The Irish standard., 1900-04-21
Senator Geo. G. Vests Speech on
Indian Schools.
ExC0RlATES THE SECTARIAN BlGoTS
One Time He Was Opposed to the
Catholic Church.
THEY HAVE ELEVATED The INDIANS

Mission at Flathead Agency by
Father De Smet.
In his recent speech in the United
States senate on the Indian appropria-
ton, Senator Geo. G. Vest, of Missouri,
said in part:
l said few minutes ago that was a
Protestant. I was reared in the old
Scotch Presbyterian Church, my father
was an elder in it, and my earliest i'm
pressions were that the Jesuits had
horns and lloofs and tails, and that
there was faint tinge of sulphur in
the circumambient air whenever one
crossed your path. Some years ago
was assigned by the senate to do duty
upon the committee on Indian affairs,
and was assigned by the committee,
OF which Mr.. Dawes was then the very
Jealous chairman, to examine the In
dian schools in Wyoming and Montana.
l did so under great difficulties and with
labor which I could not now physically
perform. visited every one of them.
1 crossed that great buffalo expanse OF
country where you can now see only the
wallows and trails of those extinct ami
mails, and l went to all these schools.
wish to say now what have said before
IN the senate, and it is not the popular
side OF this question by any means, that
did not see in all my journey, which
lasted for several weeks, single school
that was doing any educational worl,
worthy the name of educational work
unless it was under the control of the
Jesuits. l did not see single govern
ment school, especially these day
schools, where there was any work done
at all.
In 1850 Father De Smet, self-sacri-
ficing Christian Jesuit, went at the solic-
itation of the Flatheads to their reser-
vation in Montana. The Flatheads sent
two runners, young men, to bring the
black robes to educate them and teach
them the religion of Christ. Both of
those runners were killed by the Black
feet and never reached St. Louis. They
then sent two more. One of them was
killed, and the other made his way down
the Missouri river after incredible hard
ships and reached St. Louis. Father De
Snet and two young associates went
out to the Flathead reservation and es-
tablished the mission of ST.. Mary in
the Bitter Root, and St. Ignatius on the
Jocko reservation. The Blaclfeet
burned the st. Mary's mission, killed
two of the Jesuits and thought they had
killed the otfer-Father Ravaille. I saw
him, when on this committee, lying in
his cell at the St. Mary's mission, para
lyzed from the waist down, but per-
forming surgical operations, for he was
an accomplished surgeon, and doing all
that he possibly could do for humanity
and religion. He had been fifty-two
years in that tribe of Indians. Think OF
it! Fifty-two years. Not owning the
robe on his back, not even having a
name, for he was number in the semi
military organization called the Society
OF Jesus; and if he received orders at
midnight to go to Africa or Asia he
went without question, because it was
his duty to the cause of Christ and for
no other consideration or reason.
After nearly twenty years of this work
by the Jesuits they abandoned it, and
they established a different system,
separating the boys and the girls, teach
irg them how to work, for that is the
problem, not how to read or spell, nor
the laws of arithmetic, but how to work
and to get rid OF this insane prejudice
taught by the Indians from the begin
ming that nobody but squaw should
work, and that it degrades man to do
any sort OF labor, or, in fact, to do any
thing except to hunt and go to war.
Mr.. President, the Jesuits have ele-
waited the Indian wherever they have
been allowed to do SC, without interfer-
ence of bigotry and fanaticism and the
cowardice of insectivorous politicians,
who are afraid of the A. P. A. and the
votes that can be cast against them in
their district and states. They have
made him Christian, and, above even
that, have made him workman able
to support himself and those dependent
upon him. Go to the Flathead reserva-
ton in, Montana and look from the cars
of the Northern Pacific railroad, and
you will see the result of what Father
De Smet and his associates began and
what was carried on successfully until