Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1900-11-15
OUR INDIAN WARDS.
Annual Report of the Commissioner
Of Indian Affairs.
MONEY EXPENDED ON The INDIANS.
Payments of Money to Indians Declared
to he Demaralizing Compulsory Ed
ucatIon OF Indian Children strongly
Ind0rsed- Accommodations

Washington, Nov. 12.-The total ex-
penditure by the government on ac-
count of the Indian service from
March 4, 1850, up to and including
July 80, 1900, has been $3GS,3js,2l7 ne
cording to the annual report OF Com
missioner of Indian Affairs Jones.
The expenditures for the fiscal year
ended last July amounted to SlO,l75,-
lO7. OF this amount at least $780,
600 was devoted to the cause OF In
dian education. The report reviews
the change in the system OF trans
porting supplies by which the
supplies are shipped in open mar
ket by common carrier at tarlif
or better rates and estimates that
this saves 20 per cent. in cost. I'M
der the head of obstacles to self-sup-
port of the Indians the report de-
precatcs the ration system, annuity
payments and the leasing OF alIot-
ments. The ration system, says the
report, is the corollary of the res
ervation system. The Indian popu-
lation of the United States is about
2G7,9O6 of which 45,270 receive q daily
ration. The ration is issued and its
value varies according to the tribe.
Nearly two fifths of the number re-
ceiving rations belong to the great
Sioux nation. The ration has been
gradually reduced in the past few
years in accordance with the policy of
the Indian bureau. If the Indians
claims for full rations as a right is
conceded the commissioner predicts
that the time when they will be self
supporting lies in the very distant fu-
ture, If IL comes at ALL A number of
the Indians also are assisted by occa-
sional issues and at several agencies
the old and INDECENT are provided for.
These aggregate about 1850. Alto
gether there are $3.50 Indians re-
ceiving subsistence in some degree,
exclusive Of Indian children in board
ing schools. The commissioner urges
that the indiscriminate issue Of ra-
tions should stop at once. The old
and helpless, he says, should be pro-
vided for but rations should be is
sued to the able-bodied only for labor
while those who have been educated
in Indian schools should depend en-.
tirely on their own resources.
Annuites distributed last year ag-
gregated $1,507,543, the per capita
ranging from $255 down to 50 cents.
The report says that large money
payments to the Indians "arc de-
moralizing in the extreme, They de-
grade the Indians and corrupt the
whites; they induce pauperism and
scandal and crime; they nullify all
the good effects of years of labor
Inscriptions people induce the In
dian to 60 into debt and then, when
the debt has accumulated and the
Indians credit is gone, pressure is
brought to bear by the creditors upon
the government to pay the Indian so
that he can pay his honest debts. The
state of things growing out of the
surroundings at the agencies is
scandal and a Disgrace
There were $50 Indian schools Of
all kinds conducted by the govern
mcnt and an increase of 1,4l2 pupils
in enrolment and LAP in average at
tendance shown over the previous
year. About 5000 of the $4,000 eligi-
Bile school children are unprovidcd
for, Compulsory education of the In
dian children is strongly indorsed
and congress is urged to authorize
the commission to place every one
of school age in some school, the Sc
lection of the school to be left largely
to educated Indians parents.
The report controycrts the com
monty accepted theory that by con-
slant contact with the whites the ex-
tincton of the Indian is only mat
ter of time, 1t says 1t can he stated
with Il great degree of confidence that
the Indian population Of the United
States has been very little diminished
from the days of Columbus. Coro-
nado, Raleigh, Capt. John Smith and
other early explorers.
The first reliable Indian census was
in $50 and certainly since then the
Indian population has been nearly
stationary, whatever decrease there
is being attributable to Indians be-
coming citizens Reviewing Indian
territory affairs the report says there
are $4,000 children of white parents
there who should have schools and
that thousands of these children thus
deprived of education are growing up
in vice and ignorance, already feed
ing the United States iails at Musco-
gee and other points with youthful
criminals. The cost OF education
will not be excessive compared with
results, School benefits also should
be extended to the 1880 Choctaw
freedmen, Government control of the
schools in the ChicknSnM nation Is adj