If we cannot exactly say that the Indian,
alone of all the throng at the exhibition, goes home uninformed and
unenlightened, what ideas may reach his mind will be soon smothered out
by the conditions which surround him on the Plains. It is singular that
a population of three or four hundred thousand, far from contemptible
in intellectual power, and belonging to a race which has shown itself
capable of a degree of civilization many of the tribes of the Eastern
continents have never approached, should be so absolutely an industrial
cipher. The African even exports mats, palm-oil and peanuts, but the
Indian exports nothing and produces nothing. He lacks the sense of
property, and has no object of acquisition but scalps. Can the assembled
ingenuity of the nineteenth century, in presence of this mass of waste
human material, devise no means of utilizing it? There stands its
Frankenstein, ready made, perfect in thews and sinews, perfect also in
many of its nobler parts. It is not a creation that is demanded--simply
a remodeling or expansion. For success in this achievement the United
States can afford to offer a pecuniary prize that will throw into the
shade all the other prizes put together. The cost of the Indian bureau
for 1875-76 reached eight millions of dollars. The commission appointed
to treat for the purchase of the Black Hills reports that the feeding
and clothing of the Sioux cost the government thirteen millions during
the past seven years; and that without the smallest benefit to those
spirited savages.
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