The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1902-09-21
!
news and
Views Of
tbe Book
WorId.
BY HERBERT BREWSTER.

! livery now and then some ethnolo-
T. gist expresses the opinion that
the task of bringing the red man
into the state of civilization enjoyed by
the white is too great for anything near
actual accomplishment. and then, as if
! by way OF making answer, notable
exception appears. A remarkable full
biooded Indian is DR.. Charles A. East
man. who is not unknown TO the read
ers of the magazines as a writer of un
common ability. Dr. Eastman has
written a book which will not only be
or interest 10 the students of the Indian
but to the general public as well. for it
| Is wonderful story, in way, of the
authors own bOyhOOd. Until he was
10 years old. DR.. Eastman knew moth
/ ing OF the white mans civilization. His
rather. Many Lightnings, was a full
Dlooded Sioux who came from long
line OF distinguished chiefs. The young
man was himself chosen chief. bCS de-
clined the honor. His mother was a
granddaughter of Cloud Man, who is
known in history as the chief who re-
ceiVed the two pioneer missionaries,
the Pond brothers, at his village, a
spot now in the suburbs of Minneapo-
lis. Cloud Man was one of the first TO
advocate the white mans ways" a
fact which may explain the remarkable
advance OF his great-grandsOn once he
began his schooling. DIT. Eastman, then
known as Hakadah. was brought up
by his paternal grandmother for mas
sacres and battles, which drove his
people into Canada, separated the boy
from his father for ten years. The
father had been imprisoned and SEN
fenced TO death, but he was pardoned
by President Lincoln. Then he led a
party of his people into South Dakota,
where they took up land under the
homestead laws and started a civilized
and seh-sapporting family. Many
Lightnings took the name of Jacob
Eastman and here ii was that his son,
Hakadah, found him. The boy took to
school readily and soon led in his
classes. 1t was not long before he was
attending Beloit college, working his
way by helping neighborIng farmers.
Knox college claimed him for two
years and then he went TO Dartmouth
Here young Eastman became a social
fayorite, a leader in athletics and a
most excellent student in his classes.
lie was champion long distance runner
throughout his course in Dartmouth
played on the football team and won
medals for boxing. Dartmouth men of
the early eighties still remember the at
tempts 10 haze the young Indian; no
one ever succeeded in getting the bet
ter of him there. The young man de-
cided to study medicine and after two
years in Boston he was appointed gov
eminent physician at Pine Ridge, S.
ID. Various appointments and labors
have followed since that time. He is
at present in charge of the government
hospital at Crow Creek, S. D.
Several facts are significant to the
student of the Indian problem. The
doctor was trained as an Indian for
nearly sixteen years. and as a white
man for almost exactly the same time.
Beginning without a word of the Eng
lish language or a civilized conception,
ne prepared for college in nine years.
The average white boy, with all his
advantages, takes twelve. Dr. East
man never attended a government
school and twelve out of the sixteen
years of his school and college life were
spent In leading institutions for the
higher education. Neither he nor any
or his forbears were agency Indians.
nor has he ever received rations or an
nulties, except a small money payment
for lands ceded in 1889, although he is
entitled TO all the rights of full men,
bership in the Sioux nation. He has
been for many years a citizen and a
voter. DR.. Eastman lectures a great
deal about the country, in addition to
his labors. and for many years ne has
been engaged in original research in
Indian history and folk lore His In
dian Boyhood" will be worth reading.
DR.. Woodrow Wilson, recently elected
president of the Princeton university.
has completed his History OF the
American People" upon which he has
spent several years of writing, and the
work will be published within a few
days in FIVE volume edition. Profess
SCR Wilson has spared no labor in col
lecting from the original sources all the
material necessary for his work and
the publishers have supplemented his
efforts by obtaining from many differ
ent sources copies of old prints, paint
ings and sketches. One of these is a
portrait Of Columbus dated 1890. the
original of which is in the Spanish gov
eminent collection at Seville.
Not long ago a curious resemblance
was noted in three short stories by
three different authors, Frank Morris.
Jack London and c. f. Mclean, which
were published about the same time in
three different magazines. In each
story the plot hung on an incident in
which man. wishing to be rid of an
old dog, ties stick of dynamite to his
tail, lights the fuse and rushes for
cover. The old dog. obediently follows
his master, scratches at the door and,
being unable to get in, crawls under
the house, just as the dynamite ex-
plodes. Now the most curious thing
about this coincidence of plots Is a re-
cent newspaper story from a Penn
sylvania mining town to the effect that
one George Mechou tried to get rid of
his NANCY dog in this manner, with a
similar result. Either the three au-
thors who separately invented the plot
have powers Of divination or else the
practice of killing dogs by tying sticks
of dynamite TO their tails is more COM
mon that IL should be- Perhaps George
Meehou was not the first man TO try
the method i'm fact. In that case the
writer's may have heard of the scheme
and decided it was good for a fiction
story. There are a great many authors
nowadays who confess TO getting much
OF their inspiration from newspaper ac-
counts of out of the way events and
curious occurrences. 1t is only another
proof that truth is stranger than fie-
ton.
Someone has discovered an unpub-