THE INDIAN NO PROBLEM. II 



and children, tepees, dogs and ponies, to the entire neglect of 

 their farm patches. Immediately they get their money they 

 turn it over to the authorized trader, who, taking advantage 

 of his exclusive privileges and their vanity and necessities, 

 teaches improvidence through trusting them to the amount of 

 the payment, and too often with goods at inordinate prices. 

 The stubborn fact remains that we have scarcely any Indians 

 in the United States free from Bureau control, and the evils 

 named, and many others consequent upon our Bureau system 

 of sustaining and forwarding tribal conditions, are in the 

 way of any complete, individual development and growth into 

 real citizenship. 



The 5000 Indians in the great State of New York live on 

 reservations under the supervision of the Indian Agent, and 

 by this very fact are helped to avoid association and competi- 

 tion with us, and to reject the use of our systems of law, 

 schools and development. 



The arguments and devices we resort to, to keep up these 

 tribal organizations, are unworthy of our civilization. Any 

 careful examination into these conditions will prove that the 

 Indian is to be exonerated from being dependent and worth- 

 less, and that we are entirely the guilty cause of his slow 

 progress in civilization. 



The early death of the " Freedraan's Bureau," with its 

 "forty acres and a mule." was an infinite blessing to the 

 Negro himself and to the country as well. 



Far better for the Indians had they never been placed 

 under such a Bureau system. 



Then the great law of necessity and self-preservation would 

 have led the individual Indian to find his true place, and his 

 real emancipation would have been speedily consummated. 



What I contend for in part is that the small number of 

 Indians in the United States, especially the Indian children, 

 shall have privileges beyond the tribe, the privilege of seeing 

 and learning what the United States does for other men, and 

 may do for them. 



