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Show I' PAWIIUSKA, Ok., July 20 Probably tho most unique contest in Ihc entire history of ilia world closed on the night of Juno .'10 among the Osage ln-diu.'iH. ln-diu.'iH. Tt was no less than a contest to SCO which family could produce the greatest number of children having Quago blood, because each child boru beforo that date would, by act of Congress, Con-gress, immediately become worth $20,--000. Tho lucky man who had twins bovu to him during this last week is ' today $40,000 richer than if the happy ovent had been delayed, and the poor " lndinn who had throe children boru to two wives on July 4 is out on tho warpath. war-path. This strange condition comes aboiu 'from the fact that a new law has gone into ctrect. by which the wealth of the Osago Indiana is at last to be divided ' up among the members of the tribe. Tt is not going too far to &ay that this community is probably the wealthiest in tho entire world, for the nor capita wealth is estimated to be about $20,000 for every man, woman and child having Osage blood in his veins, and tho annual an-nual income of each is in the neighborhood neighbor-hood of $oO) per year. Here is an ideal socialistic conditiou, for the lone bachelor of (10, who has loafed all his life, is just as wealthy as and no more than the new born babe who comes into the world mid or these circumstances, Willi no fear of having lo descend to the degrading level of work unless, after this allotment and the Indian comes into possession of his inherited wealth, some shrewd Yankee or half-breed half-breed trots it away from him. m H The Osage Nation today consists of 1 about 2200 people, of whom about 1000 H nrc full-blooded blanket Indians, speak- H inn- no English and living in very much H of the primitive manner of their fore- H .fathers. The other J200 arc of various j H degrees of Osago blood, from one-half j H to one-sixty-fourth, but under the law, H every individual having any Osage H blood is enrolled as a nation and conse- H quently entitled to his share of the di- Hj vision of wealth. Away back in the H first part of the last century the French K traders eamo down this way from St. Hj Louis, as well as a considerable num- H her of enterprising Irishmen, and their H intermarriage with the native maidens H created a mixture that has been grow- H ing continuously over since, although H until about ten years ago, there wns a H long period when marriages between a H while man and an Indian woman of this H tribe was practically interdicted. Mar- H riages between white men and half or H quarter-bred Indians have continued, Ht and during the Inst ten years a consid- Hj crablc number of enterprising young H white men of the East and North, hav- H ing heard of the wealth ofjfctlic Osage H maidens, have taken up their residence H here, wooed and won these favored children of wealth. Others, not bo enterprising, en-terprising, have contented themselves ! with writing letters to the Indian agent , at Pawhuska, asking how the desired end might be accomplished, and have scarcely received encouragement m their ambition. One of these letters, addressed to the postmaster at Faw-hupka, Faw-hupka, was referred to the present Chief Ne-kal-wash-ha-ion-kab. His reply re-ply when translated nroved to be tell the young man to end big chief carload car-load ponies Tell young man to send big chief many present?. Toll young , i man to send much present: he get. trirl; j but. young man make promise. oung J inan promisc he no work." I There are probably loL of young ! men who would welcome that, prospect and make that promise without, any mental reservation, just as there arc a great many on tho reservation today who, without having mado that promise, prom-ise, are sticking to it religiously. For that is what tho Osage Nation is, a j community without tho necessity of . work. When the Osage had their reservation res-ervation in Kansas, the land became so valuable for wheat and for agriculture that, an arrangement was made by which their entire holdings were taken over by the government at $1.25 an acre, and with that money a smaller reservation, aggregating in all about 1.500.000 acres, was purchased for ; them in Oklahoma, at 70 cents an acre. The balance of this money, amounting to nearly $9,000,000. was placed to the credit of the nation by the Federal government and 5 per cent per annum guaranteed to them thereon. I'rom this income, certain tribal expenses ex-penses are paid, that of the support of the agency and of the Osage school, and the balance is paid over quarterly to the enrolled members of the tribe. Hut their income does not cease here. Luck of a financial kind seems to have followed the Osages. Moved as they were from lands that had become valuable val-uable for agriculture to lands that could then be bought cheaply, they were unwittingly deposited on new lands that have since been proved to be rich in oil and minerals, as well as extremely fertile for agricultural purposes. pur-poses. The richness of this oil conn-try conn-try is scarcely believable to the easterner. east-erner. At what stands on the railroad maps as the town of Kiefer, which is in reality nothing hut a box car standing stand-ing on a siding of the Frisco railroad, the freight receipts in that box car office of-fice have been, during the past month, over .$1-10,000, due entirely to the bringing bring-ing in of the various machinery and implements for oil wells. This is not far distant from the Osago Nation, and its million and a half acres arc tapped throughout by oil wells which are yielding enormously. Ten years ago a blanket lease was made by the United States Government of all the oil lands of the Osage Indians. That is, lor 180 000 acres. And last year this was , renewed for a period of ten vcars on : tho basis that tho Indians should re-ceive re-ceive $50 for every well that was driven and yielded, as well as 1- per cent of all that was realized from j that oil. There arc now on the rcser-vation rcser-vation something over GOO of these wells flowing 15,000 barrels per day, ( and the total income from them is j about $240,000 per month, of which , the Indians' share is $.10,000. In addition addi-tion to this, grazing rights are leased, and these net $200,000 per annum more, while all over tho reservation are farms and farm lands which arc rented by their Indian owners to white farmers farm-ers at $2.50 or $3 per acre per year. Thus the total income of the nation for the vear ending Jnne 30, 1000, was $1,228,458, and this was divided among the enrolled members of tho tribe. Thus, if tho Indian had two wives, which is not an uncommon thing, and ten children, chil-dren, which is no loss common, he would draw, as the head of the family, a pro rata share for twelve people, live in his little tepee or small cottage, wrap himself in his blanket, cat heavily heavi-ly of boef, grow fat in contentment on liis $0000 income, and lease out his land to the hated paleface, who cultivates it ns a tenant of his lordly master. It is small wonder, thon, that there has been an influx of whites to the Territory Terri-tory seeking Indian wives who could bring them such opulent charms, but the mixture is not looked upon with favor by the full-bloods, whose chief 1 endeavor at the present limo is lo j brim: about an allotment that will , eliminato some of these of mixed blood. The department's rulings stand, how- , ever, and up to June 30, 1007, when the j rolls wero closed, any child bora of such a union stood on an equal fooling with the full-blooded, Osago in the mat- j ter of the division of this wealth. Some curious results were seen working work-ing out from this situation. The time-was time-was when tho Osage braves were among the most dignified, mental) acnto and famous as hunters of all the I Indians. Their traditions arc full of poetry and nobility of thought. Their annals are tilled with bravo deeds -in hunting and their chases of the buffalo buf-falo have been sung in story aud song. ! Todav the full-bloods, as a rule, are j nnibitionless aud obese, spending their time wrapped in their blankets, posing before the doors of the Citizens' Citi-zens' National bank of Pawhuska, Paw-huska, whero the cash their checks and draw their dividends. Tho rest of the time, when they arc not slowly pacing the streets in front of the Agency, meekly followed by their equally equal-ly obeso wives, they arc" sleeping, or feeding, living in dogkeuMfc gambling, or quietly srsaia cigars which have taken their peace pipes. 0nt U beautiful tradition, by called upon the dove, tij'j peace, to intercede for & their shortcomings Mrith the ( it, but their old iclirion lm planted within tho list & something which partaiaj ture of a Avorakip of the w tho product of that plait I their .Mexican consinj pulque. Your Osa$o Ici chary about describing tke' i this new religion Trhiti' 1 brought in among Uiem, btt i as I. have been able to p I there is still tho pretcuei ping the Great Spirit lbmt i ing. of this I)ean. As a am ; the beau niakc3 Uicra vjs 1 is as a result of this nam ! consider they have been rtB ! impurities of the spirit ud 1 Incidentally, the effect ofr) (undoubtedly very similar 1 i hasheesh, because tbconh; i been able to get regardiBj. ; is "uni see heap big viriw ' ! The intermarriage of 1 mixed blood has been gobf I and the Indian blood hak ' in some cases to so stall. I that it would hardly be m, the president of the CiUKM I instance, was on tlio roll I more especially as he beanl s Matthews, aud it is M W full bloods and inc mac tho politics of the tribe.w son for being. Thelribt a ejiief, an assistant chief M of ten, who aro elected kbn two years, and the tube xi two political parties, tt U and the Progressive iartjv is, ns its name applies, t the full bloods, who Trant ffl the full bloods, and who m tain something of their CM" Tho Progressive party wj vanccment and lor ino tho people with tbeir k& though the mixed bloods nicrical majority, the M still in a majonty apotfj ing age, although .this sg idly hanging. ! that a full Wood is ah chief, for the reason tW. grcssivi? party, or niitfj .m nominate at their WW as their candidate wJ votes from the opposite PJ ;. These mixed bloods art. leaders of the Nation ity and advancement. Continued on Pg ' LO, THE RICH INDIAN Continued from Page Six. and in some cases not loo scrupulous in their business methods. But they nro I successful, and among them arc to be found manv who have made independent fortunes outside of their interest in tho tribal funds, fortunes made in farming, horse trading, speculating, or in general gen-eral business. But that nuxturo which strikes ono the hardest is the marriage of the white woman to tho full blooded Indian, of which thero aro numerous eases to be seen. There is something rather romantic, if we can leave the sordid element out of it, in the young white man who goes into the Indian Nation, finds his occupation thero and takes from it his wife. He-is invariably invaria-bly looked up to and respected. He is no't called a souaw man here, and as a rule he takes up his wife's little prop-ortv, prop-ortv, uses her returns from the community commu-nity funds and those of his children for increasing and developing the farm lands, and succeeds on his own merits. Too often, where tho case is roverscd' and tho whito wifo lakes up hor abode with her Indian husband, it is ho who drags her down to the level of the fat squaw who, with pappoose on back, may J)0 seen slocp'ing in swinish contentment or strolling idlv about the streets. Yet U,:c finnlnrn ic lv Tin mnnns Tinivprsal. for thero arc instances where exactly tho reverse is true, and Indian families, arc being raised by a white mother that would do credit to any community. Ono of tho most interesting of these cases to come to my notico was that, of a white woman who mot her Indian lover and husband in the city of Philadelphia, Phil-adelphia, when he was traveling with a Wild West show. All of tho elements of a romance were bore present, for the woman sought the man and asked to speak with liim. An acquaintance followed and a marriage within three days. On returning to tho reservation alone, tho Indian sought Major Miles, who was then the agent, and told him that ho wanted his wife. Miles laughed at him, told him that he had boon hoodwinked, hood-winked, made gamo of, and tried to dissuade him from thinking further of tho whito woman that had Been loft behind be-hind in Philadelphia. "No," said the Indian, "mo poor ignorant Indian. Me no know whito man's ways. But mo lovo woman and woman love me. She want come livo with mo." Miles wrote to this woman and found it to bo true, that 8ho wished to loavo hor home and comemt to the reservation and take up the lifo of hor Indian husband, which sho did. Ilcr influence probably had more to do with civilizing him In tho midst of his native surroundings than any olher causo, for upon his death, sho was again woped and won by another Indian, who likowise showed tho samo elevating influence. In the oflico of the allotting commis- sion may be found avor!?! was quite a famous pi'tchor i UWM where he spent ten years k ifl two years more at PoupMtnT'lB day lie is the head of a KiFM consisting a new blondo WhuHH and lour as charminc jm i children as if would ho pZ?JB in any similar station in Hf self and four children he Lfotfl a year from his tribal fun.l,. T'iM owner outright of fivc fan'M hundred and sixty acres caetftflfl agricultural land as there ig tVM in this country, each of whiefc out to whito farmers, and J?? allotment -is finiahed.he''wiWM possessor of ton more of cnnai MM t matter of ?25,000 in caKM to which he employs his ttantifl . as a government clerk and (J. 7 at a salary of $720 per year. 'mB It js upon .about thi.i same hiJm all of the wealth of the olfSH may be reckoned: that i calculation of $20,000 per' m'-.'H principal, and $500 per ycar?M ila" as income,-irrespective, of soual endeavor, whether "by lal ;B tho showing of business acnmT this estimate is only one of if-'l moment and as" a result of X'.P'S have been made in spite of tb slothfulness of tho Nation" ffi that was . bought in JS71 'for ?!? an acre, is today worth, atafsi' innte, an average of $20 an is' of this each individual Indian vidua! having Osage blood, outright about 700 acres, frhf wonderful movement of poDokV' ward the Southwest, wliicU hS the State of Oklahoma to increu? rapidly than any other Statcer Union, its percentage for Ihew ado having been somcthing-lfr;: hundred and twenty-scvon wra steadily increasing demand fo? lands throughout the cntiro Soak and the fact that this land rf Osage Nation is in the very l the. boom country, makca it einT? siblo that an estimate of $20 today will seem ridiculously sk a very short time. The rapid m of tho lines of the Frisco sntta every nook and cornor of the m be-formed new fftate, until they c possess seventy-five per cent otH tal railroad mileage are hringisV lands nearer to their markets, a addition to all of this, ihe rii of oil and the fully known press minerals make it "easily poaiJt the present wealth of the OiawS is but trivial, compiired with nil I might be if it could be held iaK tegrity. Tliese Osage Indians have leU intogrity longer than any otWr'.j because the Indian party Bad tiii been successful in preventing tW ment of their lands to tho members. Previously, when India have been allotcd, some havo bsa off, but in this instance, everfMl to the enrolled members or Uie and the whito man can gain p$ of t ho land permanently only by marriage with some of tho fa maidens of tho tribe, and tin those who really are such. Et this allotment is complete, for IU1 sary labor is great and will i many months, the integrity of tli tion will bo held to a considenH tent, because tho only change tht place is that, instead of the tnti of 1,500,000 acres boing held ii name of the Nation, thero Trillti thing over two thousand snulld. held in the name of the Wit making up this Nation. Under tk ont restrictions, and until all i minor children becomo of ap lands cannot be sold savo lii authoritr and consent of the Bm of tho "Interior. But tho.M such cannot longer bo cpnaidewJ community, and the child bant Juno 30 will got his share of thj only by inheritance of that trHi gone to his father. |
