Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1878-06-07

The country is, it seems, to be treated to
its annual Indian war, this Summer. Tle
Bannocks and the Shosbones are the noble
red men with whose barbaric nomenclature
We arc to become familiarized, this season,
and whose scalping- knives are to operate on
the integument of the Anglo-Sa1on skull.
In common with our Democratic friends,
they are greatly dissatisfied with the Great
Father at Washington. and like them are
putting on their war-paint. The country
where these hostile Indians are concentrat
ing-the great lava-beds between the Great
Campas prairie and the Salmon river noun
tain-is n very difficult one and the seventy
United States troops (Which is the vast num-
Der stationed thcre) are Of course entirely
helpless. Altogether the outlook is by no
means an encouraging one: and repetition
of some of the dreadful massacres of years
past would be nothing very surprising. Gen
eral Sherman is quoted as expressing the
opinion that the Government will have its
hands full during the present Summer in
protecting the frontiers against the warlike
operations of the Indians, and that these
hostile movements will not be confined to a
single scene of operations, but will
occupy three separate regions, max
ing necessary as many independent
campaigns by the army. The Bannock
Indians, he says, are evidently determined in
their hostility to the whites, and he fears
that the country will be subjected to the ter
rible scenes of another Modoc war. The In
dams upon the Upper Columbia, according
to Gen. Sherman, are equally hostile, and
threaten sections in which there are great
number Of settlers, and to which it will re-
quirc strong force to afford the necessary
protection. Dispatches from all parts of the
Sioux country Indicate general rallying OF
the warlke tribes of the Nation, and official
advices FRI IN the Canadian border report that
a great portion Of Sitting Bulls forces have
left the vicinity of Fort Walsh, and are grad
ually moving south with the growth of yege-
taton. Zen. Sherman anticipates that with
in few weeks all the hostile tribes Of Sioux
will institatc general war Of determination
within the regions claimed as their own.
lie also says that if the present indications of
an Indian war are realized, and he fears they
will be, the army as it now stands would lie
entirely Insufficient to cope with the weight
Of Indian strategy and valor that would be
thrown against it. The Secretary of War is
reported as sharing with Gen. Sherman these
approximations of an outbreak, and thinks
that proper measures should be taken to pro-
tect the frontier against the scenes of blood
shed and pillage which attend Indian hostil-
tiles but he says that nothing can be done
so long a. there is uncertainty as to the sta
tus OF the army after the beginning Of the
next fiscal year.
1T is singular what difference there is
between reform in the abstract and reform
in the concrete. For Reform with very
large ~ in the abstract, our contemporaries,
and among them those in the Third Con
gressional District, were perfect enthusiasts
There were heartrending cries for political,
for Judicial. for administrative, for legisa-
tive and for executive reform. Lo and be-
hold thev cai1 ,ho-c ora tho or;I a., oC