The Washington times., 1911-02-20
CONTINUED from First Page.)

NSOHllluCu lTDIH FdKG.J
timber, coal, oil-everything that the
Government has Sacredly bound itself
to preserve and care for in their behalf
Last Grand Assault.
The time is at hand when the last
grand assault on the estate of the In
dians is to be made. The present policy
of the Indian bureau is to close this
trusteeship as fast as possible. The
Indians are not yet equipped to take
care of their own wealth.
IF the various schemes Of settling up
affairs of different tribes are permitted
to be carried out, we will soon have a
horde OF impoverished Indians in the
West, their property taken from them
and disappearing into the capacious
NAV of wicked speculation, while the
Indians will become public charges or
worse, and their race will in time be-
come extinct as a result of the hopeless
effort to compete with the white man.
True, they are public charges now; but
they are charges on the Federal Gov
ernment, and they have. by contract
with that Government, an enormous
wealth of which the benefits are not
allowed to go to them. If their estates
are taken from them, their claim on
the Government does not end, and they
will also become charges on the local
communities. They will be found in the
JailS and pOOrhouSeS.
Il have been interested in this Indian
question for five years. AS a newsPa-
per woman, l discovered that a large
part of an Irdian reservation had been
taken from the Indians under a doubt
full power of attorney. / made a charge
70 that affnpt and arrested haze
been arrested six times. always on or
near the Crow reservation in Montana.
Whole Nation Concerned.
'I shall not discuss my personal griev-
ances. 1t is enough to say that the
whole nation is vitally concerned to pre-
serve, for the nublic's ultimate welfare,
the vast wealth which is in these In
dian lands, and which ought not TO be
allowed to be grabbed by the specula-
tors and manipulators who are now af-
ter it-and in a fair way to get too much
of it. Everybody who believes in con-
servation of the resources of the public
domain, who does not want more coal
lands to pass into control Of monopo-
lies, who Shudders at thought of Lum-
ber trusts. Oil trusts, Coal trusts, and
the rest getting control Of the remaining
public lands. ought to be just as deeply
concerned to preserve, in the publlc's
interest, the wealth of the Indian do
mains.
BY means of current legislation,
many millions of acres of Indian land
NAV pass from the Indians. The Indian
has no voice in it. The members of
House and Senate have little more. A
chosen few know and understand what
is going on, ard promote it.
only a few DAYS ago a member of
the House Committee on Indian Affairs
said to me:
Mrs. Grey, l understand just
enough about all this CompleXity of
legislation amendments, riders, COM
promises, and the like, to know that
I don't like it: to be sure that neith-
er tho public nor the Indian interest
IS being handled properly; to be sure
that men expert in this sort of thing
are elboWing us one way and the
other, leading us to pass legislation
which we don't understand, but
which they do, and by which they
will profit; and l am sick of ii all. l
am going to try TO get off this COM
mittee, because it seems impossible
to prevent these things, and yet I
cannot get to the bottom. bring out
the truth and stop the transactions
Difficult Business.
Members of the Senate, in and out
of the Indian Committee, have told me
the same, in various forms. Small
wonder, either, that men anxious TO
avoid participation in sinister legisla-
tion, should have misgivings. 1t is the
most complicated, difficult, and techni-
cal business that goes to Congress. 1t
is the hardest for Congress to under
stand; the easiest for lobbyists to manip-
ulate while looking perfectly innocent.
In all the years have been in Wash
ington and about the Indian country,
have never seen such pressure as there
is right here, this winter, to get things
done in haste.
"Washington has been full of the rep
resentatives of various interests, con-
cerned in pending legislation, all winter.
l have seen this sort Of thing in other
sessions, but never so much or so
shameless determination to get every
thing possible
There are vast areas of lands, now
in Indian reservations, which were once
supposed TO be barren and worthless.
That, in most cases, is the reason why
the Indians got it. But developing
knowledge, irrigation projects, geolOgi-
gal examinations, have proved that one
pArren and unprOmlSlng reservation con-
tains a vast deposit Of iron ore, which
the Steel trust is reported to covet;
another has coal; another, oil and gas.
You will find deposits Of iron, asphalt,
copper, gold, valuable building stone
all the kinds of antural wealth, besides
great areas of tillable land.
so, being shown valuable, these lands
are to be taken away from the Indians
under the pretense that 1t will be good
for the Indian to be turned out and
made a self-supporting citizen. But it
is mostly pretense, so far as concerns
the people back Of and actuating the
efforts The land will not be bought
from the Indians and added to the pub
lie domain, as it ought to be if its nat
ural wealth were to be conserved IN the
public interest. The simple homeseeker,
the individual miner, will get small
chance at it
Legislation has been repeatedly so
framed that it simply steered these In
dian riches into the control of great in
terests-railroads. irrigation companies,
mining corporations, timber eXploiters,
and the like. That is what will happen
Otth a vast deal more of the Indian
estate, through the legislation of this
session, unless it is stopped.
Worked Into Appropriations.
LEGISLATION designed to accomplish