Underfeeding the Indian
Anderson, George E.
May 14, 1930 THE COMMONWEAL 43 UNDERFEEDING THE INDIAN By GEORGE E. ANDERSON THE statement that 21,633 Indian children, wards of the United States, now in boarding schools supported by the...
...His commission confirmed the report of the Institute of Research but calculated that by the coordination of purchases, large-scale buying, the proper warehousing of supplies and other economies the per diem could be cut to $.378...
...The most that has been accomplished has been the demonstration at a few of the Indian agencies that with proper leadership, proper resources, and adequate energy the Indian can be educated economically and politically...
...Present efforts of the government are too haphazard, too dependent upon personal initiative and resources of individual agents, too superficial, too little coordinated to accomplish much of permanent value...
...The statement is made by the authorities of the American Indian Defense Association...
...Next to dietary deficiencies comes overcrowding in dormitories...
...They merely serve to bring up the whole question of the Indian policy of the government and to emphasize the distressing position of the Indians as a whole...
...By 1931 they anticipate appropriations which will work out an allowance of $.345 a day or about 90 percent of the sum calculated by dietetic, health and welfare authorities as necessary for the proper feeding and clothing of these wards of the government...
...In spite of the millions of dollars expended upon the Indian in the United States the Indian problem is jpst as unsettled as it was a quarter of a century or more ago...
...Compare the popular idea of the Indian with oil-land royalties riding around in expensive motor cars with actual conditions : An overwhelming majority of the Indians are poor, even extremely poor, and they are not adjusted to the economic and social system of the dominant white civilization...
...The best at times approached the ideal...
...As a matter of fact the authorities of the Indian Bureau are not asking for the full amount estimated as necessary by the investigating authorities for the simple reason that they do not believe they can secure it...
...The whole Indian problem has been considered one of supporting a poor family relation instead of one of education in the broad sense of fitting him to become an integral part of the family...
...The number of Indians who are supporting themselves through their own efforts according to what a white man would regard as the minimum standard of health and decency is extremely small...
...It is not strictly true but it comes so near the truth that there is little comfort in any inaccuracy...
...The authorities in the Indian Bureau in the Interior Department dissociate themselves from the statement of the Defense Association but the facts and figures they have submitted to Congress give ample support to the contentions of the latter with respect to the needs of the children and of the Indian service generally...
...The present situation in the Indian schools arises specifically from the failure of Congress and other authorities to take into account the increase in the cost of living supplies at the present time over prewar days...
...it has broken up his old manner of life without showing him how to adapt himself to the manner of life of those around him...
...it has been forced upon both by the march of progress...
...The health of the Indians as compared with that of the general population is bad...
...It is still hung up in the Senate Committee...
...The outstanding deficiency is in the diet furnished the Indian children, many of whom are below normal health...
...Whether or not either race is willing, this close contact must continue by the force of circumstances...
...The worst often falls below the normal...
...Secretary of the Interior Wilbur in June, 1929, approved this report but for the purpose of reducing the estimated expenditure, if possible, instituted a new investigation...
...With comparatively few exceptions the diet of the Indians is bad...
...On February 27, the commissioner for Indian affairs appeared before the Senate Committee and stated that $600,000 more than the sum allotted by the House would be necessary if the standards set by the federal authorities for the care of the children were to be attained...
...At the worst schools the situation is serious in the extreme...
...As to the Indian boarding schools the Institute of Research in its report said that it finds itself obliged to say frankly and unequivocally that the provisions for the care of the Indian children are grossly inadequate...
...The purchasing power of this maximum of $.20 per day has been gradually decreasing from prewar days until at present it is 39 percent less than it was fifteen years ago...
...Measured by the latter standard, the United States is not doing for the Indian what it ought to be doing...
...That organization submitted a report in 1928 recommending, among many other reforms, that the food allowance for the children in these schools be increased at once to $.391 a day which is $.15 or 37 percent less than the per diem allowance for the army and navy...
...The present school ration is only 37 percent of the army ration...
...As a matter of preserving their own racial and social standing it behooves the white race to see to it that the Indian portion of the community is as high morally, mentally, physically and otherwise as any other portion...
...The facts of the present situation in the Indian schools are beyond dispute...
...In its report the Institute noted that in its investigation it found wide variation between the best and the worst...
...The effort has been made to feed the children on a per capita of $.11 a day plus what can be produced on the school farm, including the dairy...
...The supply of soap and towels has been inadequate...
...The prevailing living conditions among the great majority of the Indians are conducive to the development and spread of disease...
...On the basis of this report President Hoover in a special message to Congress last December asked for an additional appropriation for the current fiscal year of $595,156 for additional food and $252,000 for additional clothing and for a proportionate increase in appropriations for the next fiscal year...
...A frank description of the condition of the average Indian is not pleasant reading...
...The recommendations for the current fiscal year were based upon the expectancy that prompt action could be had from Congress, still too busy considering the tariff...
...The proper measure of the work done by the government for the Indian is not a comparison between conditions as they now are and conditions as they were fifty years ago but a comparison of conditions as they now are with what they ought to be as indicated by the work of other agencies, public or private, engaged in similar work for the people of the country as a whole or for other special groups...
...Generically the trouble comes from years of neglect, ignorance and a lack of a definite and coordinated policy in regard to Indian affairs generally of which inadequate financial support has been at once a symptom and a cause...
...The Deficiency Appropriation Bill which contains these items was not passed by the House until February...
...The House appropriation was for only a fraction of the allowance asked for by the President although the shortness of the period in the current fiscal year during which the appropriation may be available is to be considered...
...For years the government has been attempting to feed the children in the Indian boarding schools on a maximum of $.20 per child per day, of which $.14, and much of the time only $.11, represent purchased food, and an average of $.06 represents food produced on the farms attached to the schools which are operated largely by the labor of the Indian pupils who in fact have been giving more time to labor on the farms than to classroom work...
...At all events a crisis in the Indian affairs of the United States has been reached and in the policy of the immediate future lies a determination of the question whether the Indian shall be allowed to die out in poverty and disease or be set upon the high road to selfrespecting citizenship...
...The housing conditions are likewise conducive of bad health...
...The indictment continues its distressing details ad nauseum...
...Under the present conditions the Indian problem is a perennial problem, continuing from generation to generation indefinitely...
...Neither the white nor the Indian race has willingly brought the two races into close contact...
...The two great preventive elements in diet, milk and fruits and green vegetables are notably absent...
...At a few, very few, schools, the farm and the dairy are sufficiently productive to be a highly important factor in raising the standard of the diet, but even at the best schools these sources do not fully meet the requirements of the children...
...While the states and local communities are not without responsibility in this matter the chief responsibility by tradition, organization of our government and by previous relations rests upon the federal government and that responsibility is direct and unavoidable...
...It is shockingly direct and complete...
...it has given money instead of teaching him to earn his own daily bread...
...May 14, 1930 THE COMMONWEAL 43 UNDERFEEDING THE INDIAN By GEORGE E. ANDERSON THE statement that 21,633 Indian children, wards of the United States, now in boarding schools supported by the federal government, are slowly starving to death as a result of government parsimony in the matter of supplies comes as a shock to the people of the country...
...In practically the whole of its relations with the Indian tribes the chief characteristic of the policy of the government toward the Indians has been that of patron toward a dependent...
...frequently the survey staff has been able to take as their standard for comparison the attainments of the Indian Service itself...
...If this problem can be handled in a vigorous way along broad educational lines and with thoroughness it will be completely disposed of in two or three generations as in fact it has been disposed of in some limited areas and among a few tribes...
...it has endeavored to protect him in his property rights without teaching him to protect his own rights...
...The American people are possessed of a false idea of the living conditions of their Indian wards induced by tales of sudden great wealth on the part of a few Indians in the Oklahoma oil fields...
...Sanitary facilities are generally lacking...
...As a mere matter of economics, not to mention other and higher considerations, it would be sound policy and real economy to double present-day appropriations and accomplish something of which the American people can be proud instead of being under the charge, only too well founded, of starving their helpless wards...
...They hope for an increase from year to year for the next three years until the necessary amount can be obtained...
...It has given the Indian land for land taken, but has not taught him how to use it...
...Hunger and rags for helpless children, wards of the government of the United States, form the most sensational feature of the Indian situation, but they are by no means the sole challenge to the American people in this regard...
...The diet is deficient in quantity, quality and variety...
...and also the demonstration in the case of many individual Indians that the possibilities of the race are great...
...Complaints became so insistent three years ago that Secretary of the Interior Hubert Work requested an investigation of the matter by the Institute of Government Research in Washington...
Vol. 12 • May 1930 • No. 2
