THE INDIAN IN COLLEGE AND THE PROFESSIONS
It is the impression of many people who are not well informed on the
Indian situation that book education is of little value to the race,
particularly what is known as the higher education. The contrary is
true. What we need is not less education, but more; more trained leaders
to uphold the standards of civilization before both races. Among Indian
college and university graduates a failure is very rare; I am sure I
have not met one, and really do not know of one.
The press is responsible for many popular errors. Whenever an Indian
indulges in any notorious misbehavior, he is widely heralded as a
"Carlisle graduate," although as a matter of fact he may never have
attended that famous school, or have been there for a short time only.
Obviously the statement is intended to discredit the educated Indian.
But Carlisle is not a college or university, although, because of the
wonderful athletic prowess of its students, they have met and defeated
the athletes of many a white university on the football field. Its
curriculum is considerably below that of the ordinary high school; it is
a practical or vocational school, giving a fair knowledge of some trade
together with the essentials of an English education, but no Latin or
other foreign language. Consequently its graduates must attend a higher
preparatory school for several years before they can enter college.
It will be seen, then, that the college-educated men and women of my
race have accomplished quite a feat, considering their antecedents and
wholly foreign point of view. They have had to adjust themselves to a
new way of thinking, as well as a new language, before they could master
such abstract ideas and problems as are presented by mathematics and the
sciences. Their own schools graduate them at a mature age and do not
prepare them for college. Furthermore, they are almost always hampered
by lack of means. Nevertheless, an increasing number have succeeded in
the undertaking.
TRIALS OF THE EDUCATED INDIAN
I wish to contradict the popular misconception that an educated Indian
will necessarily meet with strong prejudice among his own people, or
will be educated out of sympathy with them. From their point of view, a
particularly able or well-equipped man of their race is a public
blessing, and all but public property. That was the old rule among us.
Up to a very recent period an educated Indian could not succeed
materially; he could not better himself, because the people required him
to give unlimited free service, according to the old regime. I have even
known one to be killed by the continual demands upon him.
There was a time (not so long ago, either) when the educated Indian
stood in a very uncomfortable position between his people and the
Government officials and shady politicians. Every complaint was brought
to him, as a matter of course; and he was expected to expose and redress
every wrong. As I have said elsewhere, such efforts are generally
useless, and resulted only in damage to his financial position and his
reputation. No doubt he often invited attacks upon himself by a rashness
born of his ardent sympathy for his fellow-tribesmen. In this matter I
speak from personal experience as well as long observation.
Even in the old, wild days, an education was appreciated by the Indians;
but it was a hard life for the educated man. They made him carry too
heavy a burden, without much recompense save honor and respect. But we
have pretty well passed through that period, and the native graduates of
our higher institutions have begun to show their strength and enlarge
their views. They have not only done well for themselves and their race,
but they stand before the world as living illustrations of its capacity,
disproving many theories concerning untutored races.
NO "INFERIOR RACE"
It was declared without qualification by the Universal Races Congress at
London in 1911 that there is no inherently superior race, therefore no
inferior race. From every race some individuals have mastered the same
curriculum and passed the same tests, and in some instances members of
so-called "uncivilized" races have stood higher than the average
"civilized" student; therefore they have the same inherent ability.
Certain peoples have remained undeveloped because of their religion,
philosophy, and form of government; in other words, because of the
racial environment. Change the environment, and the race is transformed.
Certainly the American Indian has clearly demonstrated the truth of this
assertion.
The very mention of the name "Indian" in earlier days would make the
average white man's blood creep with thoughts of the war-whoop and the
scalping-knife. A little later it suggested chiefly feathers and paint
and "Buffalo Bill's Wild West." To-day the association is rather with
the Carlisle school and its famous athletes; but to the thinking mind
the name suggests deeper thoughts and higher possibilities.
It was no less a man than Theodore Roosevelt who said to me once in the
White House that he would give anything to have a drop of Sioux or
Cheyenne blood in his veins. It is a fact that the intelligent and
educated Indian has no social prejudice to contend with. His color is
not counted against him. He is received cordially and upon equal terms
in school, college, and society.
Dr. Booker Washington is in the habit of saying jocosely that the negro
blood is the strongest in the world, for one drop of it makes a "nigger"
of a white man. I would argue that the Indian blood is even stronger,
for a half-blood negro and Indian may pass for an Indian, and so be
admitted to first-class hotels and even to high society. All that an
Indian needs in order to be popular, and indeed to be lionized if he so
desires, is to get an education and hold up his head as a member of the
oldest American aristocracy. Many of our leading men have married into
excellent families and are prominent in cultivated white communities. We
want the best in two races and civilizations in exchange for what we
have lost.
Some of us have entered upon every known professional career, such as
medicine, law, the ministry, education and the sciences, politics and
higher business management, art and literature. It may be well to
mention some of our best-known professional men and women. The doctors
seem to have been the first to enter the general field in competition
with their white colleagues: at first, to be sure, as "Indian herb
doctors," or quacks of one sort or another, but later as competent
graduated physicians. The Government has utilized several in the Indian
service, and others have established themselves in private practice.
SOME NOTED INDIANS OF TO-DAY
Perhaps the foremost of these is Dr. Carlos Montezuma of Chicago, a
full-blooded Apache, who was purchased for a few steers while in
captivity to the Pimas, who were enemies of his people. He was brought
to Chicago by the man who ransomed him, a reporter and photographer, and
when his benefactor died, the boy became the protege of the Chicago
Press Club. A large portrait of him adorns the parlor of the club,
showing him as the naked Indian captive of about four years old.
He went to the public school, then to Champaign University, Illinois,
and from there to the Northwestern University, where he was graduated
from the medical department. All this time, although receiving some aid
from various sources, he largely supported himself. After graduation Dr.
Montezuma was sent by the Government as physician to an Indian agency in
Montana, and later transferred to the Carlisle school. In a few years he
returned to Chicago and opened an office. He has been a prominent
physician there for a number of years, and was recently married to a
lady of German descent. He stands uncompromisingly for the total
abolition of the reservation system and of the Indian Bureau, holding
that the red man must be allowed to work out his own salvation.
One of the earliest practitioners of our race was Dr. Susan La Flesche
Picotte of the Omaha tribe. Having prepared at Hampton Institute and
elsewhere, she entered the Philadelphia Medical College for Women. When
she had finished, she returned to her tribe, and was for some time in
the Government service. She has since taken up private practice and also
had charge of a mission hospital. Dr. Picotte is a sister of Bright Eyes
(Susette La Flesche) and also of Francis La Flesche of Washington, D. C.
There is another Indian doctor, not of full blood, who is president of
the City Club of Chicago and active in civic reform. In several Middle
Western cities there are successful doctors and dentists of my race.
In the profession of law we have none of full blood whose fame is
national. Judge Hiram Chase of the Omahas and others have won local
distinction. The Hon. Charles Curtis, Senator from Kansas, was a
successful lawyer in Topeka when he was elected to the House of
Representatives, and later to the United States Senate. His mother is a
Kaw Indian. Mr. Curtis was and is a leader of the Republican party in
his state. Senator Owen of Oklahoma is part Cherokee. The whole country
has come to realize his ability and influence. Representative Carter of
Oklahoma is also an Indian.
During my student days in New Hampshire I was often told that Daniel
Webster was part Indian on his mother's side. Certainly his physiognomy
as well as his unequalled logic corroborated the story. We all know that
governors and other men of mark have proclaimed themselves descendants
of Pocahontas; I have met several in the West and South. I know that the
late Senators Quay of Pennsylvania and Morgan of Alabama had some Indian
blood, for they themselves told me so; and I have been told the same of
Senators Clapp and La Follette, but have never verified it. Their
wonderful aggressiveness and dauntless public service in my mind point
to native descent, and if they can truthfully claim it I feel sure that
they will be proud to do so. They must know that many distinguished army
officers as well as traders and explorers left sons and daughters among
the American tribes, especially during the first half of the nineteenth
century. As late as 1876 Dr. Washington Mathews, a surgeon in the United
States Army, brought down on a Missouri River steamboat a Gros Ventre
son, and left him with the missionary teacher, Dr. Alfred L. Riggs, to
rear and educate. This military surgeon and scientist not only attained
the rank of major-general, but he became one of our foremost
archaeologists. The boy was called Berthold, from the place of his birth.
He was afterward sent to Yankton College, but I do not know what became
of him. As for those brilliant men, so many in number, who have the
blood of both races in their veins, I will not pretend to claim for the
Indian all the credit of their talents and energy.
In the ministry we have many able and devoted men--more than in any
other profession. The Presbyterian Church alone has thirty-eight and the
Episcopal Church about twenty, with a less number in several other
denominations, and two Roman Catholic priests. Most of these labor among
their own people, though the Rev. Frank Wright, a Choctaw, is well known
as an evangelistic preacher and singer.
One of our best-known clergymen is Rev. Sherman Coolidge, a full-blood
Arapahoe. He has had an unusual career, having been taken prisoner as a
boy by an officer of the army. He was sent to school and eventually
graduated from Bishop Whipple's Seabury Divinity School at Faribault,
Minn. Since that time Doctor Coolidge has devoted himself to the
Christianization of his race. He is the president of our recently
organized Society of American Indians.
Bishop Whipple developed many able preachers, of whom perhaps the most
accomplished was the Rev. Charles Smith Cook, of the Yankton Sioux. He
was the son of a Sioux woman and a military officer. Mr. Cook was
graduated from Trinity College, Hartford, and later from Seabury
Divinity School. He had unusual eloquence and personal charm, and became
at once one of Bishop Hare's ablest helpers in his great work among the
Sioux. Stationed at Pine Ridge at the time of the Wounded Knee massacre,
he opened his church to the wounded Indian prisoners as an emergency
hospital. His much regretted death occurred a few months later. He was a
tireless worker and much loved by his people.
One of our promising young ministers is the Rev. Henry Roe Cloud, a
Winnebago, graduated from Yale and Oberlin. Stephen Jones, a Sioux, who
was graduated from the Y. M. C. A. training-school at Springfield,
Mass., has done good work as field secretary among the Indians for a
number of years. I should add that there are many ministers of my race
who have no college degree nor much education in the English language,
yet who are among our most able and influential leaders. My own brother,
Rev. John Eastman, who passed but a short time in school, has not only
been a successful preacher among the Sioux but for many years their
trusted adviser and representative to look after their interests at the
national capital.
A few men and many women have succeeded in the teaching profession, most
of them in the United States Indian Service. It is the express policy of
the Government to use the educated Indians, whenever possible, in
promoting the advancement of their race; indeed some of the treaties
include this stipulation. Therefore preference is given them by the
Indian Bureau, and although they must pass a civil-service examination
to prove their fitness, such examination, in their case, is
non-competitive. They have been prepared in the larger Government
schools, in many instances with the addition of normal and college
courses. At least two are superintendents of schools. A number of young
women, Carlisle graduates, have taken up trained nursing as a
profession, and are practising successfully both among whites and
Indians.
In the sciences, especially in ethnology and archaeology, we have several
who have rendered material service. William Jones, a Sac and Fox quarter
blood, was a graduate of Hampton and of Harvard University. He took
post-graduate work at Columbia, and was a pupil of those distinguished
scientists, Dr. Putnam and Dr. Boas. The latter has called him one of
our ablest archaeologists. Dr. Jones travelled among the various tribes,
even to the coast of Labrador, and labored assiduously in the cause of
science for Harvard and the Marshall Field Museum of Chicago, as well as
other institutions. It was the Chicago Museum which sent him to the
Philippine Islands, where he was murdered by the natives a few years
ago.
We have also such men as Professor Hewitt of the Smithsonian
Institution, Francis La Flesche of the same, and Arthur C. Parker of
Albany, N. Y., who is state archaeologist.
In literature several writers of Indian blood have appeared during the
past few years, and have won a measure of recognition. Francis La
Flesche, an Omaha, has collaborated with Miss Alice C. Fetcher in
ethnological work, and is also the author of a pleasing story of life in
an Indian school called "The Middle Five." Zitkalasa, a Sioux (now Mrs.
Bonney), attended a Western college, where she distinguished herself in
an intercollegiate oratorical contest. Soon afterward she appeared in
the _Atlantic Monthly_ as the writer of several papers of an
autobiographical nature, which attracted favorable attention, and were
followed by a little volume of Indian legends and several short stories.
Mrs. Bonney has more recently written the book of an Indian opera called
"The Sun Dance," which has been produced in Salt Lake City by university
students. John Oskinson, a Cherokee, was first heard of as the winner in
an intercollegiate literary contest, and he is now on the staff of
_Collier's Weekly_. The Five Civilized Nations of Oklahoma can show many
other writers and journalists.
In higher business lines a number have shown special ability. General
Pleasant Porter, who died recently, was president of a short railroad
line in Oklahoma; Mr. Hill, of Texas, is reputed to be a millionaire;
Howard Gansworth, a graduate of Carlisle and Princeton, is a successful
business man in Syracuse, N. Y.; and many of more or less Indian blood
have gone forth into the world to do business on a large scale.
In the athletic world this little race has no peer, as is sufficiently
proven by their remarkable record in football, baseball, and track
athletics. A few years ago I asked that good friend of the Indian, Gen.
R. H. Pratt, why he did not introduce football in his school. "Why,"
said he, "if I did that, half the press of the country would attack me
for developing the original war instincts and savagery of the Indian!
The public would be afraid to come to our games!"
"Major," I said, "that is exactly why I want you to do it. We will prove
that the Indian is a gentleman and a sportsman; he will not complain; he
will do nothing unfair or underhand; he will play the game according to
the rules, and will not swear--at least not in public!"
Not long afterward the game was introduced at Carlisle, and I was asked
by the General to visit Montana and the Dakotas to secure pupils for the
school, and, incidentally, recruits for his football warriors. The
Indians' victory was complete. These boys always fight the battle on
its own merits; they play a clean game, and lose very few games during
the season, although they meet all our leading universities, each on its
own home grounds.
From the fleet Deerfoot to this day we boast the noted names of
Longboat, Sockalexis, Bemus Pierce, Frank Hudson, Tewanima, Metoxen,
Myers, Bender, and Jim Thorpe. Thorpe is a graduate of the Carlisle
school, and at the Olympic Games in Sweden in 1912 he won the title of
the greatest all-round athlete in the world.
PROBLEMS OF RACE LEADERSHIP
I have been asked why my race has not produced a Booker Washington.
There are many difficulties in the way of efficient race leadership; one
of them is the large number of different Indian tribes with their
distinct languages, habits, and traditions, and with old tribal
jealousies and antagonisms yet to be overcome. Another, and a more
serious obstacle, is the dependent position of the Indian, and the
almost arbitrary power in the hands of the Indian Bureau.
About fifteen years ago the idea of a national organization of
progressive Indians was discussed at some length by Rev. Sherman
Coolidge, my brother, John Eastman, and myself. At that time we
concluded that the movement would not be understood either by our own
race or the American people in general, and that there was grave danger
of arousing the antagonism of the Bureau. If such a society were formed,
it would necessarily take many problems of the race under consideration,
and the officials at Washington and in the field are sensitive to
criticism, nor are they accustomed to allowing the Indian a voice in his
own affairs. Furthermore, many of the most progressive red men are
enlisted in the Government service, which would make their position a
very difficult one in case of any friction with the authorities. Very
few Indians are sufficiently independent of the Bureau to speak and act
with absolute freedom.
Some ten years later I was called to Columbus, Ohio, to lecture for the
Ohio State University on the same course with Dr. Coolidge and Dr.
Montezuma. Prof. F. A. McKenzie of the university arranged the course,
and soon afterward he wrote me that he believed the time was now ripe to
organize our society. We corresponded with leading Indians and arranged
a meeting at Columbus for the following April. At this meeting five were
present besides myself: Dr. Montezuma, Thomas Sloan, Charles E.
Dagenett, Henry Standingbear, and Miss Laura Cornelius. We organized as
a committee, and issued a general call for a conference in October at
the university, upon the cordial invitation of Dr. McKenzie and
President Thompson.
Four annual conferences have now been held, and the fifth is announced
for next October at Oklahoma City. The society has 500 active and about
the same number of associate members; the latter are white friends of
the race who are in sympathy with our objects. Our first president is
Rev. Sherman Coolidge, and Arthur C. Parker is secretary and treasurer.
The Society of American Indians issues a quarterly journal devoted to
the proceedings of the conferences and the interests of the Indian race.
At these meetings and in this journal various phases of our situation
have been intelligently and courageously discussed, and certain remedies
have been suggested for the evils brought to light. These debates should
at least open the public ear.
Of course the obstacles to complete success that I have referred to
still exist, and there are others as well. Our people have not been
trained to work together harmoniously. It is a serious question what
principles we should stand for and what line of work we ought to
undertake. Should we devote ourselves largely to exposing the numerous
frauds committed upon Indians? Or should we keep clear of these matters,
avoid discussion of official methods and action, and simply aim at
arousing racial pride and ambition along new lines, holding up a modern
ideal for the support and encouragement of our youth? Should we petition
Congress and in general continue along the lines of the older Indian
associations? Or should we rather do intensive work among our people,
looking especially toward their moral and social welfare?
I stand for the latter plan. Others think differently; and, as a matter
of fact, a Washington office has been opened and much attention paid to
governmental affairs. It is a large task. The declared objects of the
society, in almost the words originally chosen by its six founders, are
as follows:
OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY OF AMERICAN INDIANS
_First._ To promote and cooperate with all efforts looking to the
advancement of the Indian in enlightenment which leave him free, as a
man, to develop according to the natural laws of social evolution.
_Second._ To provide through our open conferences the means for a free
discussion on all subjects bearing on the welfare of the race.
_Third._ To present in a just light the true history of the race, to
preserve its records and emulate its distinguishing virtues.
_Fourth._ To promote citizenship and to obtain the rights thereof.
_Fifth._ To establish a legal department to investigate Indian problems
and to suggest and to obtain remedies.
_Sixth._ To exercise the right to oppose any movement that may be
detrimental to the race.
_Seventh._ To direct its energies exclusively to general principles and
universal interests, and not allow itself to be used for any personal or
private interest. _The honor of the race and the good of the country
shall be paramount._