The Daily Alaska empire. [volume] (Juneau, Alaska) 1926-1964, 1940-06-21
By JACK sTINNETT

WA0I1lINo loN, OuliS q Asts%S ~
it's the spirit of the times but it's
beginning to look as if Congress
finally were going ito hquidate
the liability of the United States
i don't mean anything about the
national debt. That would he
about as far from the spirit OF the
times as you could 60. What !
mean is "liquidate the liability Of
the United States for massacre OF
Sioux Indian men. women and
children at Wounded Knee "a creek
in South Dakotal December 2s'
1890"
1t seems that some time BACK,
the United states realized it had
made a pretty bad mistake mas
sacring all those poor Sioux at
Wounded Knee and decided to do
something about it.
Secretary Ickes Gas far as tie
present Administration is con-
oerned. hes he Little White
Father" Of All the Triians that ale
left to Us once sa. The mas
sacre can be viewed Doth as an
injury to the individuals who
were killed or woeD aad as an
injury to the entire -oea ,ribe. :
The facts of the case are these
The Sioux, considerably battered
about by the white fuy Pat fol-
lowed the Custer mssss ere hsd
fallen ON evil days. N,e cniy GIG
their crop e them, hut -N-
thing happened 20 those promises
of bacon, corn meal, blankets and
beef from TIE United States Gov
eminent. Along c~me medicine
man (ethnologists refer to him as
a sort of MESSIAH who had the idea
that if the Indians would all get
together for good old Ghost
Dance, everything would be all
right. IL
Probably because nothing else
worked. the Sioux thought they
would try it. And they assembled
some four or five hundred strong
in the gulley OF Wounded Knee
Creek, just north of the Nebraska
line. That's where the Seventh
Cavalry found them during the
Christmas Holidays of 1880. The
Seventh Cavalry executed a pm
GERS movement and demanded
their surrender. Not shot was
fired. The Sioux gave up.
The men were herded up the
canyon one way, the women and
children In another Old Chief Big
Foot, who was one sick Indian
was brought out on q sIetcher
and laid in the middle. The In
dams started surrendering their
guns. Nobody knows how it hap
pened, but somebody's gun went
off and the slaughter started.
In these days of blitzkriegs and
stukas and lotion tanks. I'm not
going to dwell on the gruesome
details. The dead and injured were
reported around 400, including so
soldiers, although one commenta =
tor has been unkind enough to say
that this was because the armys
enveloping movement was so small
they got in the way of their own
bullets. Anyway, it has been defin-
itely established that a pretty big
percentage of the dead and injured
were women and children. Ara
what was for some years referred
to as the great Battle OF Wound
ed Knee now has become known
officially, lin Congress and in the
Bureau of Indian Affairs, as the
Massacre" of Wounded Knee.
Several times, conscientious con-
gressmen have tried to do some
thing about it, but the movement
never gained much Roadway. Now,
for some strange reason tmaybe
1t really is just the spirit of the
tines SO years after, the effort to
"liquidate the liability of the United
States for The massacre OF Sioux
men, women and children is out
in the open ana seems to be going
places.
The idea. undtf bill reported
out of committee H. ne House Of
Representatives, Is T. allot $1,000
for each Indian killsd ard SINH
lar amount TO oaci wounded on
a basis of disability determined by
the tables of the Veterans bureau.
There's hardly SIOUX VIII o