The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1904-05-21

Poor Los Prospects Are Not
the Brightest.
YOUNG MEN DISSlPATED
Strong Drink Is the Abyss into
Which They Sink

Guthrie, o. T., May 20-One of the no.
ticeabie men here attending the Masonic
meeting is General w. E. Hardy, secre-
tary Of the Kaw national council at
Washunga. He only lacks few months
Of beig ninety years OF age, but he has
the snap and the energy Of man Of fifty
General Hardy is only one-eighth In
dian but he is citizen of the Kaw ma
ton and takes great interest in his people.
He says every member of the Kaw nation
man, woman and child, is the owner of
400 acres of land and each member has
one thousand dollars on deposit with the
United States government on which he
draws five per cent interest each year.
The law is such that the parents can not
sell the land of the children and it will
be kept for them until they are twenty
one years of age.
From his point of view the future OF
the Indians evidently does not look very
bright. He talked of the inclination of
the young educated Indian to drink intox
icating liquors He regards strong drink
as the he'll of the Indian on earth. His
talk last night at the Royal hotel was
given a horrid illustration by a we'll
dressed young Indian coming in and ad-
dressing the general He was under the
influence of liquor and went out and fell
down on the sidewalk in from tof the
hotel which caused the Indian with a
preponderance of white blood in his veins
to look sorrowful
When asked what the Indians knew of
their origin. General Hardy said when
he was a young man he was in the en-
pioy of the North American Fur company
and lived among the Indians of the north.
He said that they had a tradition that the
great spirit had brought them fro mbe-
yond the ocean or some large body of
water. He reSents the modern idea that
the Indians were not numerous In this
country when the continent was discov-
cred by Columbus.
He said that he always held to the teh-
ory that the Indian would disappear from
the country with the buffalo and the
deer. He said the buffalo and the deer
have gone and the Indians are going after
them. He said in 1858 an enrolment
showed that there were 100 Kaw Indians
while the last enrolment in 1902 showed
but 247 and the nation was now short Of
that number fifteen or twenty.
He said when the young Indians went
to the schools they learned to work but
when they came back the old fogies T.:
the tribe would not recognize them until
they went back to the blanket Then
when the educated Indian tried to live
like the whites he invariably got with q
class that pulled him down instead of up
He would give his time to gambling.
horse racing and drinking whiskey and
then he was gone to the bad. He said
when some of the young men return
from the schools he had tried to get them
to keep at work and farm say forty acres
of their land and rent the rest and in a
little time they would learn to handle it
all and then they could live like the white
people, but they would not do it. He pre-
diets that the remnant of the Indians
will spend their wealth and finally be
driven to work or starve and he thought
sometimes that was their only salvation.
1t Ia his opinion that the civilized tribes
will be able to care for themselves If the
Christian whites with their whiskey and
gambling devices can be kept away from
them.