The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1894-05-11
INDIAN AFFAIRS.
A Senate Committee Report on the
Indian Territory.
TEN WHITES TO one INDIAN
The Whites, However, Have No Rights to
Citizenship-The Judicial System of the
Territory Faulty-A Better System
Must He Substituted.

WASHINGTON, May a-Senator Tel
Ter, from the committee of the five civ
ilized tribes of Indians, yesterday pre-
sented the report of that committee
giving the result of that committees
recent investigation of affairs in the
Indian territory. The report shows an
anamolous condition of society and
indicates that many abuses have grown
up which it is necessary should be cor
rected.
The report gives the Indian popula-
tion of the. territory as so, 055, while the
white population which, when the last
census was taken, was 109, 1898, is now
estimated to be between $50, 900 and
100000. In some of the agricultural
sections there are ten whites to one
towns composed wholly of white
people. These whites have no
right to citizenship, cannot be-
come owners of land. cannot send
their children to the common schools,
and cannot go into the local courts
outside of the Cherokee nation. They
cannot even organize municipal gov
ernments. lay out streets or provide
for police protection. The report takes
up all these questions and declares
that remedy must be provided.
Referring to the fact that treaties
made with the Indians by the govern
ment of the United States had provided
against the intrusion of whites, the re-
port says: 1T must be assumed that
the Indians themselves have determined
to abandon the policy of exclusiveness
and to freely admit white people within
the Indian territory, for it cannot be
possible that they can intend to demand
the removal of the white people either
by the government of the United States
or their own. They must have realized
that when their policy of maintaining
an Indian community isolated from the
whites was abandoned for a time it was
abandoned forever. We did not hear
from any Indian the suggestion that
the white people there should be re-
moved"
The committee finds the judicial sys-
tenn of the territory especially faulty.
Parties charged with the smallest mis-
demeanors are often taken over 200
miles for trial. The same is true in
civil suits, however small the sum
involved. The federal court in
the territory is, they say.
absolutely the only court of final
jurisdiction administering justice in
matters, large and small, in a territory
as large as the state of Indiana, for a
people numbering now at least 200, 900
and rapidly increasing. Consequently
the dockets of the court are SO over
burdened with business that the prompt
discussion of business is impossible"
The committee makes the astonish-
ing statement that the expense of
maintaining this court and of prose-
cutting crime in this territory is about
one-seventh of the judicial expenditure
of the United States because of these
facts
The report also refers to the fact that
the children of the white and black
population are deprived of the ad-
vantages of the common schools, and
say that while the parents of the chill
dren may have gone to the territory
with the knowledge of this condition,
afford to close their eyes to the wrong
to the children, and declares that the
matter of allowing the children of so
large a population to grow up in igno-
rance is one of national concern.
The question of the occupancy of the
land is treated at length. The COM
mittee finds that the original theory
of the government that the Indians
were to own the land in common, all
having equal interest in it, has been
violated and that n few enterprising
citizens of the tribe, frequently not
Indians, but citizens by inter-marriage,
have become the practical owners of
the best and greatest part of
the lands. Instances, they say, come
to their notice of men having as high
as 100 white tenants, and in one case
reported, white man, though an In
dian citizen by marriage, had 400 hold
ings, amounting to 20, 600 acres. In the
most progressive portion of the tribe
the committee found that about 100
persons had appropriated half of the
best land.
Nothing, they say, will do but the
abandonment of the present system 1t
cannot be modified or reformed. but
better system must be substituted.
That this will be difficult to do. the
committee freely admits, but because
it is a difficult task is no reason why
congress should not at the earliest pos
sible moment address itself to the
Question