Our Indian Affairs [pp. 5-22]

OUR INDIAN AFFAIRS.
eventually an Indian State could be created, and the districts
occupied by different tribes would then become counties. Though
some of the Indians would prefer a Confederation, each tribe
remaining independent, yet for reasons already suggested, this
project should not be adopted. But this fine Territory must be
kept for the red men now there, and we hope it can become the
abode of other tribal Indians, until a state of things better for
them as well as for us brings to pass a change from special Territorial to our common State condition. As the case now stands,
we see no alternative but that of testing the experiment of fostering this Indian community, unless we would break the sacred
faith of the country as pledged to this people. We regard it as
an experiment. In the end one of two things will come to passthe experiment will be so manifestly a failure that all parties,
the best of the Indians included, will be prepared for some great
change as a matter of inevitable public necessity; or else, the
experiment will succeed so well, that the then civilized and
Christian people of this Territory will take their stand on the
common broad basis of the other States, and be welcomed as
equal sharers of our American heritage.
We must look for a moment at the administrative methods by
which the Government as the guardian of this people is fulfilling
its high trust. Here the first thing that strikes us with surprise
is that such great, varied, costly and difficult matters should be
placed in the care of a mere bureau of one of the Departments,
superintended by a subordinate officer. The Secretary of the Department is indeed held responsible for the proper administration of Indian Affairs by this bureau. For a long time, the Indian bureau was placed in the War Departrment, expressing, we
suppose, the idea of many persons then and since that the chief
function of the Government towards the Indians was to fight
them! This bureau was afterwards very wisely placedcl in the
Department of the Interior, where it now remains, and where it
receives as full a measure or supervision from the hlead of the
Department as can be given to it by a Secretary, who has also
to superintend the Pension, General Land, Patent, Census, Edacation, and other matters of national interest, some of them of
broad import and multitudinous details. So far as able and upright statesmanship is concerned, the Indian Department need
desire no better Secretary than the gentleman now at the head
18
[January,