The Word Carrier of Santee Normal Training School (Santee, Nebraska), 1929-11 - 1929-12

              the Word Carrie
OF
SANTEE NORMAL TRAINING SCHOOL.
VOLUME   I.VIII
HELPING THE   BIGHT, EXPOSING THE "WRONG
NUMBER 6
SANTKK,   NIGBItASKA.
Nov.-Dec, 1929
FIFTY CENTS PER YEAR
Our   Platform
For Indians we want \merican Education I
We want American Homes! We want American Rights! I'he result of whic.h is American
Citizenship! And the Gospel is tlie Power of
Goil for their Salvation !
Conference at Lake MohonK Pledges
Co-operation to Federal Policies
Field For Missions Shown To Churches
Resolutions, representing results of three
days' deliberations b.v some 150 men and women from various parts of the United States
were adopted and a rising vote of appreciation given to Mr. and Mrs. Daniel A. Smiley
for their generosity in making possible the
meeting, marked the closing on Friday night
of the thirty-fifth Lake Mohonk conference
on the Indian.
Dr. G. E. E. Lindquist, chairman of the
committee on resolutions, read a report which
was adopted.    In brief it follows:
The conference expresses to President Hoover its appreciation for the selection of Charles J. Rhoads and J. Henry Seattergood as
Commissioner and Assistant Commissioner of
Indian Affairs.
To secretary of the Interior, Ray Lyman
Wilbur, the conference sends its greetings
and its regrets that the pressure of official
business prevented his attendance. The conference thanks him for his message sent
through Commissioner Rhoads and for his
deep interest in the establishment of the Indians as economically independent citizens.
The conference pledges to the commissioners their co-operation in anv way their services may be helpful in advancing the welfare
of   the American   Indians.
The conference uroes that money enough
be appropriated to make the Indian service a
model for till governments.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the
educational program for Indians must in-
inclnde much more than merely a school
program of the conventional sort. It must
be roofed in the real needs of the Indian
people: it must help them to make their own
way in the four essentials of education,health,
economic well >eing family and community life
and wholesome recreation, including cultural
and spiritual interests.
We commend the progress made b.y the
Indian bureau in getting Indian children into
the public schools. The Government should,
however, seek to supplement the work of the
local public schools with family case work,
community nursing and similar services necessary to make the adjustment to white civilization.
In the educational prog-am for Indians,
care should be taken to provide a variety of
opportunities for training, especially through
the provision of schoolarships and similar
aids in existing institutions, so that qualified
Indian youth may find the w»y open for any
possibly career.
Finding employment for Indians that will
enable them to support themselves by their
own labor, at least in accordance with a minimum standard of health and decency, must
be a major activity of the Indian service, and
adequate additional funds for this purpose
should De provided at. once.
In the case of the Indian youth this activity
should include not only vocational training
and vocational guidance, but actual placement in productive enterprise with the necessary follow up to see that the boys aud girls
are satisfactorily established • in their new
environments.
In the case of adults this activity should
include training and encouraging the Indians
to use their own resources on the reservations,
developing and extending their native arts
and industries, introducing new local or home
industries, and encouraging and aiding such
Indians and their families as desire it or can
not find satisfactory means of livelihood on
the reservations, to migrate from tlit eser-
vations, and become established in newrlocal
ities.
The new day in Indian affairs brings tremendous challenge to the church and the re-
ligous people of the nation. Large as the
contributions ot the mission boards to the
welfare of the Indians may have seemed in
the past, they are how entirely inadequate
for the needs of the immediate future. Now
is the hour of opportunity.
In view of the lack of authority to preserve
order within Indian reservations, to punish
misdemeanors and the^lesser offenses, we urge
upon Congress the prompt enactment of legislation which will remedy the situation.
We urge that the allotment and other laws
relating to Indian land titles be so amended
that each Indian family should retain a hom°
site, to remain inalienable and non taxable
until otherwise provided b.y Congress, though
in no manner affecting the status of the Indian as a citizen of the state in which he resides.
Every consideration of honesty and wise administration calls for the early determination
of every Indian tribal claim against the Government.
Appituation From Guests
Dr. Charles L. White of New York, executive secretary of the American Baptist Home
Mission Society, expressed on behalf of the
conference to Mr. and Mrs. Smiley a deep
appreciation for their gracious invitation to be
their guests at Lake Mohonk.
Dr. John R. Mott, chairman of the International Missionary Council, and president
of the World Alliance of the Y. M. C. A.,
who recently returned from a round-the-world
journey, in the closing address emphasized the
urgent need of effecting closer and more efficient co-operation on the part of all the Christian agencies at work among the Indians.—
Paul S. Deland, in the Christian Science Monitor
Indians Protest Reservation Quiz
250 Sign Petition Criticizing Frazier, Wheeler
Investigation
Protest against the manner in which Senator Lynn J. Frazier, North Dakota, and
BurtonK. Wheeler, Montana, conducted their
investigation into affairs of the Standing
Rock Reservation last summer has been
signed b.y 250 Indians and sent to the United
States senate at Washington, and was dicussed
here today.
The protestants claimed that Frazier and
Wheeler made no effort to determine the actual status of the Indians on the resevation
and called as witnesses only those Indians
who were opposed to the manner in which
E. D. Mossmari, Indian agent, handled reservation affairs. The hearing was a curt ''disgrace" and a travesty in that the senators
clearly were attempting to place in the records
only matters which would reflect discredit on
the federal Indian Bureau and the reservation administration.—Aberdeen American.
The Proper Incentive For Indians To Work
In their mission station at Crow Creek,
So. Dak., our Episcopal brethern have a
dormitory for girls. From this Christian
home the Indian girls go every day to the public school. Rev. David W. Clark tells how
he is interesting the poverty stricken Indian
parents to help in the support of this home.
We quote from the South Dakota Churchman:
Dr. L. P. Jacks has recently said, "A civilization saves its soul by the way in which it
wins its daily bread—and I have no hesitation
in saying that the chief reason why the various soul-saving enterprises now in being are
yielding such meagre results lies in the general overlooking of this elementary and everlasting fact." The fundamental cause for dissatisfaction among adult Indians is that na
way has ever been provided for them to wir>
enough daily bread to keep body and soul together. The only method of securing it has
been to get the Federal Government or the
Church to give it to them. The situation is
no better than it was fifty years ago—indeed
it is worse, because two generations have
grown up believing that such provision for
their needs is their due. It is probable that
the group of ambitious Indians in the tribe
would have found a way to win its daily bread
if any incentive to do so had been provided.
The greatest incentive known to man—the
only one that works with all classes and all
races in all stages of civilization—is provision for his children. No Indian has had this
incentive, because the Government has taken
all the Care of his.children between the ages
of six and eighteen years. Out of their poverty we ask the fathers to provide fifty dollars a year for each child at the Dormitory.
We have further ask^d them to help with the
childrens' clothes; when they could not buy
new clothes—and no one could—we have given then old clothes which the mothers made
over. We did not ask for cash but for labor
or supplies. One man loaned a cow for the
winter; one mother did the laundry work
every week. A number sawed and hauled
wood in zero weather to pay their part. Two
families raised extra chickens and brought
them, as well as hay, potatoes, and onions.
So they have made a start in providing for
their children. If we could provide more
labor there is not the least doubt that mure
men would work; they are now beginning to
want the white man's standard of living and
are willing to work for it, even at the I >w
wage of two dollars a day, which is the Government rate for da.vdabor—but there s no
labor. Here is an enterprise which, if financed
by the Church, could soon be self-supporting; it is a new venture in missionary work,
but like Dr. Jacks, we believe the results in
soul slaving would no longer be meagre."
An Indian school to be effective should be
something more than an orphan asylum and
reformatory with feeble educational attachments.
We shall succeed iu benefiting the Indiau
only as we succeed in getting him to do things
for himself.
No race in the history of the world h sever
rmide any progress or advanced lo a si ife of
enlightenment and independence except through its own efforts, and if is not reus uiahle
to suppose there will be any Divine intervention in favor of the Indian. We should, therefore teach him to pray, hot that his just burdens be lightened, but rather that he be .jiveu
the strength to bear them. —Chemawa American.