Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1872.djvu/8

4 We are assuming, and I think with propriety, that our civilization ought to take the place of their barbarous habits. We therefore claim the right to control the soil which they occupy, and we assume that it is our duty to coerce them, if necessary, into the adoption and practice of our habits and customs. In doing this, it seems to me that humanity and justice, as well as honor and dignity, demand that our conduct should be characterized, so far as practicable, by forbearance and uniform kindness of treatment.

It may be true, as the Commissioner remarks, that the only object at which practical statesmanship will aim is to reduce the evil to a minimum in degree; to circumscribe the field of its operations as closely as possible, and to forward the operation of those causes and give scope to those forces which will most speedily put an end to its duration. This much the Indian policy is effecting. The feeding system adopted with the dangerous and hostile tribes has reduced the loss of life and property to a degree which must be termed inconsiderable, when the extent of territory and the exposure of our settlements are fairly taken into account. The reservation system withdraws the great body of the Indians from the direct path of our industrial progress, and allows the work of settlement and the extension of our railways to go forward up to the full limit of the capacities of capital and immigration, with absolutely no check or diminution on account of Indian hostility, actual or apprehended. There is not a mile of railway which has authority of law for its construction, and for which the capital stands ready, which is unbuilt to day by reason of danger from Indian attack. There is not a family at the East, or newly arrived from Europe, which is desirous of a western settlement, but can locate itself in safety on public lands at any point from Omaha to Sacramento. It follows, from these two propositions, that the peaceful progress of settlement and industrial enterprise is only limited by the resources of the country and the expansiveness of our population. The work of circumscribing and confining the evil, of which complaint is made, is, therefore, being carried forward as rapidly and effectively as in the nature of the case is possible; and the three conditions of a successful treatment of the Indian difficulty are shown to be realized in the present policy of the Government toward the hostile and semi-hostile tribes.

While the accomplishment of the objects already referred to may embrace all that practical statesmanship demands, there is still another view of the Indian question to which the Commissioner does not advert in his report, but which enters largely into the new policy, and which has unquestionably commended it to a large class of people who are seldom attracted to the discussion of political questions, or to the active participation in governmental details. I refer to the scheme of civilizing and Christianizing the Indians.

To what extent the success of the conditions above alluded to is due to the workings of the last named, I have no means of determining, and