Viewing page 40 of 41

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

upon our frontier.

Let not sympathy for these twenty-five Indians blind us to the higher interests of all the Indian tribes and to a thousand and one citizens upon our borders.

Let not compassion for the individual lead us to forget the class.

Under any policy of government or any kind of legislation the burdens are unequal, but the individual hardship must be borne for the common good.

Commissioner Hayt states this point very strongly: – "If the reservation system is to be maintained, discontented and restless or mischievous Indians cannot be permitted to leave their reservations at will and to go wherever they please. If this were permitted, the most necessary discipline of the reservations would soon be entirely broken up. All authority over the Indians would cease, and in a short time the Western country would swarm with [[strikethrough]] a [[/strikethrough]] roving and lawless ^ [[strikethrough]] Indians [[/strikethrough]] bands of Indians, spreading a spirit of uneasiness and restlessness even among those Indians who are now at work and doing well. The government should be and undoubtedly is willing to redress all their real grievances as far as they can be redressed; but it must in my opinion be done
[[margin]] 362 [[/margin]] 

Transcription Notes:
The Commissioner of Indian Affairs was E. E. Hayt at the time. See his annual report for 1879, Page HLIX, http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/History/History-idx?type=turn&entity=History.AnnRep79.p0053&id=History.AnnRep79&isize=M Here is the url for a most useful resource for this project: http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/History/History-idx?type=browse&scope=HISTORY.COMMREP