Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1891-01-23

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IT ID BEEF OR WAR
Views Of Gen. Miles and Others Now .,
i Pine Ridge.
| THEY SAY THAT THE SIOUX HAS NOT HAD ENOUGH
To EAr-THE PECULIAR CONDITION OF THE
RATION QUESTION: TALK wrTH SPECIAL
AGENT cooPKR-wHAr CAUSED DIscoNrENT.
stan Correspondence Of The Evening Star.
PINE RIDoR, Sd, January 19.
II has been very evident during the general
and popular discussion as to the causes of this
Sioux outbreak that the majority of the S.
0oO. 900 people who inhabit the United States
fail to understand why the Indian-the Sioux
particularly-has not had enough to eat The
beef which has been furnished was calculated
by the million pounds and similar huge-ap-
pearing figures have been used in connection
with other food supplies. Now there are at this
agency 5,535 indians and the treaty promises
made them gave definite assurance of an issue
of three pounds gross per day for each one.
A steer weighing 800 pounds is issued to 800
people. Deduct from that 700 pounds the
bones. horns, hoofs, hide and entrails and there
will be left at this season Of the year. about 400
pounds, and much of that not very desirable as
food Out in this portion of the country there
are 365 days in the year and little figuring
shows that not less than 6.057.7I9 pounds of
beef must be necessary to supply these
Indians with what promised them in a
solemn compact. To keep its end Of the agree
ment the government sent out 200 600 pounds
of Texas beef on the hoof and that has, by rea-
| son of unacclimated shrinkage, dwindled down
to 800. 900 pounds 1t will shrink more than
that before spring. Does any one wonder now
why these Indians wanted TO fight? 1t is true
that the Pine Ridge Sioux used to raise good
deal of beef and some of it was sold to the gov
| eminent, but that industry has been wiped out
of existence by sheer poverty and force OF cir
cumstances- The Indians have been compelled
through the insufficiency Of supplies to eat the
cows with which they once endeayored to
achieve business independence.
THE STORY TOLD By THE STEERS.
Most of the blame for this demorslized con-
ditIon Of affairs seems to fall on the shoulders
of those who are knowingly responsible for the
cattle contracts or on the contractors who
evade the terms of their agreement with the
government i have seen some Of the steers
which were received by the authorities here In
November and which we're receipted for as
averaging 1,132 pounds each. and they must be
truly miserable creatures. So poor are they
that the hostiles did not even trouble to kill
them There was any quantity OF fat native
beef walking around-beef that belonged to
settlers and cattle men, so the epicurean savage
simply ignored the skeletonized agency cattle
and filled his stomach with the juicy
tenderloins of native or acclimated
cattle. These agency steers did
not. at the outside, cost more than S17 head,
including all cost of shipment and driving from
the railroad. They were sold to the govern
ment at the rate of s2.65 per 100 pounds. or in
the immediate neighborhOOd Of $50 each. They
would not sell now for SIS a head; nobody
wants them even at that price. These cattle
have very fine horns, though. and II the Indian
was not such an unreasonable being that fact
would compensate for the painfully evident
feshlessness Of his legitimate beef supply.
THE INDIAN WAY OF LIVING.
And when the Indian does get the little beef
he can scrape of these Texas bones-these
transmigrated souls Of what were once steers
how is it disposed Of? There are some things
in which an Indian has no proprietary rights
and one of these things is food. The possession
of that is tribal. or, more truly, communal. In
the city of Washington and in all other centers
of the highest form of a civilization the million
aire feasts and the poor man starves. the two
extremes separated only by a brick wall. In
an Indian camp everybody feasts or everybody
starves. No matter who enters an Indian
lodge-be the visitor white or red-a squaw
places before him or her whatever food is in
the tepee. There might be no reserve supply
for the morrow, but that condition of affairs
would not operate to withhold from your appe-
tite the Last morsel Of bread or meat or the
only handful of corn. The ties of consanguin-
ity are intricate and strong. Tonight there is
feast in one tepee to which many are invited;
tomorrow the feast is somewhere else. The
Indian calls them feasts but they are poor
specimens of banqueting; all that is needed at
a feast Is a sufficient supply Of beef.
Not few people will insist that the aboriginal
eommissary methods are faulty and need reyis-
ion. That may be true But how will the revising
be done? Who will do it? You may chain an
eagle in a cage and feed him at regular hours
with a superior quality of bird seed, but he will
soon be a dead eagle.
GEN. NILES SAYS IT Is BEEF.
This trouble" said Gen. Miles to me the
other evening, simply resolves itself into
question of more or less beef. Given a sufi-
cheney of beef, and the treaty stipulations pro-
vide there shall be enough, and we shall, under
ordinary circumstances, have unbroken peace.
it and we shall have wars which will cost us
ten thousand times more in money alone than
the value Of the meat we neglect or refuse
to give. This beef buying and issuing
needs revision. Under the present ar
rangement Congress may appropriate enough
money to buy suficiency, but . false econ
omy can defeat the expressed intention Of hon
est legislation. Last year 8, 500 head of cattle
were purchased for and delivered to this
agency; 5000 head were sent to Rosebud. I'm
der my direction those animals still alive have
been weighed, and the average shrinkage was
found to be a little over 200 pounds. The In
dian bureau contracts for many million
pounds of beef for each agency and that beef is
delivered in the fall During the winter the
cattle lose flesh and this loss affects the Indian
Many of the steers die; that also affects the In
dian. The government agrees with him to
give him 80 much beef per day, but 1t never
makes good its promise. 1t purchases in the
fan what would probably fulfill the treaty con-
ditions, but when the spring arrives the rstions
have Of necessity shrunk to one-half their Just
proportions. You cannot explain the discrep-
ancy to q hungry man; he cannot eat what was
available last October, but which has since van
ished into thin air. You will see that up to
this time-and there has been only the mildest
kind Of weather-the shrinkage ON beef for
two agencies amounts to more than 800, 600
pounds.
Can this shrinkage be avoided? Yes to q
very considerable extent. Instead Of allowing
contractors to supply what are known a.
through cattle'-shipped directly from south
ern states-the Indian bureau should insist on
being supplied only with those animals that had
spent at least one winter in these higher lati-
tudes. After the first winter there is but
little loss, for the beeves have become accli-
mated. This beef business is at the root Of the
whole trouble and Congress did not improve
matters in the least by further diminishing the
supply to the extent OF 900, 900 pounds. Give
the Indian the beef he is entitled to and we will
have peace"