Arizona weekly citizen., 1881-09-11
TEE APAcHEs MUST co.

 may fairly term periodical Apache war. It is true that for the past five years there has been no outbreak of Apaches in Arizona but 1t Is only just that we should consider the methods 1 which have been adopted by the Interior Department to maintain peace during | these years The Apaches had been completely thrashed into submission by General Crook. They were forced to succumb for the time being by superior force and skill, and for the lack of am munitiou and arms. Yet, in the lace of their temporary humiliation, they com pelled the Interior Department into granting them more liberal concessions tban were ever extended to any other tribe of Indians. Hundreds of thou sands of dollars have been expended by the Indian Department in feeding these worthless vagabonds, besides main- taining military pos1s and a large force of soldiers, at great expense. All the four, bacon, sugar, coffee, beans, grain, and much of the hay consumed Is brought in from California at great ex- pense. That General Wilcox will sub- due the Apaches in due time, and force them to settle down on the reservation, we have not the least doubt. But hew long will they remain in suhection? The troops will no sooner be withdrawn from the Territory and reduced 10 peace footing when they will again be ready to break ont and go forth with the scalpmg knife and repeating Winchester among the settlements of Arizona and New Mexico, numbering the brave pioneers WHO are Urylng UO Hu''Hy ''',------ ;-- remote frontier. This is the situation in Arizona and New Mexico, and the conclusions we have drawn are reesona- ble. In view of the facts above set forth, we urge upon the people of Ari- zona to take immediate steps now, for the removal of Apaches from the Ter ritory. Their presence here will always
 be terror to our people and no settler in all that region of country surround ing the San Carlos Reservation can ever lie down at night with the least certainty of seeing the rising of the morning sun. Then again the country embraced in the reservation is the most inaccessible in the United States, and amounts to no less than u death trap for soldiers. General Crook, who has as thorough a knowledge of the re- servation as any man in the country well said, at Omaha the other day, that the country in which the Apaches live Is almost inaccessible, and that the lava
 beds of the ModOcs, in which Captain
 Jack made his remarkable stand few
 years ago, are macadamized, roads in comparison with the nights and crags
 where these hostile Apaches live"
 Let the people of Arizona meet in mass convention and as one man de mand the removal of the Apaches from the Territory. They could easily be
 kept in subjectlon in the Indian Terri
 tory, and at half the expense 1t Is costing here There are no high mountains
 there or basaltic canyons deep into the bowels Of the earth to furnish hiding places where one Indian would equal ten soldiers. There on the smooth prairie lands of the Indian Territory they could not hide away, and could not break out and murder and butcher innocent men women and children as they do here. In past years the people of Arizona have been accused of melting Indian wars for the purpose of making money out of Government contracts. How much truth there may have been in these charges we shall not here attempt to determine, but we know there is 10 such feeling ex- isting in Arizona now, and we doubt If huHanitarians % make loose cfarRes against settlers on the frontier. If a
 few of our big hearted friends down in
 New England could only be brought to Arizona and live neighbois s to the Apaches a year or two, and come home some night and find their wives and children murdered-their bodies cut to pieces and their bowels torn out, as hundreds of Arizonians have, we think they would be more competent to tell us what to 70 in relation to the Indian question, and how to do it. But for tl5 present we believe our peJpie are better qualified to solve tl,e Indian question than these pecsse. Their forefathers exterminated
 EIng Philips tribe, and Annawon has no representative of his race left. Tribe after tribe have been exterminated there, but the ungolly people of the far west are scarcely allowed to raise a hand in their own defense. Either extermi- nation or removal will be acceptable to our people, and the sooner we proceed to business the sooner We can solve the Indian question in Arizona. We heartily urge upon our people the necessity of prompt action looking to- wards the removal Of the Apaches, as we have above stated, and trust that no time will be lost. The Apaches must go.