THE INDIAN
The Indian DESPITE popular belief that the civilization forced upon him by the white man means his ultimate extinction, the North American Indian, reviving from a long period of decadence, has...
...Startling as this assertion may be to those who have pictured American forests in the discoverer's time as swarming with red men, it is freely advanced by experts of the government's Indian bureau, who maintain that the Indian necessarily formed an exceeding scant population which probably at no period materially exceeded the total of 333,702 Indians reported by the bureau for last year...
...The Indian DESPITE popular belief that the civilization forced upon him by the white man means his ultimate extinction, the North American Indian, reviving from a long period of decadence, has shown such substantial increase in population in recent years that he probably is scarcely less numerous today than when Columbus discovered America...
...They demonstrate, he said, that with the schools, hospitals and other advantages now provided for him, the Indian, be he tribesman or freed-man, is "not a dying race but rather a flourishing one...
...White continued, there probably would not be a "vestige of the race within our republic today...
...White declared these figures "fully reflected the generosity of a government that has increased its Indian health appropriation alone from $40,000 in 1911 to $360,000 in 1917 and subsequent years...
...White continued, the Indian in the present day, after periods of sharp decrease following as a natural reaction to sudden contact with the civilization of the white man, is seen to be mak-ing substantial gains in population...
...Lawrence W. White, an Indian authority of the bureau...
...The Indian no longer is to be thought of as a dying race," declared Dr...
...On the other hand, Dr...
...Pointing to statistics which show an excess of births over deaths of 1,622 in 1916, and almost as great an excess in 1917, normal years which were not affected by their epidemic of influenza, Dr...
...As the Indian neglected agriculture almost completely, it is highly improbable that this country, considering its latitude, could have supported more than several hundred thousand of his race...
...Had he been treated as other nations have treated savage tribes, Dr...
...In support of this statement it is necessary, in the first place, to disabuse the pulblic mind of the tradition handed down by discoverers and early colonists that American forests in their day swarmed with the dusky figure of the red man...
Vol. 12 • March 1920 • No. 3
