uttered one truth of his times when he said that "there was not one white man who loved an Indian, and not an Indian but who hated a white man.'

Could we but perceive the true character of the Indians, and learn what their dispositions are when not covered by the cloak of necessity, policy and interest, we should find that they have always regarded us as a body of false and cruel invaders of their country, while we in turn are too apt to consider them as a treacherous and bloodthirsty race, who should be destroyed by any and all means. If we now fairly consider the cause of this feeling, we may more readily understand its result.

The more we study the Indian's character, the more we appreciate the marked distinction between the civilized being and the real savage. Yet we shall find that the latter is, after all, governed by the impulses and motives that govern all other men. The want of confidence and the bitter hatred always existing between the two races have been engendered by the warfare that has lasted for centuries, and by the stories of bad faith, cruelty and wrong handed down by tradition from father to son until they have become second nature in both. It is unfair to suppose that one party has invariably acted rightly, and that the other is responsible for every wrong that has been committed. We might recount the treachery of the red man, the atrocity of his crimes, the cruelties of his tortures and the hideousness of many of his savage customs. We might undertake to estimate the number of his victims, and to picture the numberless valleys which he has illumined by the burning homes of hardy frontiersmen, yet at the same time the other side of the picture might appear equally as black with injustice.

One hundred years before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth, the Spanish government issued a decree authorizing the enslavement of the American Indians as in accord with the law of God and man. Later they were transported to France, to San Domingo and other Spanish colonies, were sold into slavery in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Louisiana, and were hunted with dogs in Connecticut and Florida. Practically disfranchised by our original Constitution. and deprived either by war or treaty of nearly every tract of land which to them was desirable and to the white man valuable, they were the prey to the grasping avarice of both Jew and Gentile. Step by step a powerful and enterprising race has driven them back from the Atlantic to the West until at last there was scarcely a spot of ground upon which the Indians had any certainty of maintaining a permanent abode.

It may be well in this connection to remember the fact that in the main the Europeans were kindly treated by the natives when the former first landed on American shores, and when they came to make a permanent settlement were supplied with food, particularly the Plymouth and Portsmouth colonists, which enabled them to endure the severity of the long and cheerless winters. For a time during the early settlement of this country, peace and good will prevailed, only to be followed later by violent and relentless warfare.

Our relations with the Indians have been governed chiefly by treaties and trade, or war and subjugation. By the first we have invariably overreached the natives, and we find the record of broken promises all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific, while many of the fortunes of New York, Chicago, St. Louis and San Francisco can be traced directly to Indian tradership. By war the natives have been steadily driven toward the setting sun-a subjugated, a doomed race. In council the Indians have produced men of character and intellect, and orators and diplomats of decided ability, while in war they have displayed courage and sagacity of a high order. Education, science, and the resources of the world have enabled us to overcome the savages, and they are now at the mercy of their conquerors. In our treaty relations most extravagant and yet sacred promises have been given by the highest authorities, and these have been frequently disregarded. The intrusions of the white race and the noncompliance with treaty obligations, have been followed by atrocities that could alone satisfy a savage and revengeful spirit. Facts that have been already referred to make it almost impossible for the two conflicting elements to harmonize. No administration could stop the tidal wave of immigration that swept over the land; no political party could restrain or control the enterprise of our people, and no reasonable man could desire to check the march of civilization. Our progress knew no bounds. The thirst for gold and the restless desire to push beyond the horizon have carried our people over every obstacle. We have reclaimed the wilderness and made the barren desert glisten with golden harvest; settlements now cover the hunting ground of the savages; their country has been cut and divided in every conceivable form by the innumerable railroad and telegraph lines and routes of communication and commerce, and the Indians standing in the pathway of American progress and the development of the wonderful resources of this country have become the common enemy and have been driven to the remote places of our territory.

During the time that this wonderful change was being wrought, it may be asked if the Indians as a body have made any progress toward civilization, and in the light of past history we would be prompted to reply: Why should they have abandoned the modes of life which Nature had given them to adopt the customs of their enemies?

In seeking the evidences of enlightenment the results are not satisfactory. It is presumed that there is not a race of wild men on the face of the globe who worship the Great Spirit more in accordance with that religion taught in the days of the patriarchs than the natives of this country, and yet after many years of contact with the civilized people the footprints of evil were as plentiful and as common as the evidences of Christianity. Again, in early days the Indian tribes were to a considerable extent tillers of the soil, but by constant warfare, in which their fields were devastated and their crops destroyed, they have become the mere remnant of their former strength, or were pushed out on the vast plains of the West where they subsisted upon wild fruits and the flesh of animals. Could we obtain accurate statistics, we would undoubtedly find that there were more acres of ground cultivated by the Indians one hundred years ago than at the present time. The white race had finally obtained such complete control of every quarter of the country, and the means of communication with every section became so ample that the problem resolved itself into one or the other of two modes of solution, viz., to entirely destroy the race by banishment and extermination, or to adopt some humane and practicable method of improving the condition of the Indians, and in the end make them part and parcel of our great population. The first proposition, though it was found to have thousands of advocates in different sections of the country, was and is too abhorrent to every sense of humanity to be considered. The other method was regarded as practicable, but its adoption was considered doubtful.

Looking at the purpose of our government toward the Indians, we find that after subjugating them it has been our policy to collect the different tribes on reservations and support them at the expense of our people. The Indians have in the main abandoned the hope of driving back the invaders of their territory, yet there are still some who cherish the thought, and strange as it may seem it is a fact that the most noted leader among the Indians advanced such a proposition to the writer within the last few years. They long stood, and mostly still stand, in the position of unruly children to indulgent parents for whom they have very little respect, at times wrongly indulged and again unmercifully punished.