The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-12-07

United States. associated together in an association.
 Their roll represents at low estimate considerably more than hundred thousand citizens-instead of thirteen thousand as did their first, three years aso-and is an earnest plea for right eous. speedy and permanent settle ment Of the Indian question. -t
 The roll contains names Of members of legislative bodies. of governors. judges and lawyers; names of bishops and Of many hundreds of the clergy among the latter the entire ministry of three denominations in the city of Phiia- delphia. numbering nearly three hun dred; names of the professors and students of theological seminaries like those at Hartford. Cambridge. RQch- ester and Upland; colleges and univer- stiles like Yale. Harvard, Brown. Cor nell, Rochester. Washington and Lee; names of editors of leading periodicals; the boards of hundreds of missionary and other benevolent societies. not a few of these being national ones, with names of art. literary and social clubs. Besides all these the roll contains the signatures of hundreds of business and manufacturing firms who control capi- tai to the amount of many millions of dollars, and who employ many thous- ands of operatives-all showing that not only has there been a rapid growth of sentiment among the religious and intellectual leaders of the community demanding legislation which shall end oppression of Indians and secure to them full opportunity for industrial, mental and religious development, but that the commercial interests Of our land also are fast coming to demand just and speedy settlement Of the Indian question.
 It has. with local ones, held thou sands of meetings since 1879, has gained thousands of press articles in all parts of the country. has circulated many hundreds of thousands of leaflets. phamphlets and booklets of its own on the Indian question, and for six years has had Its own periodical, 600 copies of which were sent to congressman month ly, with articles marked, during their Indian discussions last spring. The as- sociation has planted directly or indi- rectly thirty-five missions in ten years; | has built homes by loan funds for sixty eight Indians. thus reaching with the direct influences of civilization at least three hundred and forty Indians; 1t has stirred the interest of and gained help from the young people in most of the states; has given libraries to In- dian schools and reading matter to many individual Indians; has given or aided in giving professional education to bright Indians; has done great amount of other unchronicled work, and has expended In 1t of late years from s2o,00O to $2S,OOO year. sending boxes of clothing to destitute Indians to the value of $3,0OO per annum. As will be readily seen, beginning when sympathy with Indians was most un- popular, by the above far peaching ac- tivities, the addresses of the society's representatives in almost every state and territory of the Union, and by its constant committees and appeals to government officials, the association | wakened a national sentiment, and | gathered into popular expression a tide of feeling which, with the aid of the many other helpers who joined the | movement, and the constant heroic work of Senator Dawes, issued in 1887, in the passage of the severalty law, which opened to the Indian the door of United States citizenship
 The first petition of the association prayed for the keeping of the cove nants by the natios, as justices, and in order to prevent Indian wars; the sec ond petition asked for the observance of all the rights of Indians and recog- nized the claims of their manhood the third marked a great change in the views of the association and was the first prayer of any society devoted solely to the interests of Indians, for lands in severalty, industrial and common school education, for the reign of law over Indians, and United States citizenship for them And it asked that severalty be not compulsory, but optional, vast diff ference between previously proposed legislation and that which followed.
 Among the many helps which con- tributed to that success in 1887 were the labors of the Boston citizenship com mittee, the movement in favor of east ern Indian education grandly begun by Captain Pratt, the manifold and in- fluential labors of the Indian Rights association, which began the sacred