New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1889-04-20
WHAT THE MoyEMEET MEANS.

Our correspondent with the army OF invasion
which is already moving upon Oklahoma sends
an interesting and graphic account Of the scene
at the borders where the impatient settlers have
been awaiting the bugle blast that was to serve
as the signal for the onset. His letter will be
found printed on the second page. Not the least
instructive feature of it is the good character
he gives to many of the settlers. The i'm
preston prevails to a considerable extent in the
East, Judging from the newspapers, that the
horde Of people now advancing upon Oklahoma
Is made up Of desperadoes and border rufiians,
who represent no genuine desire for a fixed
home, but are merely body Of rovers, ready
for any change that promises adventure and
has an element of gamblers luck in it. This
would no doubt be tolerably correct portrait
of many of the original "boomers,n but our
correspondents description makes It evident
that large proportion of those who are en-
gagged In the present movement arc real home
seekers, men who have brought their wives and
children with them, and who will join in Mon
days inpouring with the painful eagerness of
those to whom success or failure viii mean far
more than an nlucky turn at cards.
The fact that so many Of the settlers COM
pare fayorably with the average Of pioneers in
any new country adds TO the pathos Of the sit
uation-for pathoS there will surely be. The
border rover will recover quickly from his dis
appointment II he shall fail to gain n good
quarter section, and take himself off to some
other field Of adventure. But the settler who,
after long toll aud waiting, enters the promised
land with the old and young OF bis household
only TO be distanced in the race, or deprived
of his claim by trickery or force, viii not find
IL 80 easy to make n fresh start in life. 1t viii
not be strange if before a few weeks have
passed we shall hear stories Of real privation
from the land Of plenty. The fears Of blood
shed were evidently not without warrant. The
country is not even opened yet, and already
half dozen lives have been sacrificed. II this
Is an earnest of what Is to follow, there may
be serious trouble on Monday, when the rail-
road trains begin to discharge their loads, the
relays Of swift horses seek to measure PAGES
with them, and the gloomy thickets OF the
territory itself give up the boomers who have
been hiding from the soldiers at a point where
they might be near their claims 1t may be,
however, that the active supervision, Of the
army will repress lawlessneSs. II is worth
considering also, that Just as the fertility and
a1tractiveness OF the country have undoubtedly
been grossly exaggerated, so, too the number
of intending settlers may have been. There
has been pleasing rivalry between the border
towns as TO their relative populations OF boom
ers," and when warfare Of this kind begins
on the frontier, figures haye been known to lie
with the most astonishing energy.
1t Is impossible not to feel, in contemplating
this picturesque and sudden conquest Of virgin
soil by the white man, that we are seeing the
beginning of the end Of the present Indian
system. Within few weeks commissioners
will be treating with, the Cherokees for tho
opening Of the Cherokee Stnp-a tract three
times as great as 0klahoma-when the same
scenes are likely to be re-enacted. 1t will not
be long, probably, before the gates TO the great
Sioux Reservation in Dakota will be let down,
and again there will be an eager onset Of many
thousands Of settlers. These events remind us
that the vacant places Of the great West are
fast diminishing. The natural result is a
pressure to induce the Indians to resign the
large tracts Of land, which they do not use, and
have not the intelligence nor the means to make
productive. IL Is to be hoped that every such
adjustment will be as free from any element Of
wrong TO the Indian as the Oklahoma settle
ment has been or the Cherokee purchase is In
tended TO be. The logical outcome Of the sit
uation will be, by slow stages, the evolution of
the Indian into citizen, living under the same
laws and enjoying the same rights as bis white
neighbors, and no longer separated from them
by policy that enfeebles and degrades him
while protesting TO make him independent.