The Iola register., 1891-02-13
TALKS ABOUT INDIANS.
Trouble Arising From Race Antagonism.-
squaus KILLED Hardly Deserve Pity.

''Our trouble with the Indians seem
chiefly to arise from race antagonism,
pure and SIMPLE" says MIR. Theodore
Roosevelt. 1.-The whites, on the one
hand, make no distinction worth men,
tioning between good Indians and bad
ones, while the Indians themselves, are
apparently as little inclined to draw like
uIsJinctions with regard TO the pale
laces.
For example, if white man has his
horse stolen by thieying savage, he
considers himself warranted in exacting
reparation from the first friendly and
honest indian he meets. | have known
a hunting party of whites to lose score
of horses by raid from predatory
band OF Sioux, by which occurance, the
losers considered themselves warranted
in making a descent upon the nearest
village of innocent red men of another
ullDe and driving of at least as many OF
their animals. Again, have known In
dians who have suffered depredations at
the hands of lawless white rufiians to at
tack cowboy camp in search of revenge
II an Indian experiences an indig-
nifty or outrage from one white man he
will kill the next white man he comes
across, though the latter may be entire
ly inoffensive: and so it goes. To the
whites all Indians are the same. and
vice versa.
"One thing should like to be quoted
as saying, with much emphasis, and that
Is that the Indian police and judges
ought to be paid much better than they
are. In the recent skirmish in connec-
tion with The arrest of Sitting Bull
the Indian police behaved admirably,
and the government should provide for
the families of those who were killed, as
well as reward the survivors. Ny own
experience of Indians has been very linn
tied. They are always treated white on
my ranch, and the same cannot be said
of many other ranches, l regret very
much to say"
Said an old soldier who had fought
the Indians with Custer, now employed
at the Treasury Department:
KILLING OF SQUAWS.
This talk that has been made about
the killing of the Indian women by the
troops during the recent difficulty is
altogether unfair. When fighting is
going on the squaws usually are on
hand to take part in the scrimmage.
If their side is victorious they rush in
with knives and often do a great deal of
execution. They ride astride like the
men, and it is apt to be impossible to
distinguish them in the fray from the
warriors. though they keep in the rear
until their opportunity arrives. 1t is
not the fault of the soldiers if few of
them get shot, and people would not
feel so much like sympathizing with
their fate if they were aware of the fact
that il is the squaws who do the mutt
lating of the bodies OF their fallen foes
BLooDTHIRSTY WOMEN.
'On an occasion when the troops may
chance to be driven back the squaws
dash forward on their ponies and dis
mounting proceed with their knives to
murder the wounded and mutilate the
bodies in every fieDdish way imaginable.
If possible they take away parts of the
dismembered corpses for holding horri-
BILE Publications over afterward. As
for the warriors, they rarely do more
than take scalps, though frequently
they will take more than one from a
single person. The chief honor, of
course, attaches TO him who cuts off
the disc-shaped piece of flesh from the
very crown of the head, with the tuft of
hair attached, but it is also honorable
to take second. third or even a
fourth scalp from other parts of the
skull. However. there must always be
a scalp lock attached. An Indian will
never take any seal p from bald-headed
man, SO that there is some advantage
in having lost ones wool il one lives in
the far west"