The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-10-11
GERONIMO TALKS.

The day has passed when there can
be any extensive outbreak on the part
| of the Indians. Almost every fall there
are some threats of an outbreak, but
they very rarely amount to anything.
This fall has been no exception. The
affair at Leech lake is deplorable for
the loss of life, but 1t is altogether
improbable that there will be further
! trouble, and almost impossible that it
should assume any considerable proper
tons.
No shrewder or wiser comments have
been made on the Minnesota situation
than by the old Apache Chief Geronimo.
He has had a wide, varied and disas-
trous experience as an unrelenting foe
of the white man, but he has seen the
inevitable and finally resigned himself
to it. What he says is almost worthy
to he ranked along with Logan's speech
for pathos and insight into the future
For years." says he, " / fought the
white men. thinking that with my few
braves [ could kill them all, and that
we would again have the land that our
Great Father gave US, and which he
covered with game. / thought that the
Great Spirit would be with us, and that
after we had killed the white men, the
buffalo, deer and antelope would come
back After I fought and lost, and az
ter travelled over the country in which
the white man lives and saw his cities
and the work that he had done, my
heart was ready to burst. / knew that
i,
He says the Indians are not the peo-
pie that the Great Father loves; that
if they were he would protect them. In
the light of the history of the Indians
this is most melancholy conclusion.
1t is melancholy when any people, and
especially a dying people, become con-
WINGED that they are not the people
that God loves because he does not
protect them.
Speaking of the education of the In
dams the old Apache chief made some
most sensible observations. Schools
are good things for Indians said he,
but it takes many years to change the
nature of the Indian. If an Indian boy
goes to school and learns to be like a
agency and there is nothing for him to
do but put on the blanket and look
like an Indian again. That is where
the government is to blame. When it
takes our children away and educates
them, it should give them something to
do, not turn them loose to run wild
upon the agency. Until that time comes
educating the Indian is throwing
money away What can an educated
Indian do out in the sage brush and
cactus?''
To educate Indian children and then
permit them to revert to their native
mode of life, to make it the only life
possible for them, in fact, is to work
an injury all around. If it is hard to
elevate white men, to prevent them
from degenerating, how much harder
1t is to elevate the Indians and prevent
them from taking up with their old
ways, their education in such event
serving no purpose but to destroy their
virtues and add to their capacity for
evil. Whenever the government takes |
an Indian from his native surround !
ings and undertakes to educate and !
civilize him, it owes a duty to him and
to society to see to it that his real edu- |
cation is continued through life, that |
he advances in the path of civilization |
and does not revert to a life of saw |
agery. There is wisdom in old Geroni- !
mos words and they should be needed. |