Evening star., 1933-03-18
SMITHSONIAN TOWER
ROMANCE REVEALED
BY VISITING MAYOR
(Continued From First Page.)


tution's scientists.
Those Catlin paintings and the book
the National Museum printed about
them are a sort Of chronological Bible,
say the National Museum ethnologists.
They recall the story Of Catlin and of
the other great painter of Indians j.
M. Stanley, whom Joseph Henry sup
piled with $100 year to keep up in
terest payments on a debt so that he
could hold his pictures until Congress
could be persuaded to buy them.
Lincoln Walked There.
Those were strange, sad days in that
high, windswept tower, where the great
scientist himself lived, where he pro-
vided refuge for neglected scientists
and where Abraham Lincoln had come
during the darkest hours of the Civil
War to walk with Henry and watch
the stars.
Back in 1929 this George Catlin, a
young lawyer in Philadelphia, with
talent for painting, who had been
nursed on Indian legends during his
childhood In the wyoming Valley coun-
try Of Pennsylvania, saw band of
Indians passing through the city On
ther" in Washington. It was then the
practice when an Indian treaty was
signed to bring the leaders of the tribe
to see the President in order to impress
them with the power and majesty of
the United States.
The sight Of these Indians brought
to q climax Catlin's disgust with the
law. He closed his Office and went
West, with little more than some can
vases and paint brushes. He went
among the wild tribes at the headwa-
ters Of the Arkansas and Canadian
Rivers, living the life of the red man
and painting whenever he could per-
suade subject to pose for him. Out
Of this exile he came back to civiliZa-
ton again in 1888. He had found and
pictured the real aboriginal Indian and
preserved such a record Of his appear
ance and manners as could never be
duplicated. He exhibited his pictures
over America and Europe. Continu-
ously he added to them, especially pic
lures Of famous Indians.
"a Messianic Complex"
Catlin did not paint to make money.
He had a sort Of MeSsianic complex.
He wanted to save the Indian-to save
that whole picturesque page of history
and of nature which even then rapidly
was being blotted out, as troops and
merchants were pushing back the wild
frontier and reducing the scene to the
white mans pattern. He loved the
Indian.
II love-" he said, "a people who can
be honest without laws or jails or poor
houses.
Il love a people who keep the COM
mandments without ever having read
them or heard them from pulpit.
Il love people who love their neigh
bofs as themselves.
Il love a people who worship God
without Bible, for believe that they
love me also"
That was Catlin's creed, and the in
spiration of his work. He believed
there was value in nature in the raw
which the sophiStication Of civilization
could not replace but only destroy. The
Civil War passed over Catlin's head.
land and national expansion, born of
were let loose on the Indians. They
were well-meaning enough, but they
looked upon the Indian as a very in
ferior sort of white man-not as
man with values of his own which
might transcend in their way any
values of which the white man was
conscious.
Found Sympathetic Listener.
It was these other values which Cat
lin worshiped. He wanted to make the
Government realize them. In Washing
ton he found one sympathetic listener,
Joseph Henry The Smithsonian Sec
retary wanted to establish here ma
tional gallery Of Indian portraits as
part of the scheme for preserving those
values. He took both Catlin and STAN
ley under his, wing. The Institution
became their headquarters. Some of
their pictures we're lost in a destructive
fire in 1865. Only few Of Stanley's
were preserved. There are now ISL OF
Catlin's in the national collection. Con-
gress was loath to appropriate money
for such a purpose. In those days it
was inclined to look upon the Indian as
. pest to be got rid Of and wiped out of
memory.
Catlin worked on and on, with
Henryis encouragement. He devoted A
years of his life to study Of the Indians.
In 1872 sick and discouraged, he died.
His pictures remained at the National
Museum. Their artistic value Is some
what questionable, but as objects for
scientific study they are considered in
valuable. Some of the peoples among
whom he worked long since have dis
appeared or have become mixed with
whites. The Indian has changed every
where, as he has adopted the manners
and dress of the whites. So scholars
come from all over the country to con-
suit Catlin's pictures as the final au-
thority on a vanished people. He was
an important influence in the estab-
lishment Of the Bureau Of American
Ethnology. He was the first to advo-
cate a great national park in the West
Of which dream Yellowstone Is the real
ization.
Reverently the mayor of Cedar Rap
Ids grasped the hand Of his grand
daughter as he walked slowly around
the room. gazing on those old pictures.
=. He was glad he had left them at the
foot Of the stairs in the old tower
16sn he HaS 4 littla hoY.