
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 18, 1990                   TAG: 9007180403
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

JUDGMENT WILL COME FOR NEGLECT OF INDIANS

HISTORY relates that wherever discoverers touched upon the shores of the New World, they were welcomed by a race peaceful and hospitable - different from any people then known to the civilized world.

As time passed, things changed. The white man began to realize the great opportunities for wealth in the land of the Red Men. They looked upon the land with greed and ambition.

Then came the Indian wars. The Indians were dispossessed of their homeland and, because of color and culture, suffered years of deprivation and cruel discrimination while penned on reservations.

Somewhere in his conversations with Soviet leader Gorbachev, President Bush may have offered U.S. assistance. How often did white leaders consult with Indian leaders about their problems and what could be done to alleviate them?

Until 1924, Indians were not considered American citizens. Now after five years in the United States, any foreigner can become an American citizen.

There will be a day of reckoning for those who so carelessly neglected a conquered race. They will not go before the High Court of Appeal, but before the Supreme Court of the Almighty, where politics, pretension and partiality have no part.

Legends have it that the Indians crossed the Bering Strait, then dry land, following the game trail. Another is that they may be a lost tribe of Israel. Whatever the origin of the Indian people, they have left a record too vivid and remarkable to ever be effaced. POCAHONTAS H. MITCHELL ABINGDON

by CNB