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vent barbarous natures in some form or another upon those who are weak and incapable of retaliation. I am decidedly opposed to lynching and have an utter contempt for those taking part in it. —Anna Howard Shaw was a su¤ragist, a civil rights leader, and the Wrst woman ordained by the Methodist Protestant Church. The Plunder Harvest in Indian A¤airs Senator Burton K. Wheeler september 1929 I am glad to say a word to you regarding the plight of the American Indian, the only 100 percent American in the United States. They were to be our wards, we their guardians. A relationship of trust was created not only as to their property but as to their persons. Their reservations were set aside for their sole and exclusive beneWt. We were to exclude undesirable persons from entering upon the same. We were to guard their property as faithfully as the father or guardian protects his son’s or his ward’s. We, in some instances, gave him the exclusive right to hunt large areas of forest lands. The land on the reservation was his to be held in trust by the government for the exclusive beneWt of the Indian nation. The treaty was as solemnly entered into as was the treaty between Belgium and Germany and just as unceremoniously broken, not once, not twice, but many times, and by the congresses of the United States and by the chief executives of the United States. Not by one president or by one congress, but by successive congresses, and when the Indian came to Congress and complained and asked that he be permitted to go into court and sue the government for violation of his treaties he was told, in some instances, at least, that it was against the “economy program” of the administration. And this in the face of the fact that he was not seeking to go into an Indian court, but into the white man’s court, and seeking to recover only what the white man’s court might adjudge was justly due and owing to him. There are approximately 225,000 Indians in the United States under the domination of the Indian bureau, and the bureau has under its control over $1 billion of Indian property. The health conditions among the Indians are extremely bad. Almost without exception we found that 25 percent of the Indians were a¤ected with tuberculosis. On one reservation we were told that 50 percent of them were a¤ected. We found no proper facilities for the treatment of this dread disease on the Indian reservations. It is a disgrace to think that this, the wealthiest of all governments, should permit such a sordid condition as this to exist among our wards. Wheeler / The Plunder Harvest in Indian A¤airs 105 For seventy years or more the government has been handling the monies of the Indian tribes derived from the leases and the sales of land, from the sale of valuable timber, oils and other minerals, from the sale of tribal cattle, and yet this guardian has never given his wards an itemized statement showing how much he received or how much was paid out or what for. Not only that, but no itemized statement has ever been rendered any individual Indian showing how his account stood. If there are cases where it has been done, no superintendent knew of the same. The bureau says they can come to the oªce and they will tell them if they want to know. The Indian says, “When we got to the oªce we can’t get in or we are told to get out.” This is bureaucracy run mad. For over seventy years the Indians have been under the tutelage of the Indian bureau. When we took them over we said to them, you are uncivilized, we are civilized. There was little, if any, crime among the Indians, divorces were unheard of, they were happy and had plenty of food. Today they are hungry and sick and poor. The school system is archaic. The schools are old Wretraps, plumbing poor, ventilation poor, and until recently corporal punishment was inXicted. The superintendent on one reservation admitted he took six girls, ages ranging around sixteen to eighteen years, made them bend over a chair while he held their dresses tightly around their bodies and beat them with a strap—the Indians said it was a piece of a harness tug. One boy, so his...

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