Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1899-06-08
BurrelI Way Off.


ton, s. d., to care for the insane In
dams, calls up some strange facts. AT
least it calls up some statements which
are passing current and some that are
not. Fl. A. Burrell in his Washington
Press, says this:
They will build an insane asylum for Indians
at Canton, S. ID. The Indians in that region
number 256,O0 Full blOods never go wrong in
their wits, they say. 1t is only the half breeds.
Before an Indian can go insane he has to get
mixed up with whites. Wealth and luxury also
play the mischief with reds. Thus the Osages
In Oklahoma, $1,000 in number. have $1,000 600
to their credit in Washington, and they do
nothing but loaf and get fat and flabby, and
consumption mOws them down, while the Sioux
are poor and have to work, and they are adding
to their census of 10000.
The wild is, as II rule, healthy and sane.
You never heard of blight, mldew or para
sites killing wild rose; but ciyilze it, all the
bugs in creation go for it.
A wild hog never dies IL natural death, that Is
by disease-it may be killed by accident, or
shot, etc.-but fortune, good health and longev-
ity wait on it. 1t is immune to microbe,
bacillus ct al, and travels on its shape, II rye
and tOughnesS. Take one of those long shouted
ridge pole backed, rat tailed, silt legged sandy
hogs, that can canter mile in fifty seconds,
whose wiry yOungs' tails curl so tightly they
are lifted off their hind feet and go like a wheel
barrow, with the rear in the air, why, nothing
ever ails Them while our pampered fancy
breeds take cholera and everything else, and
die like flies.
Children that are reared in u dugOut or Shanty
with no more ventilation than NOah's ark had
are tougher n original sin: they never have
Group, diphthera. scarlet fever, pneumonia,
etc. Disease knows better than to tackle them;
but the kids, pampered and cOsseted into deli
cacy, get 1t in the neck every time anything Is
around loose.
Climate can kill clover, wheat, fruit. etc, for
the grains, grasses, etc, are tame affairs, but
who ever heard of burdock, dandelion, fOxiail.
hOrscradish, jimson and thistles winterkilng?
No, before you can get red man insane you
must aduterate HIM or yaccnate him with
Caucasian blood; then hen take mon compOs
mentas" like the rest of us.
Your real simon pure Indian does not bother
his head with the silver question:, or theology,
or the higher criticism, or the higher education,
or trade, or expansion, or tariff, or divorce, or
woman's rights, or divine healing, or prohbi-
ton, or with the question when the twentieth
century begins, How could he go insane?
The wild is healthy and sane.
Burrell is q genius, but a genius
isn't always on the safe track. Bur-
rell dazzles us by his mixture of
philosophy and imagination and
captivates us with his novelty of put
ting things, till we are almost ready to
follow him and admit that black is
white and white is black. He gets
entranced at his own extravagances and
goes on saying them for the pleasure
there is in it to him of seeing the
kaleidoscope pictures they will make
when shaken around.
The generalization that the wild is
healthy and sane we all know is wrong.
In nature the wild plants are killed
out time after time and are scarcely
missed because not wanted. Only
those plants remain that are most
hardy. Blue grass and timothy more
than hold their own with foxtail and
thistles. In the rare instances when
the plague overtakes us it makes us
grumble ever after, but in the ninety
nine times that fortune blesses our
labOrs we take the result as IL matter
of fact and do not wonder.
1t may be that the Indian is more
subject to consumption, to insanity
and to fatal disease than the wild
Indians, but we doubt it. How do we
know how many of the old Indians
were afflicted by that terrible malady
of the mind? His moody disposition
predisposes him to that condition. 1t
is only since it has happened that there
are no longer pure blooded Indians
that we know Indians are going in
sane. But did we know their history
and conditions before? A thousand
years ago our own race went mad by
the scores and were poorly cared for.
Proper care of insane is only very
recent movement, but that is no proof
that there were no insane people till
recently. The great numbers who
were possessed of devils and who were
driven to the tombs two thousand years
ago may not have gone crazy over the
silver question, of the higher criticism,
or woman's rights, or the intricacies of
the Julian calendar, but they went
crazy just the same, and they Were
nearer wild than we, their descendants.
Burrelps philosophy would lead us
to undo this civilization of ours and
become wild again and live in caves,
and go bareheaded and nearly naked
like our ancestors did. Burrell likes
to talk to hear himself and we suppose
it does no harm.