The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-11-26
MESSAGE TO THE GREEK CoUN-

Inere pernapS nus been no perlou in Greek history, said Chief Ispar- hecher in his message, when the na- ton had more pressing need of wise counsel and well-considered action. Af- ter forcing us to leave our beloved homes amid the breezy hills and limpld streams under the rising sun, made sacred to us by the honored bones of our ancestors there buried, the Unit ed States solemnly agreed that this new home under the setting sun should remain the home of the Muscogees as long as they shall occupy it as a na- tion, free from molestation from any source whatever. We still occupy the land under that solemn pledge, and our national government is better sys- tematized, and bears greater resem- blance to the republican form of gov
 ernment of the United States to-day than in any time in the past. The Muscogee nation has treated with the government for this western home is still a nation obsrving, and willing to observe, every article of the said con- vention, and ought of right to remain unmolested as agreed.
 This, I believe, would be the verdict also of the great mass of the people of the United States could they but know all the facts as they actually exist. Interested persons, however, in and nf r, ,o1,t nf the plighted honor of the United States or the interests of the Indians, and hoping in some way to gain material wealth by a general disruption of pres ent conditions, have industriously and effectively so tained public opinion that has come to be generally believed that the conditions in our country are so bad and disreputable as to impera- lively demand some kind of change, it mattering little what that change shall be- Against all the Indians have said and done to the contrary, this most unjust impression has gone out; and, actuated thereby, the United States has sought to effect change that shall remedy the evils that have been so indusriously magnified and Haunted before the public. For this purpose bills to better our condition, as was alleged, have for many years been proposed in congress, but as of ten failed of enactment.
 Latterly the plain of dealing direct ly with the Indians through the medi- um of authorized commissioners has been adopted by the government, and for about four years you have been meeting and confrring with the hon. orable body of gentlemen representing the government and konwn as the Dawes commissioners. The end of each year, however, found you no nearer an agreement than at first. To take in severalty the lands you have always held in common; to abolish the laws and institutions which amid so many privations and sacrifices you had established and fostered among your people, and risk the chances of your being under radically new and strange conditions, and they not of your seek ing or creation, has naturally and reasonably been thing hard for you to do. Under your present system of government and land tenure, imperfect though they be, the Muscogee people have made remarkably fiattering pro- gress in almost all departments of human effort that go to make up pro- gressive and civilized people; and when the influences of the devastation and harassments of the last war between the states, and the ever threatened ob- noxious Indian legislation in Congress, with it's dark pail of dread and un- certainty to our people, is duly taken into account, we may justly be pardoned off, with something of pride, we point to our well-tliled acres, our comfortable homes, our churches, schools, and other eleemosynary in- stitutions, and exclian as others have, What hath God wrought!
 The Creek are not in any sense an they are clad in sober brownnuuyww obstruction to the progress of com- merce and civilization in the West, as has been said of the Indians of the distillery, carpentering, bottling wine territory. Railways traverse our coun- try from north to south and east to west without paying cent of tax on either their trade privileges or stock, even discriminating against the people planting, hoeing, destroying weeds, of the nations in the item of passenger fare as compared with that charged in the states immediately beyond our boundaries. Istitutions of learning have been permitted to be established in our midst by religious societies from 1 abroad, which of no special advantage to our Indian children, are a boon to the white residents in the towns where they are located. These are located on Creek lands that have cast the soci- cities nothing. All the handicraft and trades of civilization, including saloons vending n-intoxicating stuffs which to all appearance do intoXicate, find lodgment and business here. We have also the United States courts, which rarest and punish our young men when they get drunk in these non-intoxicat- | ing saloons, licensed by the courts, and commit crime. We have in the main adopted, also the religion of the white man and have many native Indian preachers who point their f1ocks to the same God.
 We have also among us, under the l guise of Indian missionaries, repre- sentative from almost every religious | denomination, who have been distrib- | uted in the towns along the various | railroads in our country where Indians