The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1921-04-26


los in the possession Of their lands.
Mexico did the same when that
country became independent Of
Spain, and when the United States
took possession Of New Mexico in
1916, the treaty We made with Mex
leo once more confirmed the Pueblo
in his possession OF the land and
made it impossible for him to Sell
it. That is why the Pueblo remains
today as a curious and beautiful
survival OF primitive America.
Value Of Pueblos.
More and more the Pueblo is be.
ing appreciated by artists, scien-
fists and by Americans in general
who travel. When he holds one of
his strange dances, hundreds, some
times thousands, Of spectators come
to watch. Every year a regiment
of learned scientists goes to New
Mexico to study the Pueblos. and
another regiment of artists goes to
paint them. An art colony has been
formed at Taos. An interesting
development in this connection is
that some young Indians have
learned from the artists how to
paint and have shown high ability.
They have never learned business,
and they do not take to modern ag-
ricultural machinery, but they
learn how to paint readily and in
stinctively. They are a race of ar
lists and dreamers. They have no
desire to become citizens and en-
gage in business. They have no
training for such a work and no
aptitude.
That these Indians should be
preserved as they are and allowed
to live their natural lives, for their
own sake and for the sake of sci
ence and art and the travelling pub
| lie is a point which scarcely seems
to need laboring. For the sake of
New Mexico, too, they should be
left as they are. More and more
money is brought into the state
every year by persons who are at
tracted by the picturesque and his
torical features of the state, and Of
these the Pueblos are one of the
most interesting. Hotels are being
| built to accommodate the growing
| throng Of tourists to that country.
and companies are organized to
show them the sights. Excursions
to the Pueblo dances and festivals
are one of the chief attractions
which these companies have to Of
fer.
Whence, then, comes the demand
that the Indians be given citizen
ship? There seems little doubt
that it comes primarily from GER
tain powerful persons who have
cast covetous eyes upon the Indian
lands. These lands are tiny patches
upon the great extent Of the south
west, but they are rich and valu-
able. 1t is now impossible to buy
them. But when they have been
divided into individual allotments,
each Indian will have the right to
sell his own. He will not want to
sell, but the white men know how
to get around that difficulty. The
Indians will be encouraged to 90
into debt, and their lands will be
attached and sold. The methods Of
accomplishing this have been
brought to a high degree Of per-
lection in taking their lands away
from the Mexicans. These people
are being rapidly converted from
contented small farmers into poor
laborers. 1t is easy to get them in
debt. A drouth and the loss OF a
crop furnishes an opportunity.
Sickness, funerals, marriages, are
all occasions for lending money.
Sometimes the thing is done fairly.
Sometimes the Mexican is induced
to sign papers he cannot read.
Sometimes he barters away his
home when he is drunk.
All of these methods can be ap-
piled to the Indian more easily
than to the Mexican because the
Indian knows even less OF business
and is even more of child. Soon
the Pueblo lands will have passed
into the hands Of land spectators
} and the Indians will have gone
forth to struggle for a living as
} laborers. Soon the great COM
munal houses, the dances and
. feasts and ceremonies, the pottery
and baskets, and jewelry of silver
} and turquoise, will be no more.
| The traveller. the artist and the
! scientist, will look in vain for that
living vision of the past, which is
always so curiously interesting.
The last vestige of it will have
been crushed. The steam roller OF
| civilization will have finished its
work for the red man.