Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1893-11-17
About OUR INDIANS.
Reports of Capt clapp Of Fort Der.
thold and Agent Mclaughlin
Of Standing Rock.
The Former Does Not Favor Sending
Indians to the East for Their
Education.
Indian Agriculture Not as Salts.
factory This Year as It Might
Have Been.
Concerning the Indiana

Concerning the Indians.
The reports Of the Indian agents at
Forts Berthold and Standing Rock, up
and down the river, short distances
from the city, and what they recon
mend, will be interesting. Washington
adyices say that the report OF a. H
Clapp, Indian agent at Fort Berthold.
who succeeded Major Murphy, which
has just been made public, together
with the report from Standing Rock,
present some original conclusions con.
corning the desirability of the con-
t%inuance Of the present system Of educa-
ton of Indian children away from the
reservation. He is strongly opposed to
the practice, for the reasons that, as a
rule, the educated Indian youth comes
home, but inperfectly equipped for life,
especially among the conditions which at
once surround him upon his return to
his people.
He says he has watched the careers
of forty. nine boys who were sent away
from the reservation for their education.
OF this number nineteen are dead; three
are absolutely worthless and of the re-
mainder only about one.half have really
received any benefit. These f%orty-nine
represent $50 years Of school, and the
cost is estimated at sl75 a year, or a
total of s26,25O. This divided among the
fourteen who are benefited is an average
of sl,875 each. The mortality reaches
the alarming figure of 80 per cent. and
this figure may be largely attributed to
the deportation. Instead of the system
which he SO severely criticises he econ
mends a day school on the reservations
which can be conducted at a much lower
cost and which will exercise a most
beneficial influence in raising the stand
ard of the whole tribe. The youth are
not educated away from their people,
but are constantly in touch with their
tribe.
Capt. Clapp says that the country
about the agency is wholly unfit for
farming operations, even for whites
although it is a good stock country. He
calls attention to the disgraceful fact
that there is at the Little Knife river a
band Of eros Ventre Indians number
ing about 135 under the leadership of
Grow Flies High, who are living outside
the control of the agency in a most de-
graded manner, and recommends that
they be brought within the reservation.
At the Standing Rock agency there
are 1888 Indians of the Yanktonai, Hunk
papa and Blackfeet tribes under that
veteran agent, Capt. James Mclaughlin.
This is his eighteenth annual report.
With Agents Hall and Clapp, he reports
discouragingly Of the years agricultural
operations, the u%nfaqorable results be.
ing due to the lateness of the spring and
the hot and dry summer with it's parch-
ing winds more than to any b%arrenness
of the soil. On this agency, in addition
to the contract or boarding schools, are
ten schools, which are as a rule we'll
attended. Missionary work on this
agency is receiving enough attention to
make Christians of all the rising genera
ton. Agent Mclaughlin details the
work done in this direction of late years.
After complimenting the Indian police,
the agent says of the Indian police:
"The Indian court is now recognized
by these Indians, as the bar before
which all disputes. as we'll as ofenses
can best be adjudicated. The three
judges are representative men OF. the
three respective bands comprising the
agency. They are progressive and in
telligent and there findings uniformly
just. There we're sixty.seven cases
brought before this court the past year,
and the decisions rendered we're invari-
ably satisfactory to the parties con.
cerned. 1t has been of great assistance
to the agent in administering affairs OF
the agency, and is gradually preparing
the Indians for the state courts of North
and South Dakota, in which they will
eventually be incorporated"
Low Rates to the Coast,