Indian Minorities Under the American New Deal

vISTAKES, great or small in their inception but often monumental in their cumulative effects, sometimes reach a point of such long-standing fixity in social relations that their rectification seems impossible, and any contemplation of it, except in slight ameliorative ways, fantastic. Remedial changes may come about deliberately through revolution or as the indirect concomitant of revolution. Such an instance of redirection on a large scale was discussed in the last number of PACIFIC AFFAIRS by Dr. Archie Phinney, who described the new outlook for the racial minorities once under the dominion of the Russian Tsars. But for minorities too weak and too scattered to accomplish or even undertake revolution on their own behalf, or situated within a state where any major revolution from which they might indirectly benefit seems a remote possibility, the chances for rectification of long-standing injustices may be regarded as woefully slight. In the United States, where the administration of native Indian affairs has always been a synonym for unswerving conservatism and hard-shelled bureaucracy, the unexpected and impossible has happened. A complete reorientation of Indian administrative policy has taken place. A whole new set of attitudes and aims now replaces the old fixed routine of ideation and procedure. This initial change has been brought about chiefly through the visionary capacity of one man, the President, and the dynamic power of another, the new Commissioner of Indian Affairs; its development remains to be seen. In any event, the progress of this experiment in remolding the fortunes of a dependent people should prove to be of interest to the administrators of racial minorities elsewhere, as the program unfolds from its beginning as a strange alliance of insurgent idealism and administrative responsibility. Thanks to the vision and courage of Franklin D. Roosevelt, an

Development economics · Economics · Political science · History · Race, History, and American Society