Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 4.djvu/159

Rh and privileges of American citizenship, to treat him in all respects as a citizen, and

to relieve him of all restraints to which other Americans citizens are not subject. I do not intend to go here into a disquisition on the legal status of the Indian, on which elaborate treatises have been written, and learned judicial decisions rendered, without raising it above dispute. The end to be reached is unquestionably the gradual absorption of the Indians in the great body of American citizenship. When that is accomplished, then, and only then, the legal status of the Indian will be clearly and finally fixed. But we should not indulge in the delusion that the problem can be solved by merely conferring upon them rights they do not yet appreciate, and duties they do not yet understand. Those who advocate this seem to think that the Indians are yearning for American citizenship, eager to take it if we will only give it to them. No mistake could be greater. An overwhelming majority of the Indians look at present upon American citizenship as a dangerous gift, and but few of the more civilized are willing to accept it when it is attainable. And those who are uncivilized would certainly not know what to do with it if they had it. The mere theoretical endowment of savages with rights which are beyond their understanding and appreciation will, therefore, help them little. They should certainly have that standing in the courts which is necessary for their protection. But full citizenship must be regarded as the terminal, not as the initial, point of their development. The first necessity, therefore, is not at once to give it to them, but to fit them for it. And to this end, nothing is more indispensable than the protecting and guiding care of the Government during the dangerous period of transition from savage to civilized life. When the wild Indian first turns his face from his old habits toward “the ways of the white man,” his self-reliance is severely shaken. The