Show THE FIGHT GOES ON Adair Wilson on the Removal of the Southern Utes THE ADVANTAGES TO BE GAINED A Few Cattlemen Only Represent the Sum of the Opposition The Indians and Mor moue Favor the Change In response to a communication from Moab to a Denver paper and which was recently reproduced in THE HERALD Adair Wilson writes as follows The ratification oJ the treaty recently made with the Southern South-ern Ute Indians looking to their removal from their present reservation is a matter of vital importance and concern to the whole people of Colorado and especially to the 10000 residents of Archuleta La Plata and Montezuma counties as well as the citizens cit-izens of the prosperous county of San Juan in New Mexico These people have been working zealously lor five years with the united and earnest support of the Colorado delegation in Congress to secure the removal re-moval of these Indians and now as they are on the eve of success it would be a calamity to the state should Congress refuse to confirm the treaty This is my excuse for begging some space in your paper to notice a communication signed M M R which appeared in your issue of Sunday last Your correspondent evidently writes from the dictates of honest conviction but he has been misinformed as to some material mater-ial particulars and the skill and ability with which he advocates the cause might create a damaging misapprehension in the public mind if corrections were not made M M 11 inadvertently doubt creates the impression that the large area 30000 000 acres included within the proposed reservation is a garden thickly settled with industrious farmers where the climate is perfect and where melons fruits and vegetables veg-etables grow to an enormous size and in luxuriant proportions This impression would arise from the fact that the place from whence the letter was written is not given in your paper The reader wend therefore naturally suppose that it was written from and of the proposed reservation reserva-tion As a matter of fact the letter describes de-scribes a few small settlements which are not included within the reservation and was evidently written from one of those places One would search a long time within the barren and parched limits of this reservation before finding one wagon load of purple grapes or golden peaches Of the 3000000 acres included within the proposed reservation I do not believe from what I have seen of it and from reliable information as to the remainder that on as much as 500 acres has the virgin sod been cut with plow spade or hoe and owing to the extreme scarcity of water ninetenths of the whole reservation can never be utilized for agricultural purposes irrigation being necessary It is valuable for grazing purposes pur-poses WILLING MORMONS The only settlers affected are a few Mormon Mor-mon families about Bluff City and Monti cello not prooably exceeding forty in all They are all squatters having no rested rights in the land The treaty proposes a liberal compensation to them for their improvements im-provements and they are satisfied with the treaty They are auxions to remove from their present location to the rich and well I watered lands of the present reservation in Colorado At least I am so informed by their bishop who most zealously assisted in the making of the treaty and who is one of the firmest advocates of its ratification The only persons affected are a few cattlemen cat-tlemen citiens of Coloradowhose cattle roam over this vast unoccupied area They oppose the treaty and I dont blame them Free pasturage upon the public domains is a most desirable privilege In the same situation all of us would probably do the same as they But the settlement and improvement im-provement the country cannot be stopped and the wants and necessities of the many be ignored in order to allow the exercise of free fat and juicy privileges to a few Neither Moab nor any of its fine orchards or valuable improvements are included in the proposed reservation The lines of the reservation are well defined de-fined and the Indians know them It is a groundless fear to anticipate that because they are allowed to hunt in some sections I without the reservation that they will claim those sections as their own and drive out the settlers Under the present stipulations stipu-lations these Utes have the right to hunt in I any portion of Colorado and in Utah too for that matter and 1 have never heard of their claiming anything beyond the lines of I their reservation by virtue of this privilege privi-lege I agree with M M R that it is a bad I policy I also agree with him that it is bad I policy to set apart large bodies of land for the exclusive occupancy of these or another I an-other Indians They should allbe removed to the Indian Territory i A FIXED roiicr I But both of these things are in accord with the settled policy of the government and neither M M U nor I can change it I dont think it would be good or wise policy on our part to assist in defeating a measure so promising of good results to ourselves tour t as this Southern Ute treaty simply i l to show our disapproval of the general Indian policy of the country The wheels of government gov-ernment would not be stopped thereby I doubt whether the machinery would be jarred even In fact I am of the opinion that the machinery would run as smoothly and regularly as before indignant assault as-sault The only result would be that after the smoke and dust of battle had cleared away we would have a realizing sense of the fact that we had made supreme asses of ourselves M M R speaks of the Utes as learning to farm after a fashion and says that by degrees they will become able to take care of themselves etc It is well that the qualifying words after a fashion were inserted in-serted If M M R will show me one of them outside possibly of Charlie chief of the Moache band who has done or will do two hours oi farm labor in three months I will give him the best chromo to be had Thegovernmenthas been for years endeavoring endeav-oring to make them farm but the effort h s been a total failure Thirtytwo suia 1 farms have been opened up on the reservation tiou and improved by the hired labor f the government but how does this industrious indus-trious and selfsupporting Ute work then He lets them to Mexicans on shares whic he reclines beneath the welcome shade of his wickiup indulges in a horse race or takes an occasional hunt Your correspondent calls attention disapprovingly dis-approvingly to the fact that by the terms of the treaty certain amounts in sheep and money arc to be given to the Indians He is not probably aware that there is now in the United States treasury to the credit of these Southern Utes nearly > 2000000 on which they receive 4 per cent per annum an-num and that these donations are simply payments or advances out of their own money This is in my opinion one of the wisest of all the provisions of the treaty If the Ute can ever be made self ting t-ing it will be in pastoral pursuits but he has such an unconquerable aversion to being be-ing selfsupporting that he must be started in this business remote from any place where he can market his sheep for a third of their value to some speculative white man in order to procure a fewdollars with which to purchase some gaudy ornaments bet on a horse race or buy whisky from some irresponsible trader As evidence of this I need only cite an exponent tried with them only a few YCflS sine The government furnished t fem wIth JOOO fine i graded sheep andtfeSTlndiaa eoIt1m sinner rubbed hl4 hands triumphantly 4P1 the thought that he had solved the1 dte problem prob-lem Only a few moons had wJMed when the sheep had all disappeared 91 Some had found their way to the shall1108 of the butchers in the neighboring owns some had joined the neighboring flocks of American I Ameri-can and Mexican sheepmenall sold by the I provident and thrifty Ute SATISFIED INDIANS E M M R says of these Utes their plead i I s ing to remain on their old reservation was pathetic and earnest It need only be said in answer to this that the treaty could not have been effected without the consent and signature of threefourths of all the adults in the tribe and that this was obtained from many more than the required number in fact from all but one They are not only willing but anxious to go and are grievously disappointed at not being permitted per-mitted to remove this spring To satisfy himself of this your correspondent need only go to their agency on any issue dny He will hear Ignacio Severe Mariana Charlie et it omnc genus denouncing the government the great father and the commissioners com-missioners in terms more forcible than polite because they are not permitted togo to-go upon the new reservation Now as to the danger to the frontier settlements set-tlements in Southern Utah and in Paradox Para-dox valley Colorado if these Indians are removed Every settler in that section knows that the only Indians from whom he fears any trouble roam now and have for years in their neighborhood unawed by the presence of an agency or of troopswhich are from seventyfive to a hundred miles distant These cut throats referred toby to-by your correspondent and he correctly names them are about one hundred renegade rene-gade PiUtes officered by Maucos Jim and Hatch with Bridger Jack as chief devil in commandreinforced at times possibly by some of the worst of Marianas band of Winnemuchis Utes They are attached to no agency are not enumerated with the Utes or any other tribe and recognize the authority of no agent in fact the Ute agent has no right to assume authority over them These Indians live and have for years in the Blue and La Sal mountains and in that vicinity and hunt upon the borders of Par dox and the other valeys which your correspondent corre-spondent mentions They will be enumerated enumer-ated with the Utes if the Utes are removed re-moved The agency will be established on the new reservation and such troops as are necessary will of course be furnished to support the agent With this done it seems reasonable to suppose that so far as safety and immunity from Indian outrages are concerned the settlers of Paradox Moab and La Sal will be in far better condition con-dition than they have ever been before REASONS FOIl THE CHANGE The present Ute reservation comprises a territory fifteen miles wide by about one hundred and twenty long extending eastward east-ward from the Utah line along the southern boundary of Colorado Throughout the whole length in Colorado the whites have settled to the very line of the reservation and in large numbers too and along the line in New Mexico the same is true to a considerable extent also The result is the reservation being so narrow it is impossible im-possible keep the stock of the two races separate and equally impossible to keep them from straying upon each others land thus keeping both in constant danger of collision Again in such a thickly settled community it is impossible to prevent the Indians from procuring whisky and one drunken Indian or one drunken white man might precipitate a conflict which would cost hundreds of lives The security of both whites and Indians aside from all other considerations imperatively imper-atively demands that these Indians be removed re-moved If this is not done and this treaty fails it needs no prophet to predict that within a very few years M M R is liable to see an Indian war of somewhat larger proportions than she fears on the line of the new reservation Itis impossible for the two races to peaceably peace-ably live together situated as they now are That the opening up to settlement of the present reservation would be a benefit to the whom state is beyond question It is by far the best watered portion of the state being crossed by seven large streams It contains about 1100000 acres twothirds as much as the whole of Oklahoma and the land far more fertile and inviting It has fine timber and an abundance of coal All this lies idle and unproductive and will continue to do so while the Utes remain upon it It will furnish homes of a quarter section each to near seven thousand families fami-lies Open it up and give the thrifty and industrious white man an opportunity avail himself of these natural advantages which the Indian will not give the homeless home-less a chance to secure a home let these idle acres be made to produce as they will by the muscle and skill of the hardy western west-ern settler and there will be added many hundreds of thousands to the wealth of the state and the nation |