Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1890-12-13

IL
PENCILs-A HARMLESS RELIGIOUS RITE INTER-
FERED WITH STARTED THE TROUBLE.
Senator Pettigrew of South Dakota was in
his seat in the Senate today for the first time
this session. He is most popular. and for half
an hour after his arrival was busily engaged in
shaking hands and answering questions as to
his health
This Indian scare has been an outrage"
said he to STAR reporter. IAN outrage on
the people of the northwest. There is not nor
has there been any good and sufficient cause
for alarm. For years these same Indians
habitually INDUCED in what is known as the
sun dance most barbarous celebration of
semi-religious character. The government
very properly forbade those dances and
social life among the Sioux became
somewhat tame. Then arose this Messiah
business and as dancing was its principal fea-
ture the Indians took hold of it at once The
ghost dance has in it all the elements of
purely aboriginal religion and it was by no
means unnatural that the dance became popu-
lar. BY this time some of the agents thought
they ought to be doing something. 80 they sent
out their Indian police to stop the saltatory
gyrations of the common herd and the sancti
monious genuficXions OF the cunning me.li-
cine man.
THE dancers did not see it in that light. !. o.
ever They were simply attending to whs! usv
believed was Il religions duty, and they declined
the proffered police escort to the guard house
That brought
THE TROOpS AND THE RESULTANT SCARE.
'The poor Indians, who had after their own
fashion been worshipping the Great Spirit and
his earthly agent-the new Messiah-thought
they were going to be punished for disobcying
the police. and they promptly moved away
from the vicinity OF the agencies as 4 matter Of
prccautiOn.
INSTANTLY the cry went up The Sioux are
on the war path The Indians knew nothing
of this, and when they found out that they were
not to be chastised they or most of them
promptly returned to their agencies and their
rations. Those who remained out are the vaga-
bonds. the thieves. the murderers, and ii they
can only be kept away from the reservations
and from the rest of the earth it will be the
better for mankind generally.
people who live in South Dakota, right
where these alleged troubles have been located
are astounded beyond measure at the wildly
untruthful reports that have been circulated
a friend Of mine has thousand head of cattle
within five miles Of where these Indian war
riOrs are camped in the Bad Lands. and his
herdcrs, still unscalped. are pursuing the even
tenor of their way ignorant of the danger
which Is popularity supposed to be all around
them.
WHO DID 1.-THE SPACE WRITER.
perpetrated this outrage upon the northwest?
The space writer. He did it with his little
pencil. The big eastern papers have no regn-
lar or responsible correspondents in that conn
try. but the superficial area of the region now
groans beneath the tread of the space
writer. He, like Jobs war horse, 'snitfs
the battle from afar.' please don t
spell battle with an 'o.) There is an
outbreak in every breeze. bloody encounter
in every rustlinG Dough. while the deep bass of
the bull frog and the hum of the mosquito sug-
gcst to his fevered intellect the massacre of in
nsmerable settlers and the devastation of thou
sand happy homes. Today he sends three col
umns of gore to any paper that will buy it
and tomorrow he will contradict what
he sends today that his reward may be
the greater. All he wants is money and he
will write anything to get it. Such men see a
snow fake and they straightway scribblc a
blOod-chilling description of an awful blizzard
in which human beings persisted by hundreds
and the carcasses of the frozen cattle filed
every creek bed and made locomotion difficult
over every hill and plain between Omaha
and the Cascade range of the Rocky mount
aims. know the space writer. If newspapers
would refuse to purchase matter which they
must know is untrue the space writer would
vanish. He cannot depart too sOOn.'