The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1882-07-22
THE INDIANS FUTURE.
By BILL NYE.

THE INDIANS FUTURE.
BY BILL NYE.
The question of what Is to be the
glorious future ultimately of the red
man in America is one which demands
of US, as a people, serious considera-
ton. Will few fleeing years extir'
pate aud exterminate from the face OF
the earth a race which has long filled
our fourth readers and our school dec
lamations with crude oratory, exist
only as q smoke. tanned, bead-trimmed
memory? Will the beautiful picture of
the brunette Indian maiden at last be-
come nothing but the frontispiece of
time-honored legend and the trade
mark of a fine-cut factory? Let US
hope that 1t will not.
We have crossed the wide ocean and
wrested from these people their lands,
and then, to add insult to injury, we
have taught them the mysteries of our
civilization.
With the white man came the doc
trine of vicarious atonelnent and the
open-back SKIRT. He brought with
him the dictionary and the garden
hose, salvation and saleratus. The tale
was soon told, and now on the verte-
brse of the continent the telephone and
the morning papers are crowding the
red widower and the pigeon-toed scion
of Powhatan into the moaning sea.
The restless waves of civilization and
soap have crowded old Rise-Up.Wil-
liam Riley and the whole tribe into
the black night of forgetfulness and
death. Gradually he has picked up his
household goods and his wife and up
right piano, and stolen toward the
couch of dying day. Now he stands
upon the rocky battlements that bor-
der the new States, and, bathed in red
sunlight and nothing else in particular,
he shakes hands with his approaching
doom.
Had he taken more kindly to the
bath-tub of the pale-face, and frater-
nized more adequately with the crash
towel of the European, his oblivion
would have been less speedy, and the
black tom-cat night Of eternal sleep
less formerly.
Silent and unrelenting, unmoved
above the broad cemetery of his people,
stolidly awaiting forgetfulness and
death, we can not help admiring the
brawny brave with the undaunted eye
and the buckskin pants with the seat
cut out. Nature gave to thee, thou
dusky warrior, strength like the eagle,
and swiftness in the chase, but in her
wisdom denied thee the copper-lining
that is required to meet and conquer
the vintage of progressive age. The
mountain lion may meet thee and yield
up his life at thy hands, but the juice
of the centipede, that is distilled by
up the duodenum and cracks the crown
sheet of the digester. ..-
Brave orator of the school book, grim
relic of the days of Pocahontas, we
watch with tear-dimmed eyes thy clos
ing hours. Adieu, thou Indian mother,
on the steep, precipitous shores
of eternity. Behind thee rest the dead
heroes of thy race, and at thy side the
brindle relic of mighty tribe of In
dian dogs, fatigued and listless, pets
his favorite flea. No one can look upon
this sad and smoky group unmoved.
The fading remnants Of Il glorious petty
larceny mob. Had he adopted the
Prince Albert coat and the doctrine of
a protective tariff, instead of the plug
hat and whisky sour, his future might
have been Respondent, and his life less
clouded with failure and remorse.
We should learn from this to shun
the errors which have busted the glo-
rious future of the red man. Let us
profit by his example, and eschow the
flowing bowl. We should also avoid
the exposure of an outdoor life. A con-
slant communion with nature and wet
feet shortens life, and clouds the path
way with gloom and catarrh.
A debtor who was sued by his cred.
itor acknowledged that he had bor-
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