The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-17
From the Montgomery Advertiser.

hfE ninety-ninth anniversary of the
 massacre of Fort Dearborn, the site
 A of which now forms a part of the city of Chicago, is made the occasion for the publication by the Chicago papers of instructive page articles, profusely illus trated, describing the massacre. This minor chapter in American history is ade- quately treated in all histories; the chil- dren of Illinois and the middle west know well the stirring story. A beautiful mon- ument commemorating the tragic incident stands at the foot of Eighteenth street ir Chicago. handsome tablet has been erected at the corner of Michigan and River streets. Various poems have been written about the massacre. and one by Prof Milo Milton Quaife Is really worthy of a permanent place in American liter ature.
 And yet at the massacre, so famous in history, only 50 soldiers and a number of women and children were killed. The massacre, moreover, had no vital effect on future history of the then northwest.
 In some histories of the United States there is a bare allusion to the bloody mas sacre of Fort Mims, in Baldwin county Tn others there is not an allusion. And yet more people were killed in the Fort Mims massacre than in any other attack by Indians, upon white settlers, In the entire history of our country. Pickett, the Alabama historian, who got his &C., count from eye witnesses of the bloody attack by the Indians on August 2s, 1913, writes:
 "Only a few half breeds escaped. Of the 55S souls who slept in Fort Mims that night in conscious security, not five were alive when the sun went down on the smoking ruins. Five hundred ghostly hu man bodies, besides 200 of the murderous assailants, lay around the smouldering fires as the result of the bloody day" The massacre changed the course of history not only of the south. but of the country. Without 1t the battle of Horseshoe Bend would not have been fought, the southwest would not have been opened for settlement for many years, and Andrew Jackson would never have been-President of the United States. Nor would Andrew Jacksons political
 
 mental history of our country.
 The massacre at Fort Mims gave An drew Jackson his opportunity. He heard at Nashville the call from this frontier outpost of civilization. He called his Ten nesee neighbors to arms to avenge the terrible outrage. Marching through Ala bama he cut his way through the In- dians, until he had reached middle Ala tama There, when the Indians had nov ed on him again, he trapped them at Horseshoe Pond, on the Tallapoosa at Fort Mims.
 Of this battle on the rivers edge with the Indians trapped on a peninsula, Pick | ett says:
 "Tohopeke the Indians town, was in ashes the hopes of the surviving Creeks | lay in the dust, saturated by the blood of three -fourths of their bravest warriors. A number were killed in the river, and 557 bodies were counted on the peninsula. Of the Tennesseans, 32 were killed and s9
 were wounded; of the Cherokees. IS were Killed and 36 wounded, and of the Tory | Creeks, IS were killed and Il were wound ed''
 This Is said by competent author 1 ity to have been 'the greatest battle that | ever took place between white men and
 Indians on American. soil" It asshredly turned the tide of history in the south
 west. Before Jackson got away from l the vicinity of the battlefelds he had
 secured the signatures of the surviving Creek chiefs to treaties opening all of Georgia and large part of Alabama tc settlement by the whites. It cleared the way for the spectacular events al
 Pensacola, and 1t gave Andrew Jackson his opportunity to fight the battle of New Orleans. and so to become President oi the United States.
 Why should there be such discrimina- tion in history, that the Fort Dearborn
 massacre should be memorialized in stone
 ana sung in song and story, while twt events in Alabama, vastly more tragic
 anc of far wider consequences. go un known and unsung? Our own people hav' beeu and are at fault. For 70 years II
 Alabama we have taught our young mei who have gifts and talents that the onll suit able occupation open to them IS poll { tics. We teach them they can practice law, If they do not do it seriously pu