The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-11-12
Contact with Whites Has Not Re-
duced Their Number, According
to Commissioner Jones.
EVILS OF THE PRESENT TIME
UNITED STATES TOO GENEROUS
WITH ITS RED-sKTNNED WARDS.
Indiscrlminate Issue of RatiOns n
Serious Obstacle to Indians BE-
coming Self-Supporting.

WASHINGTON. Nov. 1.-THE total ex-
penditures by the government on account
of the Indian service from March 4. 17s9,
up to and including July 30, 1900, has been
sS6s. 35S, PIT, according to the annual re-
port of Commissioner of Indian Affairs
William A. Jones. Expenditures for the
fiscal year ending last July amounted to
s1O175 1O7. OF this amount at least s3.33o.O00
was devoted to the cause Of Indian educa-
ton. The report reviews the change in
the system of transportation of supplies, by
which supplies are shipped in open market
by common carrier at tariff or better rates.
and estimates that this saves 20 per cent.
in cost.
Under the head of obstacles to self-sup-
/ port of the Indians the report deprecates
the ration system, annuity payments and
the leasing of allotments. The ration sys-
tenn, says the report, is the corollary OF
the reservation system. The Indian popu-
! Iation of the United States is about 267, 800,
of which 1870 receive a daily ration. The
ration issued and it's value varies accord
| ing to tribe. Nearly two-fifths of the num-
| Der receiving rations belong to the great
| Sioux nation. The ration has been grad
ually reduced in the past few years. If the
| Indians claim for full rations right
is conceded the commissioner predicts that
| the time when they will be self-support-
ing lies in the very distant future, if it
| comes at all. A number of the Indians
| also are assisted by occasional issues, and
at several agencies the old and INDECENT
are provided for. These aggregate about
1850. Altogether there are $3.50 Indians
receiving subsistence in some degree. ex-
| elusive of Indian children in boarding
schools. The commissioner urges that the
indiscriminate issue of rations should stop
at once. The old and helpless, he says,
should be provided for, but rations should
be issued to able-bodied only for labor,
while those who have been educated in In
dian schools should depend entirely on
their own resources.
| Annuities distributed last year aggre-
gated sl.507,543 the per capita ranging from
s255 down to so cents. The report says that
| large money payments to the Indians ARC
| demoralizing 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 Indian to go into debt, and then, when
credit is gone, pressure Is brought to bear
by the creditors on the government to pay
the Indian so that he can pay his hon
| est 90 debts. The state of affairs grow
ing out of this around some of the agen-
| cieS is a scandal and disgrace.
| There is now in the treasury to the credit
of the Indian tribes 1913, 315, 955 o. drawing
interest at the rate of and per cent,
the annual interest amounting to $1646.-
1886. Besides this, several of the tribes
have large incomes from leasing and other
sources. 1T is a safe prediction" the re-
port says, that long these funds
exist they will be the prey of designing
people. The ultimate disposition of Indian
trust funds is a subject for most serious
consideration. In some cases they are
small and in others very large. With re-
spect to the former they can, as rule, be
paid to the Indians with little, if any, evil
consequences. With respect to the latter,
their proper disposition is more difficult.
1t is admitted that great wealth is source
| of weakness to any Indian tribe and pro-
ductive of much evil
| Two remedies have been suggested. First,
the gradual extinction of these funds, set
ting aside sufficient sum to maintain the
reservation schools definite period of
years. say twenty-one and then dividing
the balance per capita and paying each
member of the tribe at certain ages their
| share; second as a corrollary to this, di-
vision of the land belonging TO the tribe
per capita The remedy proposed would
almost invariably Immediately relegate the
Indians TO poverty, though the remote result
might be for them to work to save them
! selves from actual want. The general leas-
ing of their allotments by the Indians to
white men is denounced
There were $50 Indian schools of all kinds
conducted by the government, and an in
crease of 1,412 pupils IN enrolment and LAP
in average attendance shown over the pre-
viouS year.
About 5000 of the $4,000 eligible school
ch ar nnnrOviQQ6 COmnIIlSnrv
education of the Indian children is strongly
indorsed, and conditions is urged to author
ize the commissioner to place every one
of school age in some school, the selection
Of the school to be left largely to educated
Indian parents.
The report controverts the common ac-
copied theory that by constant contact
with the whites the extinction of the In
dian is only matter of time. 1t says it
can be stated with great degree of conf
dence that the Indian population of the
United States has been very little dimin-
ished from the days of Columbus, Raleigh,
Captain John Smith and other early ex-
plorers. The first reliable Indian census
was in 1870, and certainly since then the
Indian population has been nearly station
ary whatever decrease there is being at
tributable to Indians becoming citizens.
Reviewing Indian Territory affairs the
report says there are $1,000 children of
white parents there who should have
schools and that thousands of these chill
dren thus deprived OF education are grow
ing I'D IN vice and ignorance, already feed
ing the United States jails at Muscogee
and other points with youthful criminals.
The cost of education will not be excessive
with compared results. School benefits also
should be extended to the 4,25O Choctaw
freedmen Government control of the
schools in the Chickasaw nation is advo-
Gated.
THE MALLARD DUCK.