Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1916-05-22
A GREAT AMERICAN.
By Frederic ]. Haskin,

a proclamation Just issued by PTesl-
dent Wilson sets aside a tract of lana
| in central New Mexico for Il national
as the Bandelier Monument. TO all
/ but few Americans the name of Ban
, delier means little or nothing. Yet
Adolph Bandelier was one of our great
| men. a man whose career was as color
full and adventurous as that OF some
medieval knight-errant man VINO
accomplished things that are des'ine"
TO live, who occupied u unique place
las an American historian and an
| Anne rican author.
| Have YOU ever read novel caiie'l
| The Delight Makers" The chances are
| that YOU have not. The book was pup
! lished twenty-siN years aS". ran
through two small editions and TO-DAY
is out of print. 1t is practically I'M
possible to secure copy now. Yet
The Delight Makers is one OF the most
remark BILE contributors to American
Notwithstanding less than romance
whose scene and plot are laid in pre-
Columbian days. whose characters are
all Pueblo Indians. They are the only
true and lifelike American Indian
characters in Hturature. 1neE are
drawn not from the imagination, but
from flesh and blood. For that was
Bandelier's great work-the recon
struction of a vanished age by study
of its living remnants. In that work
he braved hundred perils. rlsked his
life scores of times.
= x
Bandelier laid the foundation for a
real history of our Indian and Spanish
southwest He
Laid the Foundation lived !" II :
for Real History. wears. leading
their rude life, sharing their good
times and bad. speaking their language,
adopted by them into their tribes. lie
had the mind of a scholar and scien-
fist with the temper of pioneer
He Travelled on foot and horseback
over the widest regions of the south
western United States forty years ago.
when the Indians of that section We're
still on the war path. He carried no
weapons but a light stick a meter long,
that was graduated for making meas
urements He was beset repeatedly by
hostile Indians. and once saved ms
life only by playing on we'll known
Indian superstition and pretending 10
DC insane. Inc lanS nave n
stitious fear of insanity and viii never
harm i lunatic.
On another occasion he was stricken
with smallpox on one OF his solitary
Journeys and almost persisted. Again,
he was caught in winter blizzard on
the great plains of eastern New Mex
leo. Two companions who were with
him succumhed to the storm. but Ban
delier's own physical strength and de-
termination pulled him through after a
ninety-mile ride and a thirty mile
walk through deep snow. He went
wherever there was a promise of find
ing something that could forward his
work. regardless OF risk.
Danger from hostile Indians, from
hunger or exposure had no terrors for
him. His one fear was of thrst--the
relic of q stern experience when he lost
himself in the rocky. waterless hill
country of New Mexico and wandered
for days under Il blazing sun, pursuing
hooking mirageS of water until he fell
from his horse at the point OF death.
At the last moment his life was saved
by a party from Santa Fe, who had
set out to look for him.
:: ):
The unique feature of Bandel;er's
work was the method he employed He