FROAI THE WAR-PATH TO THE PLOW 



83 



It is a strange thing indeed that we 

 should be concerning ourselves so largely 

 and spending so many millions each year 

 for the remaking of the people who are 

 the truest of Americans. It shows how 

 anxious to be just and willing to be gen- 

 erous are our people. They feel with a 

 quick conscience how cruel it would be 

 to introduce this primitive man into a 

 harsh, competitive world of business with 

 a code of its own more foreign to him 

 than that of the Bushido ; too much, they 

 fear, like pitting Little Boy Blue against 

 Shylock in a trade. 



Let us frankly state the fact — there is 

 such a thing as being too unselfish, and 

 this the Indian too often is, for he has 

 not gained a forecasting imagination. 

 His training has not given him the cardi- 

 nal principle of a competitive civilization, 

 the self-protecting sense. It is not in- 

 stinctive in him to be afraid of starving 

 tomorrow if he is generous or wasteful 

 today. 



"why should Wt WORK?" 



And work? Why work if not neces- 

 sary? Is it not, as an Osage chief once 

 reprovingly said to me, is it not the hope 

 of every American that he may some day 

 be a gentleman who does not work? 



We are bent, then, upon saving the In- 

 dian from those who would despoil him 

 until the time comes when he can stand 

 alone. And that time comes when he has 

 absorbed into his nature the spirit of this 

 new civilization of which he has become 

 a part. This is certainly a revolution we 

 are expecting — an impossible revolution 

 in some natures — the substitution of a 

 new standpoint for one long taught by 

 fathers and grandfathers. 



Truly such a transformation is not to 

 be worked like some feat of legerdemain, 

 by a turn of the wrist. Bayonets cannot 

 do it ; money cannot do it. We can force 

 men to work. We can keep them with- 

 out work. These two methods we have 

 tried with the Indian, and they have 

 failed in leading him toward the goal of 

 responsible self-support. Adaptation to 

 new environment comes from education 

 through experience. 



We therefore have the task of intro- 

 ducing a new conception into the Indian 



mind This is not a thing that can be 

 done wholesale. It becomes an individual 

 problem, and our hope lies in schools for 

 the young and in casting more and more 

 responsibility upon the mature and let- 

 ting them accept the result. 



What should the test be in passing 

 upon the fitness of one who is to be sent 

 out into the world ? Plainly his ability to 

 handle himself, to care for himself so 

 that he will not become a charge on the 

 community. To be a rich Indian is not a 

 qualification, for his wealth may indicate, 

 and generally does, nothing more than 

 good fortune. In the land lottery some 

 drew prizes and some blanks. Nor should 

 the degree of blood be the test nor edu- 

 cation ; for many of those who are wisest 

 in counsel and most steady in habits and 

 sturdy in character are uneducated full- 

 bloods. The man who can "do" for him- 

 self is the man to be released. And he 

 is the man who thinks not in terms of the 

 Indians' yesterday, but in terms of the 

 Indians' tomorrow. One whose imagina- 

 tion can take that leap and whose activi- 

 ties will not lag behind. It is to be re- 

 membered that we are not looking for an 

 ideal Indian nor a model citizen, but for 

 one who should not longer lean upon the 

 government to manage his affairs. 



MANY THOUSANDS ARE CAPABLli AND 

 THRIFTY ' 



There are many thousand Indians in 

 our charge who are entirely self-support- 

 ing, capable, thrifty, far-sighted, sensible 

 men; and, singularly enough, these are 

 most often found among those tribes 

 which were most savage and ruthless in 

 making war upon the whites. Some of 

 these are indeed so far-sighted that they 

 do not wish to enjoy full independence 

 because their property would then be- 

 come subject to taxation. 



Others are attached by a tribal senti- 

 ment and by the natural conservatism of 

 the Indian to existing conditions. Still 

 others are held to governmental control 

 in part because of the entanglement of 

 their tribal affairs. The government will 

 not do its duty toward itself or toward 

 these Indians until men of this class are 

 fully released. There is a second class, 

 made up of those willing to work but not 



