The National tribune., 1896-07-02
SITTING BULL AND JEFF DAVIS.

assembled at the scene of the Custer
Massacre to celebrate the Doth anniver-
sary of that greatest achievement OF
their dead leader. 1t is represented to
have been altogether the biggest pow
wow of any kind ever known in the
Big Horn country. All the surviving
Sioux who participated in the massacre
were present and given places Of honor ;
their tales of their personal achieve
ments in Staying United States soldiers
were listened to with rapt attention, the
scalps they exhibited were handled with
deep interest, and eloquent orators ex-
patiated on the glorious deeds done that
June day, when the gallant Custer and
267 of his men met their doom. The
old war-bonnets and insignia of battle
were brought out, and the exercises con-
cluded with a grand ghost-dance and a
general singing of Sioux war-songs. The
telegraph reports that all the young
bucks were wrought to a frenzy, and
there was much anxiety among the set
Tiers for several hundred miles around
as to what might follow.
This week several hundred thousand
survivors of the followers of the late
Jeff Davis and their kindred are hav-
ing like powwow in Richmond, Va,
around which city fell some hundred
thousand United States soldiers. The
two affairs differ mainly in degree, not
in kind. The spirit is the same, and
any comparison must result greatly to
the advantage of the Indians.
This is particularly true of the two
leaders in whose honor these affairs were
held. Sitting Bull and JEFF Davis had
many points of resemblance, and those
of difference are strongly in favor of the
Sioux medicine man.
To begin with, both found their
people at peace with the United States,
and DESTROYS of remaining SO, and both
artfully and Indignantly worked for
years to stir up hostility and provoke
war Both were successful for awhile,
both succeeded in having great num-
Der Of men killed, and both saw their
people overthrown and terrible disasters
beiall them. Both cunningly avoided
all share in the actual fighting when it
came about Sitting Bull stayed back
among the women and the tepees and
made medicine" while John Gall,
Crazy Horse and Rain-in-the-Face did
the fighting. Similarly, jeff Davis re-
manned in Richmond and Illuminated,
while Lee, Johnston, Bragg and Beaure-
gard met the shock of battle. Both
were cold-blooded, sinister-minded men,
without friends and utterly destitute of
generous emotions. Both were devoured
by gnawing INSCRIPTIONS ambition, to
crafty which they were ready at any
tine to sacrifice their own people with
out mercy. Both died hating and re-
Wiling the United States Government
and all who upheld il.
OF the two, Sitting Bull was the
nobler man, and Will pass into history
as such. His people had possibly some
wrongs to complain Of where Davis's had
absolutely none. He merelyexaggerated
the grounds of complaint, where Davis
wickedly invented the grievances with
which he " fred the Southern heart"
While a man of much intellect, Sit
ting Bull was still an ignorant Indian,
and filled with hatred against race he
felt was the natural enemy Of his people.
All those around him had had their
minds charged from earliest infancy
with the stories of the wrongs done their
race by the whites. He merely played
the usual part Of the demagog in minis
tering to and stimulating this feeling.
He did not deliberately 60 to work as
Davis did to change loyalty into disloy-
atty, to pervert friendship into hostility,
and by artful lies, misleading appeals to
prejudices, and by wicked Vaccinations
to array one portion of a people against
another. He was not traitorous or dis
loyal, because his mind could not con-
| ceive of any treason or dislovalty to an