Morning appeal. [volume] (Carson City, Nev.) 1877-1906, 1877-07-19
THE WAR IN IDAHO.
We find the following in the dispatches


Boise City, July l7.-There arrives to-day
Battery B, mounted as cavalry, commanded
by Captain Hasbrouck and Lieutenant Ennis,
Hammond and Wilson. This company con-
sists of sixty enlisted men. The horses are
of the largest size and unfit for mountain
travel and rough campaigning, and it is the
opinion of the officers here, as well rs that of
others, that the horses will give out and the
men be left on foot after few days travel IN
the mountains. Lieutenant Wilson, with
twenty indian scouts from Fort Hall, arrived
here few minutes before Captain Hasbrouck.
These are the last of the troops which are to
come this way without change of orders.
Fort Boise will be left without garrison and
the whole of Southern Idaho without troops.
There ought to be no more danger from
hostile Indians in Idaho than there is in
Massachusetts,. There would not be any such
danger ii the Indian question had ever been
dealt with in anything like a business way by
Congress- But that question has ever been
treated as Professors of Anatomy treat q
rauper's corpse:-it has been given over to
bungling students of politics to practice on.
Anybody that had mind to could and does
get up laws for the government of the Indians,
and experiments are in order. The Indians
are treated, primarily as if they were so many
buffaloes or coyotes. Thenthey are dealt with,
after some seal ps have been taken, as we deal
with any distinct nation. Then Mr. Indian
roans at will, blanketed and armed, with
rations in his harversack and lmitless rounds
OF ammunition in his cartridge box Then he
has a Quaker agent come to laquer his morals
and teach him the use of the pillow, and the
sewing machine. He joshes Mister Quaker,
sells the pillow for whiskey and converts the
sewing machine into Henry rife Then,
whenever the wild freak comes on him, he
massacres every white man in reach Then
comes the Indian war; and many is the musty
old rattletrap of a border fort that gets
wakened up to the fact that itself is of about
as much use it would be on Portsmouth
Square or on the top of Mount Davidson.
All at once the country Is startled by the
story of wholesale massacre of our troops
and the vain and awkward pursuit of the
Indians. Finally, when the redskins get
tired of the fun they subside and another
treaty is made, And SO on, ad minimum.
The agency business breeds the fault-fnding,
as it also promotes the ''wars' So far, then,
the Indian business has been boys play
apprentices fooling with explosives
and edged tools. What should be done, all
along the line, is to seek out the savages,
before hand Right in the outset-and with
strong hand, coerce them into full subsection
1t IS like arming lunatic asylum to put guns
and powder in their hands. They should be
to fight, if fight they will with
bows and arrows. Thore is no excuse for the |
contest ever being equal. But under the |
existing slpshod way of doing things the
Indian is constantly better armed, better |
mounted and better prepared for war than |
any but the most skilled and experienced /
border veterans. Moreover, the Government |
Keeps sending Boy to mill Up to date we
nave never been prepared either for war or
peace with the Indians