Indian chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1882-1902, 1897-11-04
RLPISTS LIBERATED.

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west City, accompanied by her
fourteen year old daughter, Katie
O'Kane, and another girl a year
or two older, and a neighbours boy
about fifteen years old. The
morning was dark and threatening,
and soon after they set out it be-
gan to rain heavily and continued
a regular downpour during the
most of the journey; but the rain
ceased before the party reached
town. The old woman as well as
the girls and the boy, were
drenched to the skin and the lat
ter stood around the stoves and
dried themselves, while the former
went to the mill with a grist and
purchased a few articles of mer-
chandise from the stores. About
$3.50 in the afternoon the team was
hitched up and the party set out
for home. A mile or so from town,
out in the Cherokee country, they
were met by three young men
who were shortly joined by six
others. The men were drinking
and boistrous, took the lines from
the old woman, and the boy fed.
They then got into the wagon and
drove further on the road and
away from the settlement, and
there committed a crime upon the
two defenseless girls that shames
the worst case of black brutality in
all the history of the south. These
savage monsters dragged the poor,
ragged, ignorant-though as the
evidence showed, virtuous-coun-
try girls from the wagon and out
ragged them repeatedly in the
presence of the mother of one of
them, in the glare of Gods SUM-
light, with shameless diabolism.
The evidence was conclusive
that at least eight of the nine men
present were guilty of the same
otfense with which Smith was
charged and convicted. The ver-
dict of the jury was: guilty, with
out capital punishment. But
strange to say, a nolle prosequi
was entered in the cases against
the other confederates of Smith in
custody, and in the face of the
same evidence that convicted
Smith.
If the same crime had been COM
mitted in almost any other locality
in the whole United States, a
thousand men would have sprung
to arms to avenge the cruel,
wanton, awful crime upon two de-
fenseless women. Every man in
all this country who values the
chastity of his home and wants to
keep it inviolate from the foul |
rapist protests against the turning
loose of these known villains.
The circumstances in no sense
justified such action. We are 10th
TO believe that such a crime is to |
go unpunished in free America.
We have been taught that woman
hood is a spotless temple that
every honest man should approach
with unsandaled feet and uncover
ed head. That her life is a shrine
where we all should bow and pour
out the purest libations of the
heart; her life is a fountain from
which emanates all the social re-
fiuements and domestic virtues,
and the open book upon whose
pure white pages are written all
the sublime truths of life, home
and God. That her purity is the
sacred citadel of our civilization
whose beautiful gates every man
must defend, if need be with his
life.
The courts of this country owe
the same protection to those whose
lot is hard, and at whose cabin
doors the bony hand of poverty
has long knocked, that they do to
the affluent and refined. The
courts of this country should not
fail to place high upon the brow
of the nineteenth century an object
lesson that should be an ever
lasting warning to this developing
this and coming gen.
eratlons-that the persons OF our
women and children must remain
sacred from the touch of the-rapist.
To inscribe high upon the horizon
of this age and this generation a
flaming warning that should re-
main a terrible lesson, like a cloud
by day and pillar of ire by night,
as immutsble and unmistakable as
the writings of divinity upon the
tablets of stone.
THE FIVE tribes will now be called
upon to pass thro' the Needless
eye (Thomas b.