I FREEDOM'S SIGNAL FOR THE IN:J)IANS Vol. I, No. 6 Issued Monthly September 1916. INDIANS AND INDIANS. · ARROW POINTS. "Dr. ·Montezuma, of Chicago, Etc-I am with Dr. Montezuma, but I confess that I don't see what much the Indians I saw at Flam­beau could do for themselves with more freedom than they now have." "Reedy's Mirror," St. Louis Mo. (Freedom within pris­on walls is not freedom. Freedom within a reservation is not freedom. There is such thing as freedom and freedom; the Indians need freedom from being penned up WARDS. The result you describe graphical­ly. -Wass_a_,,__ja_._:)___ The way foe Indian Bure3;u uses the word "Competency" ex­asperates "Wassaja." What right has the Indian Bureau to judge whether we Indians ·are compe­tent or incompetent? "Judge not that ye be not judged." It is wrong and nothing else ~an be made out of this being equal with God. Continued on page 3 .. By Carlos Montezuma, E. S., M. D. ' , I ' In the northern part of the State of Washington there is a certain specie of game, a cross between a· sage hen and a grouse. When you see a covey of them all you have to '. tl,o iis to creep upon them and then run toward them suddenly, surprising them with a most hideou:, yell. They will gaze at you and shiver with fright and you can go and pick them up .and do as you pl,ease with them. They are !:ailed "Fool H·ens." That is exactly how the Indian Office has affected the Indians as wards of the nation. Methods and methods have been devised to subdn·e subjects. Even those who are world-hardened it makes shudder to think of the days of ·the Inquisition; of those awf'ul, · cn1el ways of punishing and taking lives. The story goes of the pris­oner who was placed in the room with the movable walls, ceiling and' floor, which contracted evenly on all sides every twen­ty-four hours. Day by day it grew smaller and smaller' until, slowly but surely, it crushf\d the victim to death. When you kill racial pr.ide, you kill the Man; his stoic independence; his high spirit of what is right and what is wrong; his. rela.tiori of man with man a1,1-d his abiding faith in the Great Spirit. When you kili tT1e spirit of th~ Man-part of the Indian you have got hitp.. The lndfan is as thougl~ dead_; you can play with him and do with him as you wish. · By-the gradual process, this method has crushed his life. In these four hundred WASSAJA "W ASSAJA,, Vol. 1 No. & September 1916 Sub6cription SOc a: Year · Si¥gle copies Sc 100,for $2.00 · Address all communication to CA~LOS MONTEZUMA, M', D, 313S So. Park A v:e·. Chicago,. Ill. year~ that h~ ~;ld not yield to the pale­face, you·have crushed out his life and the .Indian race· is as·tli:ough dead. It ·is a pic­ture that is i,ndelible, that haunts the name Christian Civilization by which the Uriited States poses in the world. It hurts and the Government . feels it. \,Vassaja is not writing a thesis, is not writing for rhetorical affect. He is retrac­ing his own steps from the most primitive grass hut of Arizona to a civilized life. in a great city. _It is no.ta dead message that he . is writing about but the most vital for. his people. Civilization ·has an object-mo·ne-y; but to get it honestly 'one must work. Work js the key-stone to most everything at this age and hour. <;;od's' decree. is that man must do for ana take ca-re of himself. There is no way out· of it. We Indians carinot violatfl the Divine decree and expect to get along nicely-. God has allotted us a short span of time t@ make what we can of.our­selves. We must learn to know that work is honorable. Wassaja did more menial _labor after he had gained his degree from a university than he had done ·before. · It was not his wish, but he was compelled to hustle in o'rder to advance and live like others. · In civilization, where we do not want and least expect to bump, we bump. The thing for us Indians to do is to get ready for the bumps, for in life no one escapes them. The story of progress is always the same hard struggle against all-the forces which tend to impede and destroy. Going up against the current makes one strong. Let every Indian go in, get hold of l.ife and work with all his might at what his hands find to do. Begin at the bottom. Do any-thing and everythi'rig that is lionorabfe. Do not be ashamed to work'. To succeed you must work-11ot easily but hard. Show the stuff that is in you. Get life into ·you as -your forefathers spurred themselves on when they saw a deer in the chase or as does the athelete in a race. To inspire Qthers, you must perspire. · · The wrong concept of us Indians which the public ·enter,tains, is a phantom which can be cleared away only by education and by our personal contact with the masses ef' the coun.try. Seeing is believi'ng. Pub-lie opinion is vague against us. It therefore behooves us to stand together and to teach the public differently. • Columbus was discouraged again and again by being reminded that the world was flat; yet ·he strove on alone and defied the sages of those days and at last made the .world wiser. ).ust so, we 'I ndian_s. n:iust take our stand under showers_ of cnttc1sm, to show the world that we can live and ,·pro~per independent of government aid and supervision. , We must be as courageous as the Rev. W. H. Stedman, who taught Wassaja to work. One day a friend of his leaned over the fence where the doctor and the young . Apache were working. When the doctor came over to him, the friend said: "I know, Parson, you mean all right, but I am afraid you are wasting your time with that In­dian.. He will never amount to any1:bing. your effort is good, but there is no hope; mind what I · tell you!" That which has been wrought in Wassaja, the same can be accomplished in every Indian. It is disgusting, to see the so-called "In­dian .friends" and "Christians" pulling back because they hate to confess tllat theY,. have been mistaken. Their pride prevents them fro"m dojng the right thing for the Indians. They prefer to run in the same old rut or to get out in the way least humiliating to themselves. It is a mighty good thing we all have to· die or things could never be solved. · When one mentions to them the idea of abolishing the I'ndian Bureau they stutter around as uneasily as does an old hen .with a brood of ducks at the edge of a pond, ducking loudly to us Indians , "O, what will become of the Indians? Poor things; they·will starve to death! Just think of the aged and the or!lttans; what will they do? ,i\Tho is going to pay for their childrens' schooling? They are not ready to go out into the wicked world; they will be cheat­·ed and robbed! They• will get drunk and lose their lands. They will have to pay taxes which they cannot do, and of course . their lands will be taken from them. 0, just think of dropping that kind father­W ashing-ton! Ungrateful! Ungrateful!" 0 such hysteric foolishness. What is a man' good for if he connot protect himself and do something for himself? Indian Comrades, count the cost and face the fu­ture with a grim determination. If the people thi;;k you cannot make a living for yourself, go out and fool them. lf they think you will be cheated, go out ~nd prosper;, if they think you will starv·e, go out and grow fat, and if they think the aged and the orphans will suffer, go out alld WASSAJA show the world you are benefactors and worthy of the tradition of your race by caring for the aged and th.e orphans. That is the way tp show business and to do busi­·ness. W·e Indians must be pretty blind to think t hat· error is right;. that· wardship is free­dom; that the reservation system is free­dom; that to be kept segregated is free­dom and that to .be discriminated against is just. When one does not knpw, it makes no difference; but when one does know, it makes a· lot of difference. Whe'n one is kept .fro_m knowing anything, of course he will be· ignorant. The fact that our guardian does ·every­thing fo.r us without our consent, upbn the · face of it shows what that guardian thinks Gf us. There i! no throwing up pennies to find out the right; we all must see and stick together. Promises in Chicago do not amount to much in life .. 1 That is what ails us Indians; ·we have relied too much on promises, Let promists go; GET MAD AND FIGHT YOUR WAY IN LI.FE. Let us not be monkeyed .with any longer. Can you picture your fore-fathers stand­ing on ·a. mountain, surveying the horizon and harmonizing with nature? You may say they owned America ,once, but wh.at have we. now? Almost nothing, and living without justice: it is a good thing that the air is free or we Indians would have been "Good Indians" a long time ago! The Hon. Wm. E. Gladstone, the "grand old man," said: "Liberty alone fits man for· lib-erty." No man is free ,unless he is free; no man is a man urntil freedom is his. There is no freedom in the reservation; the Indian Office-lasso around one's neck is not free­dom, and one is not free who is a ward. Having everything done for one is ndt free­dom. Wm. Marion ·Reedy in his St. Louis MIRROR says: "--But broadly, I shoqld say that the Indiart were better off exter­minated than kept as he is now kept on the Reservation. There is no chance for him. --I think the Indian would have been better off if he had not coddled.-" ' Even God cannot develop a handicapped man: a free man is the man He 'wants. We are at a crisi"s, whether to favor the Indian Office or to have it abolished. To compromise at such a time is weakness an,d will result in final disaster. We must be either for the Indian Bureau or against it. There is no half-way about it. Even if organizations to help our race do not strike the nail on the head; even if they go around with petty excuses to cover up their dizzy tracks, we ~ndians must not do likewise. They see thmgs as they are not. This crisis involves our rights and our livei, Justice must not be compromised. ,I It is either do or di-e. We must feel in our, hearts that we are on the 'stage of life fighting for our freedom, long delayed. It means manhood or no manhood; it means for the honor of our race or against that honor; it embodies our very ·existence. It means liberty or death. We must stand together or fall together in the work of freeing · our ni,ce. · · We Indians have laid down and permit­ted ourselves to be treated as we have been. We must not lay all the blame to 0 the the churches, the educa­ - government, tors and the public. We Indians could have been as free as anyone else ha'd we exerted our rights. \,Ve think that we must do what, in reality, we do not have to do; what we can do, we think that we cannot. 0 You can send your children to the public schools and to the learn.ed· institutions of the country .and no one can stop you. You' can attend to your own business and no one can interfere with you. As a m·a)l no one· has the r"ight to· say tl:iat you ar;e in­ competent.: You are no longer wild (when you ne,ver were!), you can go out -of the reservation without a pass and without the consent of anyone. You think that you must obtain permission because it has been your custom to _do so. Though our .homes are on reservations, we do not have to stay there. We can gb and come and make our homes any place where we can best make our bread and butter. Is it not silly to think of preparing us for civilization? Wassaja smiles when he thinks of it! Fennimore Cooper's Indians do not ex­ ist today. We are their childrens' children. Things hav·e changed and we have changed with them. We do not see things as our forefathers saw them nor do we live . as they did. Let it be known that within the breast of every Indian there is"a h'l!art which throbs with the same yearnings that throb in all human kind. -We are possessed with a conscience that guides us to right living; we have a soul that reacpes to the Creator of all beings, and life is just as sacred and just as sweet to us as it is to those who enjoy liberty. / · fa the glim!l1er of humal!i existence there is a way. The·re is light, pope and atone­ ment; it is in the emancip11tion of our race -the Indians. THA:T I7f MAY COME SPEEDILY IS THE PRAYER OF ALL THE IN·DIANS TO /THOSE WHO HAVE THEM IN CHA~ GE. ARROW POINTS · Conti1'11ed from page 1 What are you going to do with · the "incompetent" Indians? Help WASSAJA , them to be corn:petent by giving them freedom · from Burea.uism whi,ch has caused them to be in­CO!J1petent. · · "Born in ~his country an~' has to,take out ,papers? You do not tell me! Is that true?" "Not a citizen of his own coun­try? Who ever heard of sucl;i a thing!" · · "Was in America before Co­lumbus and must take out papers of naturalization? Can such in­justice exist?" "Sane I~dians and ower 21 years old and cannot v:ote? i cannot see anything b1,1t injustice in that." ·.' "Indians have no voice in their affairs? 0, that is awful!" Fr.om the SHERMAN BUL­LETIN, Sherman Institute, Riv­erside, Calif.: "In the Wrong Direction." By . Hon. Moorfield Storey, B-oston, Mass. ' ~'Every step toward weakening the pqwer of the national govern­ment over the affairs of the In­dian is astep in the wrong direc­tion."-N. Y. Herald. (Such a sentiment .in print from a prominent public man does great harm to the cause of the Indians. We believe he meant all right, but he is greatly mis­taken. Let him take the Indians' place and he will , change 'his mind.) -Wassaja I.f ,there were a man, bo~nd. qand and foot, helpless to free · himself, and he cried out to you: "Let' me go," would you have heart enough to stand by and ask:_: "Go where?" (Chilocco I,n­dian School Joun~;a.1.) We are not •. joking, \Ve ar.e serious · about freeing· the Indians.from the ln­dian Bureau, and·he who jokes at a cause we are working for-. our words are not for him. From a New York Indian: "I would ratI-fer,. go on a war-path than have Cato Sells as Commj,s~ sioner of Indian Affai.rs.'' The complete abolishment .~If the Indian Office seems to. be mts­ under$tood by· ,some Indians. Wheri Congress passes a bill to abolish the Indian ·Bureau, i~ must state at what time because it will require time to settle money and property matters with the Indians first. · · There is a tribe in the State of Washington called the N espilem Indians. They will not take any­ thing fro!Jl the U .. S.: Government without giving something' in re­ turn. They are the most prosper­ ous Indians in America. What do the senti111.ental friends of the Indians think about that? Inde­ pendence is prosperity and '110t pauperism.____~ '· Commissioner Cato Se 11 s preaches, · but withholds that ,which he preaches, namely-com­plete freedQm for the Indians. He is a good politician, and tqe In­dians ·have no us·e fo,r him. '. i' .'