The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1882-10-04
The Indians Future
WILLIAM SHoRTLrDGE.' -

The question of what is to be the
glorious ultimately of the red man
in America is one which demands of
US, as a people, serious considera-
ton. VIII few fleeting years ex-
termiminate from the face of the
earth race which has long filled
our fourth readers and our school
declamatiOns with crude oratory,
existing only as a smoke-tanned
bead trimmed memory ? VIII the
beautiful picture of the brunette
Indian maiden at last become moth
ing but the frontispiece of a time
honored legend and the trade mark
of fine cut factory2 Let us hope
that it will not.
We have crossed the wide ocean
and wrested from these people their
lands, and then, to add insult 10 In
/ jury, we have taught them the mys-
teries of our civilization.
With the white men came the doc
trine of vicarious atOnement and he
iopen-back shirt. He brought with
him the dictionary and the garden
house, ,salvatcon and saleratus. The
tale was soon told, and now on the
vertebra of the continent the tele-
/ phone and the morning paper are
crowding the red widOwer and the
pigeon-tOed scion of Powhattan into
the morning sea. The restless waves
of civilization and soap have crow
ded old ise-Up-William Riley and
the whole tribe into the black night
of forgetfulness and death. Grad
ually he has picked up his house
hold goods and his wife and upright
piano, and stolen toward that couch
of dying day. Now he stands upon
the rocky battlements the boarder
the new States, and bathed in red
sun light and nothing else in partic-
ular. he shakes hands with his APP
preaching 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 peo-
pie, stolidly awaiting forgetfulness
and death. we cannot help admiring
( the crawny brave with the undaun-
ted eye and the buckskin pants with
the seat cut off. Nature gaveto thee,
dusky warrior, strength like the
eagle and swftness in the chase, but
in her wisdom denied thee the cop
per lining that is required to meet
and conquer the vintage of a pro-
gressive 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 the
paleface and sold to thee. tangle up
thy duodenum and crash the crown
sheet of thy digester.
Brave orator Of the school book,
grim relic Of the days Of Pocahontas.
We watch with tear dimmed eyes thy
closing hours. Adieu, thou Indian
mother, standing on the steep, pre-
cipitous shores of eternity. Behind
thee rest the dead heroes of thy race,
and at thy side the brindle relic of a
mighty tribe of Indian dogs, fatigued
and listless, pets his favorite flea
No one can look upon this sad and
smoky group unmoved-the fading
remnants of a glorious petty larceny
mob. Had he adopted the Prince
Albert coat and the doctrine of a
protective tariff. instead of the plug
hat and the whiskey sour, his future
might have been a resplendent one
and his life less clouded with failure
and remorse.
We should learn from this to shun
the errors which have busted the
glorious future of the red man. Let
US profit by his example and eschew
the flowing bowl. We should also
avoid the exposure of an outdoor
life. A constant communion with
nature and wet feet shortens life, and
clouds the pathway with gloom and
catarrh.-B00meaag.