A Look at the American Indian

By EDWIN B. PETERSEN

HELLO FOLKS! — If the leaders of the so called "Poor Peoples March" are sincere about doing something constructive for their constituents they will take a few trips to the areas where people have been living off federal paternalism for a long time. I mean the American Indian.

I visited the Rosebut Indian Reservation, recently. These people have been receiving government checks for 50 years. We drove them off the land they possessed, which should never have been done; but let's not get the idea that they owned the land. They didn't. For the most part all they ever did with the land was to live off it. When game became scarce they moved and drove other tribes off where they wanted to settle, if they could.

As I started to say, if the people who are agitating for greater government aid would take a hard look at what has happened to the ones who have been receiving such aid for many years they would suddenly change courses of action. To one who has known these Indians for a long time and seeing what has happened to them, it is really disheartening.

I first talked to a former rancher who had given up ranching and turned to truck driving. I asked him why he gave up ranching. He explained that he was unable to get help. He nearly killed himself working trying to take care of 800 cows. Decided it wasn't worth it.

This man had his ranch in the Nebraska Sand Hills which is right next to the "Rosebud," where there are thousands of Indians supposedly unemployed. Basically it is because they don't have to work and is has become such a way of life to look to someone else for sustenance that they havent developed the talent of doing something for themselves.

If these people had not been dependent on government aid they could have taken jobs with ranchers and learned valuable trades. To put it bluntly, they would have been forced to do so or starve.

Instead they exist from day to day doing nothing constructive for the most part. Now that it is legal by them to buy liquor many of them have become alcoholics.

It is a pitiful situation really. These people need help, but the kind of help the government gives them does more harm than good. If government would get out of the picture and let them and people around them take care of the situation so many more of them would live useful lives and become assets to themselves and the community.