1972 There once was an 1863 ad: “The State reward for dead Indians has been increased to $200 for every red-skin sent to Purgatory. This sum is more than the dead bodies of all the Indians east of the Red River are worth.”

Indians deserve to be treated as just people

1972 Nov 14, The Winona Daily News 
      Just who do these Indians think they are, anyhow? The ones who occupied Washington's Bureau of Indian Affairs were just a mob of hoodlums. They should have to pay for the damage they did and get no concessions at all. 

      They not only were not entitled to “righteous wrath” they were not entitled to any kind of wrath at all.

      The white man occupation of this country was inevitable.  The Indians never had any property rights in the European sense and while some of them were treated badly indeed, their descendants are owed nothing whatsoever by the federal or state governments.

      The Indians are just people – like the Negroes, the Chinese, the Puerto-Ricans, and for that matter the Anglo-Saxon white Protestants.

      The Indian deserves no special place in our society.

      It is folly to keep the reservations going, thus segregating a group of people when it is national policy for all others to desegregate. 

      The reservations should all be closed.

      The Indians should be given what special education they require to compete effectively in the American economic system and then they should be like all the rest of us – just people. ------ W.F.W.  

1972 Nov 14, The Winona Daily News 

Indian deserves the same rights 
1972 Nov 22, The Winona Daily News 
      William F. White, publisher of this newspaper wrote an editorial on Nov. 14, that might have appeared in the September 24, 1863, edition of The Daily Republican, the original name of this newspaper. An ad appeared on that day stating: “The State reward for dead Indians has been increased to $200 for every red-skin sent to Purgatory. This sum is more than the dead bodies of all the Indians east of the Red River are worth.” 
      In Mr. Whites editorial he stated that “Indians deserve to be treated as just people.” I agree. But this will not happen until the attitudes of people change. Mr. White implied that the American Indian is not capable of fitting into our white middle-class society – on this point I disagree. Following is the Declaration of Indian purpose, adopted by 400 Indians from 90 tribes in 1961 at the American Indian Chicago Conference.

CREED

      We believe in the inherent right of all people to retain spiritual values, and that the free exercise of these values is necessary to the normal development of any people. Indians exercised this inherent right to live their own lives for thousands of years before the white man came and took their lands. It is a more complex world in which Indians live today, but the Indian people who first settled in the New World and built the great civilizations which only now are being dug out of the past, long ago demonstrated that they could master complexity.
      We believe that the history and development of America show that the Indian has been subjected to duress, undue influence, unwarranted pressures, and policies which have produced uncertainly, frustration, and despair. Only when the public understands these conditions and is moved to take action toward the formulation and adoption of sound and consistent policies and programs will these destroying factors be removed and the Indian resume his normal growth and make his maximum contribution to modern society.
      We believe in the future of a greater America, an America which we were the first to love, where life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness will be a reality. In such a future, with Indians, and all other Americans cooperating, a cultural climate will be created in which the Indian people will grow and develop as members of a free society.

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       Yes, Mr. White, the Indian deserves no special place in our society, but isn’t it time that we allow them the same rights in order that they can be like the rest of us – just people? How would you or any other ‘American’ feel if you had your culture, dignity, and self-respect taken away? What would you do? Object!       ~~~~~~~      Meredith Stankiewicz, Minn.

1972 Nov 22, The Winona Daily News