XVIII. THE INDIAN AND FRANKNESS 204 XIX. THE INDIAN AND REPINING 207 XX. THE INDIAN AND THE SUPERFLUITIES OF LIFE 210 XXI. THE INDIAN AND MENTAL POISE 217 XXII. THE INDIAN AND SELF-RESTRAINT 229 XXIII. THE INDIAN AND AFFECTATION 235 XXIV. THE INDIAN AND ART WORK 240 XXV. THE INDIAN AND RELIGIOUS WORSHIP 250 XXVI. THE INDIAN AND IMMORTALITY 259 XXVII. VISITING THE INDIANS 265 XXVIII. CONCLUSION 268 CHAPTER I THE WHITE RACE AND ITS TREATMENT OF THE INDIAN Ever since the white race has been in power on the American continent it has regarded the Indian race--and by this I mean all the aboriginal people found here--as its inferiors in every regard. And little by little upon this hypothesis have grown up various sentiments and aphorisms which have so controlled the actions of men who never see below the surface of things, and who have no thought power of their own, that our national literature has become impregnated with the fiendish conception that “the only good Indian is the dead Indian.” The exploits of a certain class of scouts and Indian-hunters have been lauded in books without number, so that even schoolboys are found each year running away west, each with a belt of cartridges around his waist and a revolver in his hip pocket, for the purpose of _hunting Indians_. Good men and women, people of the highest character, are found to be possessed of an antipathy towards the Indian that is neither moral nor christian. Men of the highest integrity in ordinary affairs will argue forcefully and with an apparent confidence in the justice of their plea that the Indian has no rights in this country that we are bound to respect. They are here merely on sufferance, and whatever the United States government does for them is pure and disinterested philanthropy, for which the Indian should be only grateful and humble. To me this is a damnable state of affairs. If prior possession entitles one to any right in land, then the Indian owns the land of the United States by prior right. The so-called argument that because the Indian is not wisely _using_ the land, and that therefore he stands in the way of progress and must be removed, and further, that we, the people of the United States, are the providentially appointed instruments for that removal, is to me so sophistical, so manifestly insincere, so horribly cruel, that I have little patience either to listen or reply to it.