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The CHEMA WA AMERICAN
OUR INDIAN PROBLEM
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“Happy Hunting Ground,” our progenitors imagined
only “a gross paradise of immortal drunkenness.”
Both races considered it unworthy of their proud
spirit “to acquire by labor that which might be rav
ished by arms.” Improvidence, indolence and super
stition were noted characteristics of both. If the
Indian taught us the small vice of tobacco smoking,
we taught him the greater vice of drunkenness; and
if he sometimes substituted the bark of the willow (kin-
i-kin-nick) for the real article, we have gone him one
better by manufacturing a favorite brand from the
leaves of alfalfa.
So, after all, the progress of the Indian has not been
so slow, or that of the white man so rapid, as is some
times supposed.
A MORE CANDID VIEW
The foregoing is the most charitable argument I
have been able to formulate in defense of the Indian’s
slow progess and to bolster up the theory that long
centuries are required for the development of a race in
this day and age, from a state of barbarism to one of
civilization. But when we consider the marvelous
progress of the Japanese people during the past sixty
years, we are made to doubt the truth of this conten
tion. When Commodore Perry landed on the coast
of Japan in 1853, the Japanese were perhaps but little
farther advanced in the ways of civilization, measured
by our standards, than were some tribes of Amer
ican Indians in the sixteenth century, when Cortez
began his conquest of Mexico. It was not until 1868,
when the Japanese overthrew the Shogunate, that the
cause of civilization in Japan triumphed over medie
val barbarity, which has, in a little more than half a
century, transformed a barbarous State into “the
Sparta of Asia and the England of the Orient.”
This unprecedented advancement of a race has been
attributed to the racial characteristics of the Japanese
people. They are quick to cast away old traditions and
prejudices at the sight of new and better ways and
things. Scores of their brightest young men and
women go out every year to distant lands in search of
new knowledge, cheerfully undergoing privations and
social ostracism. These praisworthy traits are directly
opposite to the dominant characteristics of the Indian.
In his “Race Contact,” Professor Muntz says, “Noth
ing seems to have retarded the progress of the aborig
inal American more than his innate conservatism and
resistence to innovation.” The majority of the In
dians, particularly the full bloods, do not want the
white man’s civilization. The Japanese do, and there
is the difference. The one big difference in the two
races, however, seems to be in their mental develop
ment. Wnen we discovered the Japanese we found
them with a literature and the fine arts developed to
a high order of perfection, and while far behind the
people of the Western World in a knowledge of the
sciences and the practical arts of life, they are said to
have been fully equal to them in the development of
the mind. The Indian’s mind has not yet been great
ly developed. The old people are ignorant and many
of them not only want to remain so themselves, but
they have little desire that their children should be
educated.
So, while we find scores of Japanese,
Chinese, Filipinos, Hawaiians and other brown races
in our colleges and universities, it is rarely that we
find Indians strenuously seeking the advantages of in
stitutions of higher learning. As long as the Indian
secludes himself and refuses Io discard his old preju
dices and traditions for better and more enlightened
aspirations, just so long will his progress be slow and
unstable
He must cease to look backward and turn
his eyes toward the future if he would advance—yea,
even survive.
HIS FUTURE HOPE
The only hope for the Indian, particularly the
northern and middle western tribes, is assimila
tion—not necessarily amalgamation. They cannot
much longer maintain their existence as a separate,
distinct people. They must be merged into the
general population of the nation ar.d become citizens
instead of remaining tribesmen. The Indians of this
country are no longer a sovereign people even on
their reservations, and they cannot become self-
respecting and useful members of society while still
maintaining the status of half-ward and half-citizen.
It is the problem of our schools and other educational
agencies to develop and preserve the best there is in
Indian life, including his better racial qualities, his
native arts and his natural talents, and at the same
time prepare him to enter the race of life on equal
terms with all other citizens.
The most discouraging thing in all this Indian busi
ness is the attitude of the Indian himself—his general
apathy, indifference, and lack of desire and ambi
tion to improve his condition through his own efforts.
Buckle, in his “History of Civilization,” tells us that
the experience of all past ages should teach us that
there can be no permanent improvement in any back
ward people until the spirit of that people has first
been changed and a desire foi improvement aroused.
We must somehow inspire the Indian with courage
and self-confidence, and we must teach him thrift
and industry. He has not yet learned to work and to
love work for its own sake and for the happiness and
contentment it may give him. If he must work he
would rather hunt or fish. He still, to a large extent,
idealizes idleness, and thus, as Andy Gump would
say, “he trails the ghost of a forlorn hope actoss the
valley of daik despair.” This is particularly true on
those reservations where Indians own oil wells, valu
able timber, or rich farm lands and live in idleness on
unearned incomes, “nursed in the glowing lap of soft
desire.”
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