1926: ..." the Indians didn't have to die to become good Indians. They just had to cease being real contenders for the source of all the white man's wealth -- which is the land upon which we stand." -Chief Heavy Breast

In 1886 Theodore Roosevelt was 28 years old and had already served as a New York State Assemblyman, was a successful author (he eventually wrote 18 books), and ran off to be a cowboy. Fifteen years later he would be the 26th President of the United States following the assassination of President William McKinley. He was the President of everyone in the country - all races. He was the President of all Native American people. I cannot imagine how it felt to have a man who thought this way about a portion of his people, and they were still "wards" (more like Prisoners of War) under his command, and he thought they were best off dead. It's just unimaginable. 

1886, Feb 6  The Rugby Gazette and East Tennessee News 

Here is a portion of what he said in 1886, when he was 28 years old. 

Roosevelt on Cow Boys and Indians.

In a recent lecture in New York Theodore Roosevelt gave additional evidence of his admiration for the cow boy and his contempt for the Indian. Here is an extract: "I suppose I should be ashamed to say that I take the western view of the Indian. I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are the dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the cause of the tenth.

Roosevelt in college.

The most vicious cow boy has more moral principle than the average Indian. Turn 300 low families of New York into New Jersey, support them for fifty years in vicious idleness, and you will have some idea of what the Indians are. Reckless, revengeful, fiendishly cruel, they rob and murder, not the cow boys, who can take care of themselves, but the defenseless, lone settlers on the plains. As for the soldiers, an Indian chief once asked Sheridan for a cannon. 'What! do you want to kill my soldiers with it?' asked the general. 'No,' replied the chief; 'want to kill cow boy; kill soldier with a club.' Ranch life is ephemeral.  Fences are spreading all over the western country, and by the end of the century most of it will be under cultivation. I, for one, shall be sorry to see it go; for, when the cow boy disappears one of the best and healthiest phases of western life will disappear with him." - Source: 1886 Jan 22  Bismarck Weekly Tribune 

Roosevelt around the time he made the speech 

Over time, this phrase started to take on a new meaning. It was used to JOKE about killing Indians. And this piece says that all kids know this idiom well. 

1899, Jan 13  The Bystander 

The Only Good One

"Where we old folks used to say honest Injun', the modern kid says 'on the dead."

"Well, you know, the only good Injun is the dead Injun." 

Eventually, society started to rethink the killing of more than a quarter million people, and after most of the Native Americans were confined to reservations, their kids in boarding schools, treaties broken and they were barely surviving - many Americans became sentimental:

INDIANS IN UNITED STATES

-- How the Red Man is "Turning Defeat into Triumph -- 

Increasing Attendance Shown at Schools
 - Source: 1915, Dec 9   The Southern Democrat 

          No longer can it be said that the only good Indian is a dead Indian. That statement, born of ignorance of the real character of the Indian, is now definitely eliminated from the list of epigrams by a report of the census bureau on the present population in the United States.        

          While the report shows a much lower rate of growth for the Indian population than for the white, an increasing mixture of white blood, and decreasing vitality of full-blood Indians, indicating a tendency to disappear altogether, it also shows increasing attendance at school and decreasing illiteracy, an increase in the percentage of the self-supporting and a decrease in the number of reservation Indians.    
          While the report shows that there were 265,683 Indians in the United States, exclusive of Alaska, in 1910, an increase of 17,430, or 7 percent, over the number reported in  1890, there are about 300,000 Indians in this country at present time. Among them are to be found manufacturers, bankers, United States officials, mechanical engineers, locomotive engineers, telegraph operators, actors, artists, clergymen, college professors, physicians, surgeons, and lawyers. The Indian has turned defeat into triumph. He has played the game according to the rules laid down by civilization and won.

Dethroned Redman Doesn't Need to Die to Become Good

          Glacier Park, Mont., July 10 -- At the dedication of the world's first privately erected free rural Indian school, which was built upon the Glacier National Park reservation, one of the speakers, a white man said:  "The white man didn't tell the truth when he said the only good Indian is a dead Indian. Chief Owen Heavy Breast, Indian philanthropist, not only gave part of his allotment but he went upon the mountainside and hewed out timber with which to build this log school house so the Indian boys and girls of the reservation could learn to read and write English."
          Chief Heavy Breast, an Indian of considerable education, great modesty and much concern as to giving all the educational advantages of the white man to his people, rather took his auditors by surprise when he pushed aside all reference to his school-house gifts and took up the thread of this speaker's remarks in a philosophical dissertation which while stripper of any bitterness smacked somewhat of sarcasm.
          The chief said: "The frontiersman did used to say, I have read, that the only good Indian is a dead Indian, but it was their greed that made 'em say such a ridiculous thing. But, Time which always makes Truth live, has proved that this thought of the frontiersman was only to offspring of the frontiersman's selfish wish, since the years have given to the white man full ownership of all material holdings of any worth. So you see all the Indians didn't have to die to become good Indians. They just had to cease being real contenders for the source of all the white man's wealth -- which is the land upon which we stand. I have come to think though that the white man has made better use of the land than the Indians did. I am a farmer now though, so you see I speak selfishly.
          "The white man is in the saddle to stay and we must follow his ways, even to living. I have thought the matter over every way and although I come from a great race of warriors and have much of the spirit in me, I tell my people that there always comes a time of surrender to every race. All history shows this. In order to get along in this world it is best for the Indian to follow in the white man's footsteps and do as he does. They have given us the vote to give to the men who run for political office and we must now join with the whites. To do otherwise is suicide. That is why I was so anxious to have a school built here in the mountain home of my forefathers so my children and their children will be taught what they must know in order to live and prosper among the white people that has absorbed them as human beings of an inferior make. But there must be some good in us or the Great Spirit would have have let it come to pass that a better grade of people should absorb us. HE must have some object in view or HE would have let us all pass on to the Happy Hunting Grounds in the Full Blood stage as I am today. But if all our children's children finally become pure pale faced people it will show that the Indian's blood contained corpuscles that were needed to take the white people father along their trail of life to where they themselves must give way to a superior race of conquerors." -- Source: 1926, July 12   The Orlando Sentinel 

1926, July 12   The Orlando Sentinel 

1886 Jan 22  Bismarck Weekly Tribune 

1915, Dec 9  The Southern Democrat