History Documentation:
NEWSPAPER ARTICLE ON LCO CONDITIONS - April 20, 1923
Indian Leader Sees Bloodshed
From: Milwaukee Journal – April 20, 1923
Fears Braves, “Crushed by White Rule” Will Fight for Vote
By Staff Correspondent of the Journal
Reserve, Wis.—Once he was a warrior and hunter,
free to roam the vast lands that he owned, skilled and physically fit for
any feat or act of heroism necessary for the preservation of his tribe.
Today he is a ward of the government, loaded
down with bureaucracy; his identity crushed by paternalism, in many cases
the victim of tuberculosis, with no community wanting his vote if he is
fortunate enough to have one.
These are the pictures they draw for you up
here on the Lac Courte Oreilles Indian Reservation, where the last of the
Chippewa’s have their home.
There is much agitation and feeling between
the Indians and the whites in Sawyer County, which, according to some,
may lead to regrettable occurrences unless they are expelled.
Leader Seeks New Deal
The Reverend Phillip Gordon, full-blooded
Indian priest, and head of the Reserve Indian Mission, is the leader of
a new deal for the Indian. He has battled with the Indian Bureau
in Washington and got nowhere. Now, he is engaged in an effort to
get state legislation for the relief of his people.
The immediate question here is the creation,
or rather, the recreation, of the Township of Reserve out of the territory,
which live most of the Indians who have a vote. More than a decade
ago the tribe had its own town, with Indian officers. But the Indians,
it was charged, where none too careful about the legality of the orders
they drew or whether their bank account was large enough to cover their
checks.
As a result there was trouble with bankers
in this vicinity and in 1917 the legislature abolished the township.
A gerrymander resulted. The little village of Reserve was made a
part of three townships, with the nearest polling place 12 miles away.
Some Indians are compelled to travel 40 miles to exercise their rights
as citizens.
Fears Bloody Vote Fight
In the breaking up of the town of Reserve,
the towns of Couderay, Radisson, Hunter and Hayward got most of the taxable
timber lands of the Indians, while the town of Sand Lake got the Indian
vote. There are enough Indian votes to out vote the whites in Sand
Lake and this has caused ill feelings. Truckloads of Indians are
brought from Reserve to Stone Lake to cast their ballots.
In the fight that Father Gordon is making
at Madison for a bill to give the Indians there own town once more.
Sand Lake Township, anxious to get rid of its Indian votes, is aiding the
movement. Couderay, Radisson, Hunter and Hayward are opposing. They
do not want to give up the taxes from the Indian lands, it is charged.
The Reverend Father John of Stone Lake, who
is familiar with the Indian conditions, fears that the situation will some
day lead to bloodshed between Indians and whites unless action is taken.
He is in favor of the Indians having their own local government, and says
it is intolerable that the white population of Sand Lake Township should
be out-voted.
Father Gordon wants still other help from
the state. To him the Indian problem goes far deeper that a question of
local political government freedom. He arraigns the administration of the
Federal Indian Bureau and wants concurrent legislation by the state of
Wisconsin that will give him power to call the state heath authorities
to check disease and the local district attorney to stop vice.
Indians Sick as a Race
“The Indians, as a race, are sick,” says Father
Gordon. “They are poor, amazingly, incredibly poor, which means susceptibility
to disease because of poor powers of resistance. Then there is under-nourishment.
Tuberculosis is prevalent, because it thrives where hunger is found.
Physical impairment means economic poverty. Now, imagine this condition
obtaining and for its relief an inadequate and very often inefficient medical
service.”
“The United States Government through its
congress enacted laws to correct the appalling situation, but laws mean
only so much as the executive branch of the injects into enforcement and
interpretation. The laws of the Indians fill volumes; the list of
executive officers charged with enforcement runs into the thousands.
This has developed into an intense bureaucratic from of supervision over
the Indians that emphasizes the very conditions marked for eradication.
The Indian is paternalized to death. Self-reliance, self-dependence
and self-sacrifice, all are destroyed by the virus of paternalism: Initiative
and ambition perish.
Father Gordon charges that the real facts
about the working of the Indian Bureau have not been made public; that
congressional investigating committees have done nothing; that the federal
medical service is unable to cope with the tubercular situation; that law
and order conditions are bad, with bigamy practiced in many cases: that
estates of Indians who died 40 years ago are just now being settled.
Graveyards Are Flooded
The latest phase of the Indian difficulty
is the construction of the immense reservoir in Sawyer County, by which
part of the Indian Reservation is flooded. The Indians protested
violently, but the work went on. Now Indians graves and sacred spots,
says Father Gordon, are underwater.
The citizenship status of the Indians is involved
in the maze of legal decisions. In general, when the Indians proved
up his allotment of land and has taken up residence separate and apart
from his tribe he becomes a citizen. But there are Indians at Reserve
whose brothers died in France and who themselves saw service overseas.
These veterans are not yet citizens and this has added to the feeling here.
Father Gordon believes that if he can get
state action he can work out a program on the Lac Courte Oreilles Reservation
that will mean a new day for the Indian in America. He is directly an apostle
of the doctrine of self-development. He doesn’t want the Indian regarded
as a child.
Mrs. O.J. Little, Stone Lake, who came to
the region 13 years ago, believes that the Indians should have assistance
at once. She is a former schoolteacher and has offered to give the Indians
instruction in civic affairs to fit them for local self-government.
The new church, which Father Gordon is erecting
at Reserve, is pointed to with pride by the village. A year ago the
small structure that housed his mission was burned. He went over
the country and raised $23,000 with which he is erecting a beautiful log
and stone church.