Jan 14, 1909 J.W. La Blance, the Umatilla Indian, who is making an independent investigation into the condition of the redmen of this state, spoke on the street at the corner of Fourth and Main last night.

1909 Jan 14, Santa Ana Register 

      La Blance appealed to his audience for clothing for a number of poor families at San Juan Caplstrano, and received a generous response. A large supply of clothing was turned over to him by the Salvation Army, and individuals brought him some good, cast-off clothing. He said he has about 400 pounds of it…. 

      [His talk last night in part follows:] To the Public: Believing that in many respects the character of the American Indians and their attitude towards the whites and the Federal government are misunderstood, I have therefore taken it upon myself to travel upon my own responsibility and lecture to the public in this state. I am not attempting to stir up trouble or to make the Indians of California, who are held as wards of the Federal government, discontented with the conditions under which they are being cared for by the Federal government. I am merely trying to bring about a better understanding. 

      It is very true that there are many Indians in the state of California that are unhealthy, homeless and helpless. I find them scattered in small bands, chiefly far out in the forests and valleys and on tops of mountains. They are without money, without education, without political pull, without friends to aid them, without hope, the prey of the bad whites. Their case is extremely hard.

      There is not money enough to conduct a sufficient campaign. The money in Christian pockets must be divided among a multitude of worthy objects, and to each according to its merits. There are not workers enough to go around and give these 17,000 Indians what they need in redemptive service. There is not time enough in which to do this work through the present agencies. The movements are too slow. The Indian race in this state is passing away by the hundreds every year. Seventy years ago there were 200,000 Indians in this state. Today there are only 17,000. Wise observers tell us that apparently the decline is creasing. I have been told by a certain Indian chief that while seven Indian children were born to this tribe the past year, eleven Indians died. Captain Tack, a well known Indian in western California, says, “No kids among his people.” Other chiefs tell of few children and many old Indians soon to die.

      There is constitutional weakness among the poor Indians in this state. The trend, we fear, is still toward extinction, soon there will be no Indians in this state if this keeps up much longer, failure is sure from lack of time. The Indians for the Indians, is the first essential I the solution of the race problem.  If zeal and ambition cannot be developed in the Indians for the elevation of their own people, the case is hopeless. The Indian race must climb for itself. If the white people must lift the Indians to the white man’s level and put them there, the Indians will not stay put. Only the self-raised Indians stay up.

      Discover and train Indian leaders. The white people will do their best service by concentrating their efforts largely on the discovery and training of educated Indian leaders of their own brothers and sisters.

      As it is now ninety-five percent of the educated Indians are not encouraged toward self-resect and citizenship. All the Indian agents that have got a political pull. Think of the graft that makes some of them rich. Ninety-five percent of the Indian agents in the United States despise an educated Indian. Why? Because we educated Indians know of great wrongs they have done to our poorer brothers, and when we do try to aid our brothers, we are thrown in jail. This we cannot stand, and we leave our loved ones and our homes, and ramble to one state, then to another. This does not encourage us educated Indians to uplift our eneducated brothers. 

      A man to teach our Indians should have good moral and principles. Without this we do not want him. We have got enough bad trash whites without getting more.

      This let us turn the practical considerations of the case. First, Hope must be awakened in the general body of the Indians that they, or some of them, may set their faces to a raising instead of to a setting sun in the Indian sky. A small percentage of these will show an ambition for education and they will show a desire to uplift and save their own brothers. The hope of the Indian people is with this few when trained for effective service. An Indian Tuskegee. Second, California needs now, not a Carlisle or a Hampton, excellent as these institutions are, but rather an Indian Tuskegee. The Indian is not a man of the town, but of the country, the soil, the forests and farms. He is a man of God’s great natural world and should not be trained away from it, but be unfolded and made a larger man in it and for it, and for his people who must always dwell there. The institution which trains him must be made to fit the man and his needs, not a man be made to fit the institution. The Indians must be elevated with Indian left in the product. Japanese, Chinese, and over foreign people have distinctive racial traits of their own which cannot be cast wholly in the white man’s mold. The Indian people have their racial elements distinctly marked.

      Let me define more fully the idea of the industrial school and submit it to you for your consideration and revision, this definition covers the location of the schools, the elation of the chief Indian men to the enterprise and the instruction given in the school. Location – In an appropriate center of the northern part of the state where the Indians chiefly dwell. Select one thousand acres of land, more or less, for the homes of the Industrial school, the chosen location should have four qualifications. First, it should be sufficiently removed from an American town to be free from temptations and be separate unto itself to develop its own independent life. Second, it should be accessible to market. Third, it should have good water supply. Fourth, it should be capable of high cultivation. 

      Indian participation. In the choice of the lands, the Indian chiefs should have a share that they may feel the pride of participation. 

1909 Jan 14, Santa Ana Register