The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1905-11-15

tie Big Horn In 1876, and who helped
to make Indian warfare terrible. When
Geronimo, the old Apache. who is
spending his last days as u paroed
prisoner in Oklahoma, is gone it will
be possible to close up the account be-
tween the frontlersman and ''untamed''
Indian. The chiefs who are left have
long ago "come In" and even the mem
cries of Custer and Crook and Miles
are dim in their minds. Quanah Par.
ker, the Comanche; Red Cloud. the
Sioux; Poosh-e-to.nek, of the Sacs and
Foxes; Chief Godfrey, of the Mamis,
and others great in their day as war
riors, are feeble echoes merely of their
old selves Chief White Calf, of the
Blackfeet. died early in 1908. and Chief
Joseph. the great Nez Percez leader.
died on the Washington reservation
last year. Sitting Bull, who was
killed in 1890. is almost as historic as
Red Jacket. The fact that Rain-in-
the-Face in his later years wore the
uniform of the Indian police. and that
Geronimo turned many an honest pen
ny last summer at the st. Louis Fair
selling beadwork and pictures of him
self with his autograph, illustrates the
dramatic anti-climaXes that must be
recorded in writing the history of the
last of the war chiefs"
The complaint that history is too
much taken up with wars and con-
quests is as valid concerning the Amer
lean Indians as IL is of the 'Macedo-
mans or the Goths Rain-in-the- Face
will be longest remembered because of
the unverified report that he person
ally killed General Custer and cut his
heart out But he has lived quietly on
the Standing Rock reservation since
lie returned from Canada and surren-
dered to General Miles in 1881, and
these twenty-fom years of submission
to agency rule, with his service in the
Indian police. must be considered in
making up his record. In the same
way, Comanche history will deal with
the clashes between that tribe and the
early settlers of Texas rather than
with the long rule of Quanah Parker,
who has inspired among his people a
zeal for education and industry in the
manner of the late Bishop Whipple
This old man, now past sixty, dis.
tinctly remembers the time he first
saw wagon and picked up a limited
knowledge of English from the pack
train men who drifted into the South
west when the Indians still held it Sc
n 1,n hn1 Il
oped from the typical plains leader de-
scribed by Catlin to the earnest advo-
cate of the white mans civilization.
The Washington correspondent of the
Evening Post. writing of Parker early
in 1904, told of his popularity at Fort
Sill and with the cattemen who leased
the reservation pastures AS mark
of their esteem the cattlemen built q
house for the chief. One of them,
proposing to help furnish the house,
asked what special article the old man
most wanted. Parker said that big
roll-top desk would please him, and
explained: You see | open desk, an
sit down in my chair an | put my
feet up on desk an | light my seegar,
an | hol' my newspaper up in front o.
me-llke this Then white man come
in, an he knock at door. an he say.
'Quanah, / wan talk to you n minutes
An | turn roun' in my chair, an puff
lot o smoke in his face. an | say,
Go way busy to-day"
Tecumseh, with his fine speeches
and his dream Of an all-powerful fed
Grafton of Indians that should sweep
ceeded by NJ Gabriel Godfrey, head
of the remnant of the Mamls left in
the Wabash Valley in Indiana. His
fight has been to save the homes of his
tribesmen from being sold to pay
taxes. Early this year Godfrey, sew
enty-three years old and broken in
health, appeared before the Circuit
Court of Miami County TO urge the
claim of his people to exemption from
taxation. His plea was in striking
contrast to the speech preserved In the
school readers and credited TO his pre-
decessor. when this case was com.
menced years ago" he said. Il was a
llNh null OMucu uHt ldIm anu
was worth $4,000. Now | am so poor
that my credit is not good for a dol
lar. Politics ruined me. Because
voted. the Commissioners thought
should pay taxes. l never wanted TO
vote, because | thought had no right
at the polls. My people should have
remained away. But we were urged,
first by one party and then the other.
My friends elected me road supervisor.
did NOT want the office. but took it,"
The piping times OF peace are all
very well for the home builders on tx
border and even the young Carlisle
and Hampton graduates endure the
industrial struggle passably But for
the trained warrors to submit 10 the
dull routine Of reservation life without
sinking into hopeless degeneracy. is an
achievement more difficult than il
seems to the man bred to civilization.
As Quanah Parker represents the re-
formed blanket Indian,' striving to
pass from the prairie TO the school
room without friction, Pleasant Porter
chief OF the Creek tribe, may stand for
the political evolution of the indian
leader who has never been Il warrior
With the others Of the Five Tribes, the
Creeks long ago buried the hatchet'
and retired TO live peacefully as lit |
tie isolated nation in the Indian Terri |