The Arizona sentinel., 1904-05-25
MILES VS. CROOK.

T T
 accepted version of the surren-
 der of Geronimo is widely differ
 ent from that credited to the
 Journal Miner, in the Tucson
 Citizen of the 17th. On the re
 Spective merits of Crook and
 Miles, northern and southern
 Arizona can have no common
 meeting ground. Crook was
 Yavapai couaty fayorite. His
 shoulder was ever at the wheel on behalf of Prescott. So long
 as that town could dance ger
 mans with Fort Whipple so long
 she was happy. That she might
 ever be in that contented mood
 General Crook labored hard and
 earnestly, So long as he lived,
 and was an authority in the ter
 ritory, spurs, helmets, gold lace
 and light heels made life worth
 living in that dear old mountain
 town. When Miles came to the
 territory it was at the end of a
 disastrous Indian campaign, and high inks in Prescott had no place in the strategy of war. As factor in the settlement of frontier troubles Whipple had
 lost its usefulness, and on Miles recommendation the place was abandoned. For this the good
 people of the ancient capital never forgave him. Every mon
 umept to the memory of Crook
 was intended as a hole in the ground to the memory of Miles.
 That Crooks second Indian cam
 paign in Arizona was misera-
 ble failure is a record written in
 the best and braveSt blood that
 ever flowed in frontier veins. The hills were full of renegades and no human life was safe beyond the protecting numbers of the big towns. Wilcox was a prov eu failure as an Indian fighter and poor afflicted southern Ari-
 sona looked longingly in the di
 yection of General Crook Ten
 years before he had shown him self to be a great campaignef,
 His War had been vigorous and nnrelenting. If an Indian came in and promised to be good he gave him food and returned him to the reservation under an ex- acted promise that he wouhd sin no more under penalty. If, how
 ever, To set his foot on the olive branch he found surceaSe to his bloody desires in a two-foot hole, just where he happened to drop. The files of the Citizen will show that in twenty years fourteen hundred men, women and chil
 dren were killed by the ApacheS in Arizona. New Mexico and the northern Mexican states can show like bloody rolls. Kautz, if the writer remembers rightly, succeeded Wilcox. His admin iStration of affairs was not dis tinctively different from that of his predecessor. and in response to the prayers of long suffering and neglected people General Crook was again placed in com mand. At that time Geronimo and his renegade Chiricahuas had left the reservation. With bloody footprints they crossed and re- crossed southern Arizona and northern Mexico. Military mis- management made it possible for such murderous brutes 10 ravage the country unchecked; but when Crook took the field against them the people of southern Ari- zona thought that God in his goodness had answered their i prayers, and shat their loved 1 odleS would again be safe from 1 tl1at pitiIess f1end, Geronimo, and his RsurdefouS following. | Every newspaper in the territo-
 Ey bade him welcome, eulogized | him for what he had done in the ! early seventies and prophesied | for him no end of additional glory | and an early closing of the war. The Indians had, in the mean time. escaped to the Sierra Madre in Mexico, and there General Crook prepared to fol-
 low them. By treaty with the Mexican government he was