The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1882-08-24
MANITOWOC. WIS, AUGUST "a. 1882.
The Indians Future.

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The question of what is to be the
glorious ultimately of the red men in
America is one which demands of Us, as
q people, serious consideration. Will q
few f1eeting years extirpate and exter-
inmate from the face of the earth race
which has long filed our fourth readers
and our school declamations with crude
oratory, exist only as smoke-tanned,
bead-trimmed memory? Win the beauti-
full picture of the brunette Indian maid
en- at last become nothing but the
frontispiece of time honored legend
and the trade mark of fine cutfactory?
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 to injury, we
have taught them the mysteries of our
civilization.
With the white man came the doctrine
OF vicarious atonement and the open
back shirt. He brought with him the
dictionary and the garden hose. saliva
Ion and saleratus. The tale was soon
told, and now on the vertebra of the
continent the telephone and the morn
ing papers are crowding the red widow
er and pigeon-toed scion of Powhatan
into the moaning sea- The restless
waves of civilization and soap have
crowded old Rise -Up-William Riley and
his whole tribe into the black night of
forgetfulness and death. Gradually he
has picked up his household goods and
his wife and upright piano, and stolen
toward the couch of dying day. Now he
stands upon the rocky battlements that
border the new States, and bathed in
red sunlight and nothing else in particu-
lar, he shakes hands with his approach
ing doom.
Had he taken more kindly to the bath
tub of the pale face and fraternized
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 for
merly.
Silent and unrelenting. unmoved
above the broad cemetery of his people,
stolidly awaiting forgetfulness and
death, we cannot 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 a 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 the
paleface and sold to thee, tangle up thy
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
standing 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 Indian
dogs, fatigued and listless, pets his
fayorite flea. No one can look upon this
sad and smoky group unmoved. The
fading remnants of glorious petty
laseeny HOB. Had no adorted tbs
Prince Albert coat and the doctrine of
protective tariff, instead of the plug hat
and the whisky sour, his future might
have been reSplendent one, and his
life less clouded with failure and re-
morse
We should learn from this to shun the
errors which have busted the glnr;1lus
future of the red man. Let us profit bv
his example and eschew the fIowinS
bowl. We should also avoid the expos.
ure of an outdoor life A constant COM
munion with nature and wet feet short
ems life, and clouds the pathway with
gloom and catarrh.-BiH Nye IN BOOM
erdng.