Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/260

 and guardians of public stores—all the policemen on the reserves—be natives; let all hauling of supplies be done by the Indians themselves, and let them be paid the full contract rate if they are able to haul no more than a portion of the supplies intended for their use.

Some of these ideas have already been adopted, in part, by the Indian Bureau, and with such success that there is more than a reasonable expectancy that the full series might be considered and adopted with the best results. Instruct the young women in the rudiments of housekeeping, as already outlined. Provide the reservations with saw-mills and grist-mills, and let the Indians saw their own planks and grind their own meal and flour. This plan has been urged by the Apaches so persistently during recent years that it would seem not unreasonable to make the experiment on some of the reservations. Encourage them to raise chickens and to sell eggs; it is an industry for which they are well fitted, and the profits though small would still be profits, and one drop more in the rivulet of gain to wean them from idleness, ignorance, and the war-path. Let any man who desires to leave his reservation and hunt for work, do so; give him a pass; if he abuses the privilege by getting drunk or begging, do not give him another. I have known many Indians who have worked away from their own people and always with the most decided benefit. They did not always return, but when they did they did not believe in the prophecies of the "Medicine Men," or listen to the boasts of those who still long for the war-path.

The notion that the American Indian will not work is a fallacious one; he will work just as the white man will—when it is to his advantage to do so. The adobes in the military post of Fort Wingate, New Mexico, were all made by Navajo Indians, the brothers of the Apaches. The same tribe did no small amount of work on the grading of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad where it passes across their country. The American Indian is a slave to drink where he can get it, and he is rarely without a supply from white sources; he is a slave to the passion of gaming; and he is a slave to his superstitions, which make the "Medicine Men" the power they are in tribal affairs as well as in those relating more strictly to the clan and family. These are the three stumbling-blocks in the pathway of the Indian's advancement;