San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1892-11-15

duce the'humber of the counties" s.
pathetfcally referred to. Indians would
make splendid ward politicians, and how
it is that the sachems of Tammany have
not long since possessed themselves OF
so available a means of swelling then
ranks passeth all understanding. After
the Indian had had himself, severa
wives and his blooming olive branches.
"oksheelah, wicincha," boys and girls
and such pappooses as his better halves
had at the back either of home produc
ton or borrowed for the moment from
the tepee of Two Bricks-in-hisH Hat, duly
enumerated, would he not swell the cen
sus of his tribe by judicious distribution
of all his wives relations among those
tepees not already checked off? Oh, il
the truth could ever reach the ears OF
the general public what tales of India
sagacity might not yet be i'll store fOl
them. What annals might not be un
folded! Dealing with his own, his white
children, who are nonvoters, Uncle Sam
serves out one ration a day to each en-
listed soldier,
The wife and the lads and lasses that
tumbled about the married mems quar-
tiers in the queer old days were all to be
fed from that one ration, unless, per
chance, MAMMA was laundress. Bui
when dealing with the wronged and III
jured red man he could not be too mag
unanimous. Every head counted. The
mumbling old beldam, great-grand
mother of countless thousands, braced
up from the edge of the grave for the
occasion. The big bellied little four
year-olds, reveling i'll the dirt about the
reeking shambles, the tiny hour-Old
papoose, even many a puppy, blanket
swathed and slung squaw back, passing
for a wee baby, anything he could show
as possessing a spark of Indian life was
duly credited to the warrior lord of the
lodge for another ration, a full one.
Indian there is more meat in lean cow
than in the stall fed OK to the white, for
the reason that Everything goes"
Horns and hoofs are the only things the
Indian doesn't eat.
Agents might and did cheat and steal,
but so did the Indian, and many a re-
joicing old sinner has been credited with
a family of twelve when his sole avail
able domestic assets consisted of two
squaws and three children, the papooses
having been borrowed or personated
by bundled up doggies, the grandmother
being public property passed around for
the occasion; the others, piCkaninnieS
painted so as TO look entirely unlike the
grinning urchins counted in the flock of
brother Stab-in-the-Dark, whose people
had Just been enumerated. There We're
agents who lent themselves to that sort
of thing because the more Indians they
could show as their especial wards, the
more barrels and boxes and bales were
invoiced to that agency and deity
''raked off, en- route. There was time
when the man who wouldn't make hay
when such a sun shOne was looked
upon as an Improbable servant who
couldn't contribute to campaign funds.
what the devil do you suppose we had
you made agent way up at Gallatin
forY' asked an irste political boss of a
deposed and crestfallen late incumbent
who came home superseded.
"Why, it was you and our congress
man who exposed the stealings of nv
predecessor and had him fred. sup
posed you wouldn't stand that sort of
thing. supposed you wanted me to be
perfectly honest"
''Of course we did; but, damn it, you
don't seem to understand; he was paying
TO the other party"
But railways and telegraphs have
brought all this, or much of it, within
range, so to speak. Things have
changed, except perhaps human nature
white or Indian. There has been failure
to provide for carrying out the earnest
recommendations of the best friend thu
Indian has known for years-the maj
whose word was his bond. whom they
feared in war and loved and trusted il
peace. There has been shrinkage boil
in the cattle and the count. No matter
how much beef might shrivel on the hoo
in the old days, the Sioux, if he were a
all sharp, got more than was his share
and most of the Sioux were as sharp a
their knives. Other tribes might hav,
starved and suffered, but not they. Will
the new order of things came full stom
achs for hosts of other aborigines, bu
fault finding for these Dakotas. n,
more "tepee counts" on the contrar,
heads of families paraded their entir
force, and while enumerators wit
book and pencil went along the from
Of the line, I lcle Sans bluecoats on tn
border keenly watched the rear and pu
sudden stop 20 all sham and swapping
Now the shrinkage came to be privation
and. turnin" in appeal % the genera
who headed The great commission an
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