Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1920-04-29
RICHEST PEOPIr
FA(sss,:;;.; LAZY
Redskins, Made Wealthy By Oil,
Spending Like Proverbial Sal
lOr

The richest people in the world, the
Usage Indians are facing poverty-10
years ahead.
At the last quarterly payment or
Oil and gas money, they received a
total Of $1,700,000 Last week they
received $500 apiece Payments dur
ing 1920 probably will total $4,000 a
piece.
The Indians bought the land-wiJd,
rOck-ribbed arid tract for $f.25 an
acre. When oil was discovered they
promptly sold it. Later the govern
ment decided that they had sold only
the surface and by act Of congress the
government now leases oil rights 10
the highest bidder and turns the
money over to the Indians.
This money pours into the tribal
fund, for according to Usage law the
tribe takes "pot luck. Whether there
is oil ou an Indians land or nor, he
is wealthy now.
Girls "Buy" Husbands
So it happens that many a young
automobile and many a girl whose
creamy skin is barely tinged with
copper, buys imported party gowns
and diamonds or possibly even a
white husband, with the big quarterly
checks And i fthe mineral rights
under former Usage lands, reveret to
the surface owners in 1881 as they
presumably will unless the trust per-
iOd is extended, then their big incomes
from nothing at all will end too for
comparatively few Indians still own
oil-producing land
Old Chief Bacon Rind says:
I'VE have lived the life of the white
man only little while. 1t is still
strange! Our children will not be
ready in 10 years to take care of
themselves in the white mans world.
In 25 years more they will have grown
up and can manage their own affairs,
We ask the white mans government
to go on taking care Of them until
then
A family Of five Osages have
$4,000 to spend during the year
$50,OO0 in cash, $A,16G a month"; $13S
a day-without work and without
risk.
Pawhuska capital of the Usage ma
ton, seat of the government Indian
agency and the nearest spending
point for the big checks it hands cut,
is half primitive, half ultra-modern.
Pawhuska's streets, and all the dus
ty roads that wind toward it through
the Usage hills, are bright with the
blankets of the Indians and cong Gasted
with their high-powered cars. An
Usage will not ride in "LiZzie."
There are banks instead of saloons
there, otherwise Pawhuska is a typi-
cal frontier town.
Under Million Dollar Tree
1t is under the million dollar tree"
beside the agency that auctions Of oil
and gas leases are held. The bidders
that gather for these sales represent
the biggest oil interests in the world.
A lifted hand or a nod of the auc-
Coneer's head may mean deal Of ?,
half million A single lessee at the
last auction paid $62O,OOO for the
right to drill
Only about 100000 acres of Usage
oil land have been leased. More than
100000 acres remain.
The social register Of "the Usage"
is considerably diluted with Indian
blood. And as a sixteenth of thir-
ty-second or a sixty-fourth part Of
Usage blood is almost undetectable,
strangers do we'll to avoid careless
illusions.
The pleasant we'll dressed young
business man, or the shrewd, suave
political power with Whom you are
talking probably is descended from or
married into the first families"
For the story of the Osages is, in
one respect like that of less FORUM
ate tribes; they are vanishing race.
Only they are nn+ dying .lff but mar
rying off, Mabel Abbott ~ f. A. cor
respondent.