | highest manhood" Can it be possible that you would permit the budding in- fant minds of these poor victims of the white mans avarice and barbarity to mingle with the cubs of their opDres- sorsp Would there not be danger of our insulting into them some of our own | tiendish proclivities? We might teach them how to steal, lie, debauch and murder, or even to like firewater and the noXious weed, accomplishments that according to the same article are now confined to the villainous white pioneer. No, Mr. Commissioner, your plan is not feasible ons, and in proposing il you show an ignorance of us, our stand ards and our aims, that is an injustice, almost an insult. to our and your own intelligence.
 We have no desire to found a race of "Squaw-men" nor to encourage the ma mia for Indian miscegnation now ap- pIauded and practiced in certain prom inent Indian circles.
 In your own city you divide the negro from the white child in his choOl life, and yet you propose that our children shall mingle with the naked savage, in tinitely the inferior of the negro. Our children are as dear to us, and as tenderly nurtured as yours, and I dare to say to you, that you woud not dream of suggesting to the mother of your children that she turn her babies over to the companonship of such naked, dirty, barbarous and diseased little pieces of humanity as the Arizona h. dian children.
 You appeal to us Gin the name of | Christian civilization" When the sun | light of that great power you have in- l uLALI.l sknu hnr.a li.Inllnl tLn ..i