The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-02-04
indian SCHOOLS.
President Roosevelt Discusses
the Government Position.

Washington, Feb. president Roose-
welt says in his letter to Secretary
Hitchcock concerning the Indian school
question:
Early in 1902 petitions on behalf OF
i the various Catholic and Episcopal
schools were brought to my attention
/ by certain ecclesiastics and laymen who
requested the interior department to
distribute the rations and annuities
through the mission schools of their
several churches when the children
were IN the care of those schools. The
attorney general decided that this re-
quest was illegal and could not be pro-
perly granted.
''Over a year afterwards the request
was made originally on behalf of the
certain Catholic schools in 1903, also on
behalf or Lutheran in 1904 that where
tnefe were Indian moneys held in trust
for the Indians by the secretary of the
treasury the interests on these moneys
be distributed among the individual In
dams or in such other ways a sthe Sec
rotary of the interior might direct, and
where certain Indians petittoned that
the moneys so distributed to them
should be used for the support of the
particular UNCONVENTIONAL school, which
they desired their children to attend,
this petition should be granted.
The question raised was of course
wholly different from that originally
raised on behalf of the Episcopal church
This new request was submitted to
the department of Justice and the de-
partment decided as set forth in the
accompanying report that the prohibit
ton of the law as to the use of pubic
moneys for sectarian schools did not
extend to moneys belonging to the IN
dams themselves and not to the public
and that these moneys belonging to the
Indians themselves might be applied
in accordance with the desire of the
Indians for the support of the schools
to to-, which i;5,,r,, they We're sending
judgment no question that, in
asmuch as the legal authority existed
to grant the request of the Indians they
were entitled as a matter of moral right
to have the moneys coming to them
used for the education of their chill
dren at the schools of their choice
care must be taken, of course, to
see that any petition by the Indians
is genuine and that the money appro- |
priated for a given school represents
only the pro rata proportion to which !
the Indians making the petition are
entitled. But if these two conditions
are fulfilled, it is in my opinion just
and right that the Indians themselves
should have their wishes respected |
when they request that their own
money-not the money of the public
be applied to the support of certain
their children. The practice will be
continued by the department unless
congress should decree to the con- !
trary or, of course, unless the courts
should decide that the decision of the |
is erroneous.
TT is, however, greatly to be desired |
that the bill introduced by Representative |
Lacey and providing for permission to al
lot these annuities in severalty to the In |
dams exactly as is now done with land, |
should be enacted into law. Its enact
ment and administration would prevent
the raising of any question of this charac-
ter, for each Individual Indian would
he is entitled outright on mis- own initia-
tive instead of having it used for him by
the secretary of che interior in conse-
quence of his petition. I earnestly nope
that congress will at once enact this bill
into law
1.-THE special case of the St. Labres
school stands by itself, the question being
whether tue contract enIersd into is one
authorized by the finding of the depart
ment of justice in January, 1904 or wheth-
ar it is one Of those cases forbidden I'M
Ter the decision of the department of JUS
-ice January, 1902. The attorney general |
will speedily represent the category in
which his case comes.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT