could be practised by one set of men upon another. In a similar way the
Southern Utes were recently induced to consent to give up their reservation
for another.


Americans are a conscientious people, yet they take no interest in these
frauds. They have the Anglo-Saxon spirit of fair play, which sympathizes
with weakness, yet no protest is made against the oppression which the
Indian suffers. They are generous; a famine in Ireland, Japan, or Russia
arouses the sympathy and calls forth the bounty of the nation, yet they
give no heed to the distress of the Indians, who are in the very midst of
them. They do not realize that Indians are human beings like themselves.

For this state of things there must be a reason, and this reason is to be
found, I believe, in the fact that practically no one has any personal
knowledge of the Indian race. The few who are acquainted with them are
neither writers nor public speakers, and for the most part would find it
easier to break a horse than to write a letter. If the general public knows
little of this race, those who legislate about them are equally
ignorant. From the congressional page who distributes the copies of a
pending bill, up through the representatives and senators who vote for it,
to the president whose signature makes the measure a law, all are entirely
unacquainted with this people or their needs.

Many stories about Indians have been written, some of which are interesting
and some, perhaps, true. All, however, have been written by civilized
people, and have thus of necessity been misleading. The reason for this is
plain. The white person who gives his idea of a story of Indian life
inevitably looks at things from the civilized point of view, and assigns to
the Indian such motives and feelings as govern the civilized man. But often