The Daily Alaska empire., 1932-08-27
THE INDIAN WARS AND LITERATURE.

The Port Angeles News declares that Ameri ought to produce a Kipling to write about u Indian fighters of the West Its editorial on u subject is worth repeating. It says:
 Colonel Lowell H Jerome, who is one of
 the last surviving members of the Indian
 fighters of the Old West celebrated his
 83rd birthday in New York not long ago, and
 remarked that modern America has lost all
 of its interest in Indian fights.
 Nobody wants to hear about the Indians
 any more" he said. They're just taken
 for granted-except maybe by those who
 were up against them"
 And this, although Clusters last fight
 took place little more than half century
 ago. is pretty largely true; and it sets one
 wondering just why it should be that one
 of the most romantic and colorful of all
 phases in American history should have
 been so generally ignored by literature and
 the stage
 To be sure, there have been lots of romances written about the Indian fighters of the West; but without exception they
 have been fifth-rate stuff and if nobody reads them any it is because they
 aren't worth reading. And that is too bad,
 too, for thrilling things used to happen
 the plains, and marvellous tales could
 be written around them
 Perhaps it is because it all happened
 so quickly. Indian warfare west of the
 Missouri hardly began until the 18th
 tury had attained its majority and the
 last of it was over in the ninetes It
 over before there was time for tradition
 to be built up If it had been dragged
 out for a century or two the whole thing
 would have impressed itself more deeply on
 the Nations consciousness, and some gifted
 writer would have done for the soldiers
 of the West what Kipling did for England's
 soldiers in India.
 The romantic literature of the West
 mains to be written The facts are there,
 a brief perusal of any old-tme Western
 history will show you. Will romancer yet
 arise to spin about the old Indian fighters
 the great tales that ought to be spun?
 Notwithstanding the real that is away in the Indian wars of the West there ample and satisfactory for the delay their telling. The Indian situation from the til trains of prairie schooners first crossed the M souri on their way to the Pacific until the last the wars in the early sos too much alive permit flaming the troubles. People seeki peaceful solution of the problem The quest was to arrive at solution that would result in settlement of the great Western country and dwelling of white and Indian together in harmo It no time to set race against race. It wol have been difficult to write comprehensive stt without rousing bad blood We were too close the picture for authentic story telling until It is fortunate that the situation was hand so that the desired peace within so short time. Less than half century after the fl Oregon trek peace established throughout West between the On the Pacific Coast came much earlier.
 There is now field in the history of that per- for good books. The perspective of half a cent, ought to permit those who write the stories to so without inflaming passions of either Indian white. The great men of the period. the Mileses a the Josephs, the Sitting Bulls and the Custe could be written about and justice done all. It required half a century after to produce a Cooper to depict 1 Indians of the East. There are just as go subjects for literature in Western history as N Fork furnished for the Leatherstocking Tal They might be written about now to the edificati md joy of Indian and white alike
 .r-,,e efrikinp coal miners are meeting with crea