The Ludington Papers

WHEN I FIRST ENCOUNTERED Russel Barsh in The Road: Indian Tribes and Political Liberty (1980), I was struck by two things: the apparent thoroughness of his examination of the legislative history of the Indian Reorganization Act and his ignorance of the existing historical literature on that topic. The current essay perplexes me even more. In this venture into archival documentation support thesis that the Indian bureaucracy in the twentieth century has consistently co-opted Congressional policy and delayed the assimilation of Indians, Barsh has stumbled badly. While the thesis may be correct, the evidence cited simply does not support it. The most evident error in this essay has do with chronology and the linkage of personalities. Barsh indicates that Ludington, the former personal assistant Woodrow Wilson at Princeton University, prepared reassessment of Indian policy in anticipation of Wilson's presidency. At the time, Barsh tells us, there was growing pressure from Congress to complete the Indians' assimilation and wind up the costly operations of the Indian Office (footnote 46). He implies that it was as result of this pressure from Congress that prepared A Tentative Outline of Indian Policy, (footnote 53) a definite plan, that forshadowed the next fifty years of federal Indian policy, including the Indian New Deal (footnote 60). The first problem with this analysis is that Arthur C. wrote his unpublished papers, which Barsh found in the National Archives, Record Group 75, Special Series A, Box 1, in April of 1912 (text following footnote 51). Woodrow Wilson was not elected president until the fall of 1912 and he did not take office until March 4, 1913. Soon thereafter (footnote 55) left the Indian Office. Ludington's relationship the Wilson campaign and any subsequent influences he might have had on the new administration, are at best tenuous. Nor is it likely that he was the consummate eminence grise (text following footnote 49) in the political reform circles of his day. Once the disparity between the date of Ludington's manuscripts and the beginning of Wilson's presidency is noted, questions arise about the sources of Barsh's claim that Wilson asked Ludington ... prepare re-assessment of Indian Policy. Those sources are cited in footnote 4 which, when examined, provides no evidence that

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