The Omaha guide., 1946-08-31

its dark pages. Had there been no
dark pages of massacre, robbery,
graft and corruption there would
be no occasion for Congress in the
year 1916 to set up an Ind.1n
Claims Commission to pass finally
upon the claims of all our Indian
tribes based on broken treaties
and lost lands.
On the other hand there would
be no occasion for hearing Indian
claims today if our record had been
as dark as it is commonly pictured
Wrongs do not create rights. In
dlan claims exist because the
rights of the American aborigines
10 their aboriginal land holdings
We're written into the basic doc
trlnes of international law. thanks
largely to the genius and courage
OF a great Spanish theologian of
the sixteenth cent anei-co Al.
vittoria, whose treaties on the In
dams is the first great classic of
international law and the first
book to maintain that rights of
liberty and property belong to
men as men regardless of rae
creed, or nationality. And so it
came TO pass that in hundreds of
treaties, agreements and acts of
Congress, we have pledged res
pect for Indian land holdings, for
the right of the Indian to decide
when and how their aboriginal
possessions should be sold to the
United States, and generally for
the fight of the Indians to main
tain their own tribal laws, Gust
oms, and local governments so
long as they e fit to do so.
This expression of the national
conscience represents an indestr-
uctible aspiration Of the American
people. It establishes the highest
standard that any conquering race
has rel set up to govern its re-
lations with a native population.
The Federal Government has spent
somewhere in the neighborhood of
$500, 5000 in purchasing from
the Indians lands which other go
vernments might have confiscated.
It has spent perhaps as much
again in gratuitously providing
educational, sanitary and other SER
vices Of civilization to Indian COM
munities. The norm and the pat
tern fixed by Congress in the
Northwest Ordinance of 1887 has
been one of fair and honorable
dealings.
We have fallen at times from
the high standard which we set
ourselves as a nation. 1t would be
miraculous if the process of buy
ing 215 million square miles Of
land, the largest real estate deal
in history, did not develop a GER
tain number of misunderstanding
difficulties and mistakes, in trac-
ing boundaries, in determining
which of several Indian tribes had
the best claim to a given area, in
seeing that promised payments
were faithfully delivered to those
entitled to receive the payments.
These are the errors which Con-
gress has from time to time in
the past striven TO rectify through
special jurisdictional acts allowing
particular tribes to bring suit in
the Court of Claims; and it is err
rors Of this type which Congress
has now authorized a special In
dams Claims Commission to eX-
anime and adjudicate. The action
of Congress is n that will be ap-
plauded throughout the United
States and throughout the world
by all who know that the rights
Of each of us in a democracy can
be no stronger than the rights of
u weakest minority-by all who
have understood the golden words
spoken 1000 years ago by a re-
preventative of all oppressed peo-
pies, Even as We do unto the
least of these so We do unto me"