The Coolidge examiner., 1931-10-30

second place Cor to appear TO take
second place. in the office of the
Wigwam. She had 50 long ruled
there alone. Her word had been
law to the wavering Jesse Hickey
and to the worshiping Cliff Means.
And now to say, YOU'D better ask
Mr.. Cravat."
HE says leave it to you. He's
went out"
Yancey did a good deal of going
out. Sabra, after all, still did most
of the work of the paper without
having the satisfaction Of debating
its policy. a linotype machine,
that talented iron monster, now
chattered and chittered and clanked
in the composing room of the Wig
wan. 1t was the first of its kind
in the Oklahoma country.
Sabra was proud of the linotype
machine for it had been her five
years at the head Of tho Wigwam
that had made it possible. 1t was
she who had gone out after Job
printing contracts; who had edu-
Gated the local merchants TO the
value of advertising. Certainly
Yancey, prancing and prating, had
never given a thought to these sub
stantial foundations on which the
entire business success of the pa
per rested. They row got out with
ease the daily Wigwam for the
Usage townspeople and the weekly
for country subscribers.
Five years had gone by-siX
years since Yancey'S return. Yet,
strangely enough. Sabra never had
Il feeling of security. She never
forgot what he had said about
Wichita almost five years in one
place. That's the longest stretch
I've ever done. honey" Five years.
And this was we'll into the sixth.
He had plunged head first into the
statehood fight. into the Indian ter
ritOry situation. The anti-Indian
faction was bitterly opposed to the
plan for combining the Indian ter
ritory under the single state of
Oklahoma. Their slogan was The
White Mans State for the White
Man"
who brought the Indian here to
the Oklahoma country in the first
placer shouted YaHcey in the edi-
toriai columns Of the Wigwam.
white men. They bounded them
from Missouri TO Arkansas, from
Arkansas TO southern Kansas, then
TO northern Kansas. TO northern
Oklahoma, to southern Oklahoma.
You white men sold them the piece
of arid and barren land on which
they now live in squalor and
misery. 1t isn't fit for white man
to live on. or the Indians wouldn't
be living on it now. Deprived of
their tribal laws, deprived of their
tribal rites, herded together in
stOckades like wild animals robbed,
cheated. kicked, bounded from
place to place, give them the pro-
lection of the country that has
taken their country away from
them. Give them at least the right
TO become citizens of the state of
Oklahoma"
He was Obsessed by it, He trav-
eled TO Washington in the hope of
lobbying for it. Roosevelt was
characteristically cordial to his old
campaign comrade Washington
ladies were captivated by the flow
cry speeches Of this romantic. this
stOry-book swaggerer out Of the
Southwest
II was rumored on good author
ity that he was to be appointed
the next governor of the oklahoma
territory.
"Oh, Yancey," Sabra said, "do
be careful. Governor Of the terri
tory! 1t would mean so much. 1t
would help Gin in the future.
Donna, too. Their father a gov.
ernOr." She thought, Perhaps all
that I've gone through in the last
ten years will be worth ii, now.
Perhaps il was this. He'll settle
down Mamma can't say now
and all the Venahles and the
Vians and the Goforths and the
GreenwOods. :" She had had
TO endure their pity, even from
distance. all these years.
The rumor took on substance. My
husband, Yancey Cravat. governor
of the territory of Oklahoma. And
then, when statehood came. as it
must in the next few years. per
haps governor of the state of Okla
hOma. Why not
AT which point Yancey blasted
any possibility of his appointment
to the gOvernOrship by hurling a
red-hot editorial into the columns
of the Wigwam. The gist Of ii was
that the hundreds of thousands of
Indians now living on reservations
throughout the United States
should be allowed to live where
they pleased. at liberty. The
whites of the Oklahoma territory
and the Indian territory. with an
Indian population of about one
hundred and twenty thousand of
various tribes-POncas. CherOkees.
Chickasaws, Creeks, Osages, Kio-
was, Comanches, Kaws. ChOctaws,
Seminoles, and score of others
read, emitted a roar of rage. and
brandishing the paper ran scream
ing into the streets. cursing the
name of Yancey Cravat
Much that he wrote was true,
perhaps Yet the plight of the In
dian was not as pitiable as Yancey
painted il. He cast over them the
olamnr of his own romantic na.