The Word Carrier of Santee Normal Training School (Santee, Nebraska), 1917-05 - 1917-06

              The Word Carrier.
of Santee Normal training School.
VOLUME  XLVI
HELPING THE RIGHT, EXPOSING THE "WRONG.
NUMBER 3
SANTEE, NEBRASKA.
MAY-JUNE, 1917
THIRTY CENTS PER YEAR
Our Platform
For Indians we want American Education! We want
American Homes! We want American Rights! The result
of which is American Citizenship! And the Gospel is the
Power of God for their Salvation !
The Indian as a Citizen
Address on Hampton Indian Citizenship Day
By Anna L. Dawes
It is thirty years since the Severalty Bill was
passed, making it possible for the Indians' land
to be allotted and the Indian ward to become a
citizen—thirty years, the life of a generation.
I stand here today in behalf of my father, Henry
Laurens Dawes, who wrote the bill and procured
its passage, to rejoice with you for what has been
accomplished and to beg you and all the young
Indians you represent, to make it still more effective.
My father greatly admired the high qualities
of your race, and his interest in it was profound. By day and by night he pondered your
difficulties and possibilities. In the summer
he visited the reservations to discover your
needs; in the winter he helped to solve your
problems of national life. Nor is it too much
to say that it was his own personal influence
which drove this legislation through. By that
influence he quieted the fearful West, and aroused the indifferent East, and, harder still, he conquered the local enemies of the red man.
It is pertinent to consider some things which
led up to this great achievement. The large
word citizenship covers both rights and duties,
equally for the individual and for the Government. It stands for a covenant of protection
and loyalty between them. The relation of a
citizen to the government under which he dwells
is determined by that government and continually controlled by it. Neither white nor black
nor red man enters into that covenant of protection and loyalty but by grace of law. The
long centuries when the red man dwelt alone
iu our laud did not make him a citizen of the
United States, for the United States was not;
when in 1787 we had become the United States,
our forefathers believed they must protect the
red man and the white man for the good of
both. Perhaps it was not so mistaken a policy
as it seems now, a hundred years later. The
red man, so strong, so able, so noble was yet
driven back and back because without education
in the white man's lore or experience in his life,
the red race could not adapt itself to so strange
a civilization. Therefore until the Indian could
and would adapt himself to the new way, every
reservation and every nation,—yes, every Indian agent,—stood for the protection of both
races. Not until the Indian had gained this
learning of books and life could his own great
wisdom and ability be trusted to direct his people. Then the great adventure was possible and
it began this day thirty years ago.
For just a decade the United States had been
pushing the education which should make this
possible. Against indifference and fierce opposition, in season and out of season, Mr.
Dawes worked on the double foundation laid
by Pratt and Armstrong, until from a hard-
wrung appropriation of $20,000 in 1877, the
Government had gone so fast that five years
later it was spending more than $1,000,000 to
educate Indians. In that year of 1882 Miss
Alice Fletcher came to Washington to plead the
cause of the Omahas. A great scientist and a
great philanthropist, she was and is a veritable
patron saint of the red man. As an archaeologist
she had been studying the life of the Omahas
in their homes. The men of this tribe had
sought to take advantage of some old treaties
and statutes to secure their land for themselves.
There were treaty provisions made by Commissioner Moneypenny in 1855; and there was a bill
known as the Coke Bill, the first idea of which
came from the time of Secretary Schurz and
Senator  Kirkwood.    But   neither treaty nor
statute proved of any value when in the early
seventies the Government proposed to remove
the Omahas.
Then it was that the philanthropist in Alice
Fletcher arose and brought the cry of their distress to the Chairman of the Indian Committee
of the United States Senate where all such troubles come. Together she and Mr. Dawes considered this matter, and the result was the Omaha Bill of 1882, under which the Omahas could
and did own their land, and ' 'For the first time"
says Miss Fletcher, "the Indian was brought
under the law." But he was not yet a citizen.
The result of that experiment was the chief concern of Mr. Dawes for the next five years, and
so nobly did the educated Indians respond—to
their everlasting honor be it said—that the next
step was possible.
In the five years between the two measures,
what we sometimes call the "Dawes Bill" was
considered and rejected in Congress again and
again. The five Civilized Tribes were so bitterly opposed to it that they had to be specifically omitted from its provisions before it could
pass. All the evil forces that surround the reservation joined with much honest doubt of its
wisdom in one immense pressure against it.
Mr. Dawes worked on in tribulation and faith.
Meanwhile the Supreme Court had decided that
no way existed in which an Indian could become
a citizen. Mr. Dawes saw that here was the
great opportunity for the race and as he once
wrote the first bill that enfranchised the negro,
so he now wrote the great citizenship clause
into the allotment act which first gave the Indian his enfranchisement.
Just thirty years ago today he gave you the
right to stand shoulder to shoulder with your
fellow citizens of the United States. Faith in
man, and belief in brotherhood, and deep loyalty to the power and value of citizenship—these
were the beliefs behind this bill, and well have
they been justified.
It was intended, as you know, that the privileges of citizenship and its high duties should
be neither hindered nor curtailed. As soon as
each Indian received his own land in his own
hands, he therefore became a full citizen; he
might come and go, buy and sell, sue and be
sued, he might drink himself to death, he
might get himself in jail if he would—all the
privileges of a citizen were his! And above
all, he might vote.
Mr. Dawes had helped to make a nation out
of separate states, and he had done much to
bring one whole race into freedom by the road
of the law. These problems were not new to
him, and being one of the best legislative lawyers of his time he knew how to meet them.
Moreover a great patriotism and a great humanity continued to drive him forward unceasingly.
He had no illusions that this measure was
perfect, but he did know that it was the Magna Charta of the red man, and he hoped for
all things to follow in its train. Further
changes—questions of taxes, the need of agents
and the like—must inevitably wait for developing life of a people just sloughing off the good
as well as the bad of their old life. And it may
be said he had some disappointments in the
working out of the measure. The states did
not entreat the new citizens as he had hoped;
there were no friendly folk from the churches
and philanthropic societies coming to the aid
of the new farmer, as he expected; the Government divided the land with little regard to the
fitness required in the bill, constantly giving
freedom to the unfit, and, more often than he had
dreamed possible, the Indian did not respond,
shrinking from the bitter winds of self-help.
It was no surprise to my father that the old
Indians should sink under the waves of the
strange ocean of freedom, but he did trust the
young Indians to swim to the shores of a new
world.
All men do not believe as Mr. Dawes did,
that liberty and law are worth more than protection, and in one way and another siuce that
day restrictions have been preserved and full
citizenship postponed. I have said these things
however to show that Mr. Dawes himself did
not hope for an immediate Utopia but that he
believed the fundamental principle of this bill
—that of full and immediate citizenship,—to be
the indispensable foundation of the whole structure It is by reason of the later smothering of
that principle under the pillows of government
protection that we have never seen the full effect
of the law.
Yet after all was Mr. Dawes justified in his
great faith in his beloved red man? Was the
race able to enjoy freedom, and fit for citizenship? Let us see what a single generation has
done for itself.
I take a few figures from the new report of the
Indian Commissioner for 1916. There are today
335,700 Indians iu the United States, but the
"Indians under Federal Supervision" are said to
number only 312,654. Of these 184,855 have
already been allotted, 112,359 of whom already
hold patents in fee simple for most or all of
their land. Moreover 78,985 are already citizens
and 26,290 of them voters. Still more encouraging are the reports of economic conditions,
which show 59,773 Indians to be entirely self-
supporting. And what will you say to the statement that of the reservation Indians there are
42,110 who live in houses worth, with barns
and other outbuildings, $12,365,814; they own
wagons, tools and the like, worth $4,866,244,
stock and poultry reckoned at $33,932,619, and
crops worth $5,293,719. Not. all the Indians
are farmers for the 26,000 who work at other
industries have gained $2,378,377. And from
it all, the frugal have saved in banks and elsewhere over $16,101,825. There are 97,000
church going Indians, and in all the schools
there are 61,243 children. Most wonderful to
discover 28,463 of these have already reached the
goal of the public school—nearly half, you see.
Such is the prosperity of the Indian today, the
blanket Indian of a single generation ago. Is
not the new son of freedom a lusty son?
What then is this citizenship? What does it
profit that a man should be a citizen of a great
country? .... The law guards our equal liberty, grants our equal opportunity, and if we
love the great motherland which is our refuge,
and the wise fatherland which is our pride, it is
for us to do our part and be strong and sturdy
children, ready and fit to bring her safely and
far on the road of achievement. It is for us to
render her the due of loyalty and ambition, of
reasoned self-control and of intelligent industry. The brotherhood of our people is no pretty phrase. It is the meaning of all our past and
the promise of all our future. Our country asks
from us that golden conduct which puts the
other beside ourselves. There is no struggle between capital and labor where that rule reigns,
nor any jealousy of race. Thus in seeking each
the good of the other,we fill the cup of civic duty.
It was to the high heritage of citizenship, with
all that it includes of nationality, patriotism and
civic duty, that the Severalty Law opened the
door. And as every year it swings wider, I beg
you to appreciate what it stands for, and crowd
your citizenship so full of meaning that it shall
burst the old bottles. Let the new wine fill the
common cup of a citizen. Be not a red man
alone, but beyond that a citizen of the United
States; so shall the Severalty Law take on its full
content. It is to you the great chance will come.
You and your children will walk out of the reservation as your fathers have done, but you
will walk into a new life, for which you only
are responsible. Fill up the measure of good
in this statute, in the name of that lover of your
race, Henry L. Dawes, for the sake of your people, for the sake of the Nation of which the
Severalty Law made you citizens.