Evening star., 1936-08-03
This is the fourth OF a series OF
articles on the drought area.
BY THOMAS r. HENRY,

@ bison, req man, WIllle Hldll,
COWS, wheat - hunger and
despair.
Such is the progress OF century
in this cabin -strewn. purplish- brown
desert which stretches over about
100000 acres of this part Of the
Northwest.
A century ago millions Of bison
broWSed over it. Droughts came and
went. The herds waXed and waned
with the fuxes of vegetation. A few
thousand Indians-SiouX, Blackfeet
and Crows-liyed on the bison. From
them they got everything they needed
meat. soup. clothing, shelter. 1t
was an excellent balance of nature.
Sometimes the bison went hungry and
sometimes the Indians went hungry,
but both had learned to adjust tnem-
selves to lean years.
Then came the white men. They
beat down the Indians in battle,
forced treaties on them which de-
prived them of most of their lands
and the validity of which still is be-
ing fought in the courts, and settled
them on reservations. The treatieiS,
the Indians say, were signed by red
men whom they refer to contemptu-
ously as coffee coolers with
no delegated authority from their
tribes, but simply flgureheads selected
by the soldiers for their docility.
Formerly Prosperous.
Before that these Northern Sioux
had been relatively prosperous. Great
war leaders had accumulated relative
riches in horses and blankets with
which. in accordance with the Indian
philosophy of life, they were ex-
tremely generous. for mans wealth
was estimated not on what he had
but what he gave away. There doubt
less was suffering during the hungry
Winters. but all the food available was
distributed equally.
When the Indian was forced on the
reservation and made to change his
way of life he was, for the time being,
hopelessly beaten. But within few
years he had adjusted himself to the
new order and began to prosper again.
On this Standing Rock Reservation, in
particular, the first superintendent was
wise mana certain Maj. McLough-
lin, with an Indian wife and half
breed children. The Government pro-
vided the Sioux with cattle-so many
for each head of family. They car
ried the brands of their owners and
roamed at will over the 2,500,000 acres
set apart as a reservation. Every Fall
they were rounded up. The owner.
under the supervision of the Indian
agent, was allowed to kill as many as
he needed to support his family dur
ing the Winter. If his herd had pros
pered during the Summer he was al
lowed to kill a few to sell for revenue.
Now, after all, it wasn't so great a
transition from living on bison to
living on cattle. The Indians adapted
themselves to the change and some of
them began to acquire considerable in
dividual wealth. Father Bernard, the
old Catholic priest who has ministered
for so years to the scattered families
of the plains, remembers when many
of the Sioux families had to their
credit on the agency books as many as
200 head of cattle The annual
in the Fall kept these herds
within reasonable numbers.
Industry Invades Country.
Then the big cattle companies with
their enormous herds began to invade
the country. They camped on the
edges of the reservation. Droughts
came and the closely cropped grass
failed to support the big herds. The
cattle barons looked enviously on the
richer pasturage of the reservation, in
sisted that the Indians didn't need it
all and that they could get consider
able revenue from leasing parts of it.
Now. of course, every Indian insists
that the cattle barons were thieves,
liars, swindlers and crooked politicians.
He believes firmly that they stole the
Indians cattle, ran over his range, and
treated him with contempt. Perhaps
some of them were all that they are
accused Of being-it doesn't matter.
For, according to officials of the Stand
ing Rock Agency, the eventual result
would have been the same If every
cattle baron had been a paragon Of all
the Christian virtues. 1t was the
change in the way of life which mat
tered-not any individual skullduggery.
The tribe started leasing its land.
The next step. in 1906, was the allotting
of land to be leased by individuals.
Each Indian got his 160 acres. 1t
seems that some good people in the
East were shocked at his vagrant way
of life and drew rosy pictures in mis-
sionary societies and like gatherings
of the possibility of making him a
prosperous farmer with his barn laden
with corn and pumpkins. OF course,
he might continue to keep cattle on his