IT is a very old theory of the Roman Church that civil governments are designed primarily to be assistants to "the church." Therefore whatever "the church" can get from the government, by whatever means, is legitimate gain. There was a time when the United States Government made appropriations to aid Indian schools conducted under the auspices of religious denominations. But in course of time a number of Protestant denominations discovered that the Roman Catholic Church was receiving more money in this way than all others combined. Then these Protestants were suddenly aroused to the fact that the whole business was wrong; that the government had no right to expend the people's money in support of any denominational institution. They would not receive any more money themselves, and protested against such appropriations for any church.
The Benjamin Harrison administration took this view of the case also, and Mr. Morgan, then commissioner of Indian affairs, carried out that policy. A great deal of complaint was made in Catholic circles, and—Mr. Harrison was defeated in his race for re-election. While the Protestants have refrained from asking government aid for their schools, the Catholics have managed, on one pretext or another, to secure some assistance, and now there has been divulged a scheme to make the Indians themselves pay for their religious education out of money held in trust for them by the government.
United States Senator Bard, of California, recently made a somewhat startling statement before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. He stated that he had been solicited by a Roman Catholic agent to use his influence with Republican members of Congress to forward the interests of Catholics in getting a diversion of Indian trust funds for the support of Catholic schools on the reservations. In return for this service it was promised that the Catholics would see that twenty Congressional districts, in which the Republicans were weak, were carried for the party.
Prominent Catholics have essayed to deny the charge, and to discredit the alleged agents in the matter. But there comes to the front some statements of the Protestant Episcopal Bishop of South Dakota, which give data rather difficult of refutation. He describes the embarrassment to his mission schools when the government contract system was abolished, and tells of his efforts to get some relief from the rigid application of the rule. He mentions high officers of the government whose decisions were emphatic that "it was the settled policy of the government not to use the money entrusted to it in aid of any denominational school." To this he adds:
Imagine my surprise, therefore, on discovering, last September, that the same executive officers who had declared this to be the policy of the Government and had administered the policy with inexorable suddenness and severity, had been making large contracts for the conduct of mission boarding-schools.
On the spur of the moment it seemed to me that I might ease my pecuniary burdens by securing such a contract for my mission boarding-schools, and I wrote to W. A. Jones, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, asking for information.
He replied: "These contracts were entered into pursuant to a petition filed in the House by the Indians of the several reservations, the expense to be paid out of trust funds now to their credit in the treasury of the United States."
In answer to a second letter, he wrote me: "I do not think it is necessary for you to secure the consent, or even to have a request made for the tribe, for the purpose of entering into a contract for your boarding-school."
My eyes began to be opened, then I began to stare. I recalled the whole history of the action of the government in regard to the inter-denominational schools as rehearsed above. I wrote to three or four Protestant missionary societies and learned that their amazement was equal to my own. I next discovered that these contracts numbered in all nine, and eight had been made with one denomination, and that of the total amount of the contracts, viz., $102,780, all but $4,320 was for the benefit of one denomination.
I happen to have missionaries in the Indian country who have been familiarly moving about among the people for twenty-five to thirty years, and who are thoroughly familiar with the Indian language. I addressed inquiries to these and to others, and learned that these petitions for these contracts were gotten up quietly; that they were entirely unheard of by them and a large number of Indians for months afterward, and that many of the Indians who signed them did not know what the petitions meant.
I received copies of the petitions sent in from different tribes. I found the petitions to be practically all in the same language, and language which the natives would not use. They were signed by women as well as men. About two-thirds of the signers merely attached their mark. The whole number of signers is a very small fraction of the tribes concerned, in one case 150 signers in a tribe of 5,000 Sioux.
Bishop Hare then presents an indisputable record of contracts made by the government Indian office with sectarian educational institutions, for the year ending June 30, 1905, which are as follows:
St. Joseph's School, Roman Catholic, total for year $18,860; St. Louis School, Roman Catholic, $9,375; St. John's School, Roman Catholic, $8,125; Immaculate Conception School, Roman Catholic, $7,020; Holy Rosary School, Roman Catholic, $27,600; St. Francis' School, Roman Catholic, $27,000; St. Labre's School, Roman Catholic, $6,480; St. Mary's School, Roman Catholic, $500; Foss Boarding School, Lutheran, $4,320; total $102,780.
Thus is indicated Rome's propensity to secure public funds for the support of her church work,—law or no law,—and her fecundity in devising ways and means for inducing politicians to further her purposes. As an offset to this particular phase of financial scheming, Representative Stevens, of Texas, has introduced in Congress a bill to prohibit the use of Indian trust funds for the education of Indian children in sectarian schools. Whether it will ever get any farther than a committee remains to be seen.
The President urges the passage of a bill introduced by Representative Lacey, which provides for paying the interest on the trust funds to the Indians themselves in severalty, and that would enable each one to do as he pleased about supporting schools. However, he says the contract system will be continued, unless Congress or the courts decide otherwise. G.
