The river press. [volume] (Fort Benton, Mont.) 1880-current, 1881-05-11
Nh 90


The supply Of large game is nearly extinct,
while the mouths TO be fed are increasing
they have passed through winter that has
| destroyed the little stock they possessed, and
| they are absolutely without food They are
eating the dead carcases left on the prairie
| they are cracking the bones and chewing the
hides Of the animals they kill; they have
eaten their horses, their dogs, everything that
was eatable they had and now they are eat
ing the stock that belongs to the withstand
who can blame them? The demands Of an
Indian stomach must be appeased from some
source, and there is no source but the cattle
of the whites; and this demand must be sat-
isfed, and the effort to stop it by the scattered
settlers will only goad the Indian to q last,
despairing, relentless struggle for existence
q struggle which will be tale narrowing in
its nature, and wasting in lis effects, and
which our government is calmly and coolly,
but ignorantly inviting by its suicidal policy
of denuding the country that is so exposed of
its troops. The Indian must be tied to the
soil or be exterminated # the first, we need
FIVE thousand more troops to compel it. If
the last we need five thousand more troops
to execute it. If we must do it ourselves, we
| must organize at once, and that will cost Us
| our summers work, destroy our incipient in
dustries, cost us lives worth more than al the
Indians Of North America. It is out OF iIse
| question, We must have more troops, not
less. We must have them where they are
needed to protect, or defend, or attack; not
where their sole occupation is the training Of
rose bushes, and the construction of tulip
| beds, at Fort Shaw or elsewhere
| Fort Benton is in telegraphic communities
ton with all the outlying posts; it is on the
extreme frontier; it is connected by roads
with all the military posts, and sections that
| need protection. It needs protection itself.
| TIE country around it needs protection more
than any other section Of the Territory. It
is in closer connection with all parts OF the
! frontier than any other point, and the country
can be easier protected from Benton than
.-om Assiniboin or elsewhere The interests
are the greatest in the Territory, and our
means Of protecting them the least. Troops
are needed here now, and they are being
| withdrawn; We need half regiment, and
they give as single company. We will
need them for several years yet, and they are
being taken away at the very crisis of our
existence. L is useless to say that one COM
pany has exersed no infaence; that the COM
1 paDy that has been here has exerted no
influence. 1t has exercised great influence,
and that it has not prevented Indian depreda-
tions is not its fault, but the fault Of the gov
ernment, which has left for fifty men the
work of keeping down four thousand starving
Indians, operating over territory as large as
the whole Of New England.
! We believe that the Infamous Indian ring
which has infested Northern Montana Is at
the bottom of this. 1t is the interest Of this
ring to concentrate the troops, and to keep
them concentrated their own interests impel
| them to keep them out OF active service, and
to continue them in the labor Of Horticulture,
and-Whisky drinking. The sutler at ASSN
| aboin, BroadWater, has his sub-agencies in
nearly every post in Montana. The whisky
that is prohibited by the Department is freely
had by the soldiers from some soarce, and
the only source perceptible is the source
supplied by those suffers. They steal in
differently from the soldier and the Indian,
and are the source of more trouble to the
| army, the government, the settler, than any
other element in either the army, the govern
mentor among the settlers here or elsewhere.
The ineficiency charged to the army belongs
to them and to no other. Troops in Benton
afford this ring no pickings!
The Bismarck Tribune is now issued daily.