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Image provided by: South Dakota State Historical Society – State Archives
Newspaper Page Text
The Indian presents primarily two propositions, the Personal and the Property. More than three hundred thousand living,moving people, men, women and children, constitute the personal and more than a billion dollars estimates the value of the property. Of the two propositions, the personal seems to me to be paramount in im portance and to demand the first consideration and solution. Property adjustments are potent factors in personal development and should receive careful, efficient, and honest consideration. But after all, men's riches are only incidental and should be used only as a means to an end, which end should be efficient, honest manhood. To deal sensibly with a man and his affairs, one must know the man. The man lives forever, his property is relative, elusive and temporary he is invaluable, his property has its metes and bounds he is in finite, his property is finite. A good financial deal increases a man's bank account, a bad one decreases it but the equilibrium of the world's business is not perceptibly disturbed. A misguided life is a positive loss to the present and the future, an irreparable interference with the universal contemplation of harmony. "Who steals my purse steals thrash but he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him, and makes me poor indeed." Equally weighty is the responsibility upon him who assumes direc tion and misleads. However, a battle never fought is a battle never won, therefore we think, we speak, and we work. The Indian and his affairs are similar to the people and affairs of any race. There is as much human nature in the Indian as there is in any man, and social, religious, legal, and economic principles pervade his affairs just as they operate in the affairs of other peoples. The only difference is in relationships. The distinguishing features of men and things are very largely differences of environment and opportunity. The Indian is just a man, with all the potential faculties and possibilities for good and evil as other men, and if the corresponding developments and accomplishments differ, the cause lies in environ ment and circumstances rather than in human difference. Recently, 6.