1912 Jan 21 - American Indian seeking to better conditions of race - by organziation

1912 Jan 21, The Courier Journal 

            The American Indian is not vanishing. As a race, Indians are increasing in numbers. As a race, too, they have arrived at racial consciousness. Among the first to get there are the leaders in religion. With the Bible as a foundation, Indians have recently come to say:

      “If the Indians are factors in America, Indians must make themselves such. If Indians procure their rights, Indians must do their share in the struggle. What may have answered for the times of Providence Plantation and Jamestown, and two to three centuries ago, will not answer for the present. Indians must adapt themselves. They can do so and still be Indians.”

      There have been Indian associations, of course. But the Society of American Indians is different. Indian associations have included white people. Some of them hardly have ventured to include Indians, or at least none who could dominate the purposes and the plans of the associations. The Society of American Indians is the first to be completely Indian in membership. It is an effort of young and ambitious Indians, some religious leaders, some civic leaders, some educations leaders, to lead American Indians into larger and better ways; to compel white men to recognize them, to yield to them. 

* * * 

Bill Now In Congress  

      No sooner is this society in working shape then it begins a movement to compel the white man to take the Indians into larger account. There is pending in Congress a bill providing for the appointment by President Taft of a commission of three men qualified by legal and sociological training, as well as acquaintance with Indian affairs, to study the laws relating to and conditions surrounding the various groups and classes of Indians in the United States.

      The new Indian society is said to hold that efforts to bring together all the scattered tribes, nations and groups of Indians in the United States, to uplift them, to develop them and to adjust them to the circumstances of modern environment are worthy the sympathy and support of white Americans. The new society says it stands for the Indian as an American, with all the rights the name implies. At the same time, it declares it stands for the protection of groups of Indians who have not gasped present situations. In other words, the society is a missionary one to the Indians.

* * * 

Lender of Society

      The Executive Committee of the society has for its chairman Thomas L. Sloan, a Winnebago Indian, with some white blood in his beings. His is from Nebraska, for many years was an attorney of Pender, in the State named. He is a graduate of Hampton Institute. The secretary and treasurer is a Peoria Indian, also part white, from the Quapaw agency, Oklahoma. He is a graduate of the United States Indian School at Carlisle, class of 1891, and for nearly twenty years has been employed in various capacities in the United States Indian Service. At present he is National Supervisor of Indian Employment in the Interior Department, Washington.

      The Rev. Sherman Coolidge, another member, is a pure-blood Arapahoe. He was educated at the schools at Faribault, Minn., that were established there by the late Bishop Whipple. He also was graduated from Seabury Divinity School, located at Faribault, and is a missionary to the Indians in Oklahoma.    

* * * 

Mentioned For Bishop

      The Rev Mr. Collidge has been mentioned for bishop in the Episcopal Church. That church has a jurisdiction in South Dakota that is almost wholly Indian and, as it is vacant, there has been discussion of the plan of creating it into an exclusively Indian district and putting an Indian at its head. Were such done it would be the first Indian to reach that dignity. Whether chosen or not, mention of his name indicates his standing both among his own people and among white people.

      Arthur C. Parker, still another member, is a pure-blood member of the Six Nations of New York State. He is State Archaeologist of New York. He is a writer on both archeology and on questions affecting the Indians. The three other members are Hiram Chase, Henry Standing Bear and Miss Laura M. Cornelius.

      Mr. Chase is a pure-blood Omaha, who studied law at the Cincinnati Law College, and is now an attorney. Henry Standing Bear is a full-blood Pine Ridge Sioux and a graduate of Carlisle of the same class with Mr. Daganett. Miss Cornelius is nearly pure blood Oneida Indian and comes from Wisconsin. She has taken special courses in Leland Stanford and Columbia Universities and in the University of Wisconsin. 

* * * 

Over 300,000 Indians

      The number of Indians in the United States, for whose betterment these and other Indian leaders will labor, is 310,900. Oklahoma contains by far the largest number in any State. That number is 117,000. Arizona has 39,000 and New Mexico and South Dakota 20,000 each.

      The five civilized tribes in Oklahoma, the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creeks and Seminoles, have 101,000. The National Government is spending $5,000,000 a year, or more than $40 a year for each Indian, and from 1789 down to 1911 has expended $520,000,000.

      The objects of the new society are:

First, to promote citizenship and to secure their rights;

Second, to study Indian problems and find solutions for them;

Third, to bring Indians to greater racial consciousness and to unify their aims;

Fourth, to preserve Indian characteristics that are good, that the world as well as 

                  the Indians may have them. 

1912 Jan 21, The Courier Journal