The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-09-21
JUST SUPPOSE.

ments and have handed the control Of things over to the Democrats, who, acting upon the advice of MT. Bryan, appear to have had things their own way. As one of the consequences of the general election Cherokee Indian will in part represent the State of Okla hama in the senate of the United States.
 This incident in the life of the coun- try invites interesting comment from the speculative point of view. In the first place the election of an Indian to the congress of the United States can- not be criticised from the standpoint of American institutions. Not a single member of that legislative body can claim such clear title to his Ameri- can lineage as can United States Sem ator (to be) Robert L. Owen. His peo- ple were residents here before the rest less and ambitious immigrants left foreign shores to make their home up- on these shores, If he has sense of hu- nor and a playful imagination, which 1t is fair to assume he has since he has mastered the mysteries of American politics, great must be his satisfaction to feel that for once and for the first time a genuine American will assist in the laborlous task of managing the af- fairs of the government. Nor will his qualification be less when he stops and considers that at the other end of Pennsylvania avenue, where stands the stately White House, lives strenuous young man of Dutch descent, the Pres ldent of the United States, and that all about him in official life are men de- scended from the various races of the earth, but not one from the original American stock, if residence in a coun- try for an indefinite time With no pre- decessors to question his superior rights may be considered the real thine.
 The sensations which must be Sena- tor owens cannot be the sensations of the federal government itself. If 1t were sensate thing, with emotions and memory, It might recall it's unin- terrupted cruel treatment of the In- dian which has virtually resulted in the extinction of the romantic race. It would recall with hot blushes it's in- human cry that the ground Is filled with the bones of the best Indians, sig nifying that the Indian becomes toler- able only when consigned to the hap py hunting ground. Just suppose that the attitude of the settlers, and the politicians they created, towards the Indian as they first found him had been one of Christian toleraton instead of Pagan ferocity, who knows but what our na- tional life might have been enlivenei before this by intelligent indulgence in it on the part of Indians? Just suppose that instead of driving the Indians, who were here when the advance agents of what we now call the American race ar- rived, from the rivers and lakes where the fish lay upon which they lived and from the forests which were more thickly inhabited by bird and beast, these founders had made friends with | them and taught them to aid them fin the task of clearing away for habita- tions? Who is prepared to say that the dreadful history of ignorance and in- i justice which has since been written in our treatment of the Indians might not have been avoided to the national honor and the development of the race secured as Senator Owen now proves
 1t might have been? Suppose the fed eral government had held to policy oi friendliness in It's dealings with the Indian tribes and protected them, for example, in the proprietorship of theil lands instead of aiding in busting then | as fast as the white man reached out for them, is any one prepared to say l that the softer traits of the Indian
 character might not have been devel. | oped2
 The presence of Senator Owen in the | Senate of the United States will unin.
 tentionally on his part be an indict- ment of the government for its prolong- ed mal-trea atment of the original Ameri.
 cans. Like men of other races, who
 by the accident of birth have sat 1T the congress of the American people | and in the White House, MT. Owen be-
 longs to that class of human beings
 who instinctively fight and fight sue.
 cessfully the forces which seek for sel
 fish reasons to overpower them ant
 keep them down. He may without in
 delicacy compare himself from the In | dian's noint of view with Booker T