The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1890-12-16
Am ohstinate Indian.

An Obstinate tnufan-
Our paternal government has from
time to time spent a great deal OF
money on the effort to ''civilize" that
awful Indian, ''Sitting Bull" 1t has
had him on visits to Washington and
New York and Boston and Chicago
and other 'civiIizedn places and 1t has
shown him riied cannon and sewing
machines and spring mattresses and
other appurtenances of life among
the pale faces. Besides, it has con-
sented to his visiting that dear Wales
in his own capital, and as a browning
inducement to be a good Indian it
permitted Mr.. Buffalo William to
take him on a trip to Paree, the
paradise OF moral American citizens.
Notwithstanding this paternal
kindness, the obstinate old savage
declined to be civilized out of his
lands, his freedom or his hereditary
power as chief among the Sioux. He
persisted In his barbarous pretension
that a treaty was a treaty and was as
binding on one side as the other. In
the ignorance of his uncivilized soul
he declined to be bulldozed OF
wheedled into signing away his
rights. Finally he displayed a per-
verse reluctance to be starved to
death which was characteristic of the
treachery and blood t~hirstiness,
which, we all know from the study of
Captain Mayne Reid and other pro-
found writers of history, is character
istic Of the red vernin' of the plains.
1t has been at last necessary to
shoot the old man, whose free, wild
spirit could be tanned by nothing
short OF death. His son and his
closest followers, too, have had to fall
before the progressive spirit of our
free" and equitable" instit utions,
and the worst of 1t all is the old
mans spirit may not have died with
his body, for his braves are on the
warpath, and out of his blood may
arise a ghastly conflict In which UNI
told horrors may visit the progressive
whites.
All this shows what a mistake our
government has been making. Ac-
cording to the views of justice, under
which the treaty reservations have
been ''opened for settlement" the
proper thing to do, obviously, was to
spend ON a war of determination the
money which was dissipated in futile
junketting expeditions. 1t would
have been brutal and murderous, if
you will, but it would have had the
merit of honesty-a unique quality in
our dealings with the Indian tribes.
Or, another suggestion, when
the government officials had Sit
ting Bull in the East, they had a
chance for q great object lesson. They
should have taken him to the settle
ments of the Shinnecocks or Oneidas
in New York State. They might have
shown him the degraded outcast
wretches who are the modern remnant
Of these once proud races. They
should have shown him the whiskey
soaked braves the depraved and
unsexed squaws, the idiotic children,
the land going to waste, and the COM
munity living in vice and squalor
chiefly upon aims. See, good Sitting
Bull, they might have said. this is
what the great Father in Washington
will do for you and your %posterity.
Bury the Ratchet, surrender your
ponies. throw away your guns, and
welcome the free government blankets
and corn and the surreptitious fire
water as the elements of your regen-
Grafton under the p~aternal car Of the
palefaces.
Poor Sitting Bull