Life — July 9, 1885 — page 10: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

24 THE INDIAN WAR. HE following words from the San Francisco Argonaut may be of interest to New Yorkers who read in East- ern papers the harrowing details of the bloody war which the Apache and Cheyenne Indians have precipitated upon our weak, defenceless nation : “The cruel and inhuman war that is now being waged in Arizona against the Apache Indians is a cowardly and inexcusable plot of thieves and rascally contractors to make money by the unjustifiable massacre of an innocent people. We do not hesitate to say that our sympathies are with the Apaches, and we wish they could drive the cowardly, drunken gang of Arizona cowboys and volunteer Arizona blackguards who are on their war-path into an ambuscade and mur- der them ; they have been deceived, plundered, and massacred ; they have been destroyed by the introduction of American vices, diseases, and appetites; they have been driven from their lands and homes, they have been defrauded in treaties, and every honorable engage- ment entered into with them has been violated. Contractors have so robbed and plundered them that they have died of starvation and cold. The greed of the land speculator and the Washington poli- tician, operating through corrupt Indian rings, has made them beg- gars upon the continent that was theirs and in their sole occupation before the white invader planted himself upon it. Hence we take pride in saying that we hope this bravest and almost last of Indian tribes upon the American continent may beat the beastly bloodhounds of Arizona that are now on their trail and hunting them to destruc- Of what is this band composed? Seventy unarmed fighting men, fleeing from a prison, to which they had been hunted last year by the co-operating armies of two powerful republics. Unarmed, be- tion, CONVINCING. EY IS SHUST A LITTLE SHORT, BUT DEN YOU IS A GROWIN’ Poy. ! DEY BE SHOTAH WHEN I GROWS, BOSS? MEIN Kractous! Do you TINK YOUR FEET VILL GROW DOWN THE FLOOR INTO? YOU VAS A CRAZY, EH? OF COURSE YOU GROW UP INTO 'EM, ‘LIFE: cause they have just broken from a prison where, in defiance of humanity, they have been kept in cold and semi-starvation. Who that understands the hunger of the Indian for mountain wilds, and game, and freedom, can be surprised that he should prefer the chances of death and liberty to confinement, starvation, cold, and death in his reservation prison ?. Who shall blame them that they should make adesperate burst for freedom? Who blames the warriors that they should murder all who oppose their flight, and should steal horses to aid in their escape, and rob food to keep them from starvation on the way ? “ And who that has a spark of human sentiment in his bosom does not side with these unarmed children of the mountain, as against the armed and well-mounted soldiers of the plain in their escape and pur- suit ?—an escape to which the Indians were driven by hopeless wrongs ; a pursuit instigated by avaricious army contrrctors, who want an Indian war for the money that is in it, aided by the most cowardly gang of miscreants that have ever cursed the continent—cowboys ; aided by every worthless political loafer of town and village who sees in an Indian campaign the certainty of gin and the chance of plunder, and whooped up by a sensational, cowardly press, content to gain one subscriber for each Indian killed. “The cowardice and greed of the citizens of Arizona have magni- fied this into an Indian war, Faugh, War. An Indian War does not Exist in Arizona! “The simple truth is that seventy unarmed red men, with the im- pediment of women and children, without horses or provisions, are endeavoring to run away from Arizona to get back to their mountain fastnesses in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico, Why not let them go, you men of Arizona? We do not address ourselves to cowboys, nor curb-stone braves, but to honest, fair-minded citizens of Arizona, Why do you not tell the truth about all this miserable busi- ness of your annual Indian wars? Expose the motives which under- lie the whole movement, and the greed that prompts it. Tell us of the mineral Jands and fertile valleys which the whites are stealing from the Indians by their constant encroachments; admit to the world, over your own signatures, that, since the organization of your Territory, more white men have been murdered by white men than have been killed by Indians; admit that more horses have been stolen by white than red thieves; that more people have been mur- dered in ambuscade by cowboys than by savages ; admit broadly, and without reservation, that the whites have perpetrated more outrages against Indians than Indians against whites, and committed more offences against decency, humanity and the laws of civilized war than Indians, and that nine-tenths of all the stories of Indian outrages are unadulterated and deliberately manufactured lies by white thieves, army contractors, speculators and land plunderers for the purpose of enabling them to rob the Indians. If you are nota set of inefficient and white-livered cowards, explain to us who have crossed the con- tinent, and know something of Indians and Indian wars, how it is that you are so desperately frightened by a hundred or two of un- armed men, women and children, who are themselves frightened and endeavoring to escape from your sun-scorched desert plains to get into the mountains ? For God's sake, if you must live, and we see no necessity for it, go to work and spare us this annual yawp and whoop- up over an Indian war, Weare sick of it, and tired of it, and dis- gusted with it, and do n't believe in it. “If the Government will send every hostile Indian in the Territory to San Francisco, board them all at the Palace Hotel, give all the squaws a wardrobe from the White House, send all the boys to Berke- ley and all the girls to the Van Ness Seminary, and all the papooses to the Women’s Relief Society, it will save money, and the Territory of Arizona will prosper by the development of her valleys, plains and mountains.” NE of the new Marshals rejoices in the name of Bible. He hasn't any such sinecure, however, as his name would imply.