THE ItiRIGAIION AGE. 



365 



ing of rural homes on the public domain 

 to form as Secretary of Agriculture 

 Wilson says, " sure safeguards of the 

 Republic." 



AN INDIA FAMINE AT HOME. 



"Indians Starving to Death" is the head- 

 ing of a Phoenix spescial to the Chicago 

 Tribune, the text of which is as follows. 

 'Six thousand Indians are starving to 

 death on the Gila Reservation, according 

 to S- M. McGowan, superintendent of the 

 Indian Industrial school of Phoenix. His 

 statement paints a most deplorable picture 

 of conditions existing among tribes that 

 have never been contaminated by white 

 blood. 



Superintendent McGowan said that 

 he found twenty helpless adults in one mis- 

 erable shack.that would, under ordinary 

 circumstances, scarcely accommodate three 

 persons. Congress has appropriated 

 s30,000, but no method of distributing the 

 money was stipulated, hence it is tied up, 

 while the wards of the government are 

 starving to death." 



This statement of the pitiable condition 

 of the friendly and industrious Pimas is 

 old news to western readers, and the case 

 is one of the most shameful and outrageous 

 instances of neglect and betrayal on the 

 part of the United States of an ally, worthy 

 and true. 



That 6,000 Pima Indians, always the con- 

 sistent and active friends of the white man, 

 should be reduced from a condition of 

 wealth and great prosperity to actual 

 starvation through the neglect of the 

 federal government, while the adjacent 

 Apaches, always the white man's foes and 

 causing more trouble, pillage and loss of 

 life than any western tribe, should be 

 to-day sleek and well-fed at the hands of 

 the same government, seems a rewarding 

 of enemies and killing of friends. 



For hundreds of years the Pima's lived 

 in plenty, irrigating their fields from the 

 waters of the Gila until the white man 

 came and diverted its waters onto other 



areas. At the time of the Gadsden pur- 

 chase, Lieutenant Michler of the Boundary 

 Commission said of these Indains in his 

 official report, dated way back in 1856. 



"Besides being great warriors they are 

 good husbandmen and farmers and work 

 laboriously in the field. They are owners 

 of fine horses and mules, fat oxen and 

 milch cows, pigs and poultry and are a 

 wealthy class of Indians. The Pimas 

 consider themselves regular descendants 

 of the Aztecs. As we journeyed along the 

 valley we found lands fenced and irrigated 

 and rich fields of wheat ripening for the 

 harvest a view differing from anything we 

 had seen since leaving the Atlantic States. 

 They grow cotton, sugar, peas, wheat and 

 corn. As I sat upon a rock," continues 

 Lieut. Miehler, "admiring the scene, an 

 old gray-headed Pima took pleasure in 

 pointing out the extent of their domain. 

 They were anxious to know if their rights 

 and titles to their lands would be 

 respected b}* our government, upon learn- 

 ing that their country had become part of 

 the United States." 



The old man's anxiety was but too 

 well founded, and could he contrast 

 now the wealth and prosperity of his 

 tribe before the westward sweep of civi- 

 lization with its present destitution and 

 decay, he would have cause to rise in 

 vengence and demand that this great 

 government adopt a course of common 

 decency. 



There are many people in the Eastern 

 States who have cried out against the 

 injustice meted out to the poor Indian. 

 Their sympathy usually has been mis- 

 placed and wasted upon a savage treach- 

 erous and relentless foe of the whiteman. 

 But here now is a worthy cause none 

 worthier ever lived; to wright a wrong; to 

 give to a good people that of -which they 

 have been wrongfully despoiled through 

 the criminal carelessness of the govern- 

 mens. And the solution of the problem 

 is so easy, so simple. The waters of the 

 Gila are ample" to supply the needs of the 

 starving Pimas and many others, only 



