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Show THE BULLETIN. BINGHAM CANYON, UTAH j--- - Death of 91 -- Year-Old California Author Recalls How He, as Young Army Lieutenant, Recorded for Posterity Famous Speech of a Great Indian Chief l.iiwjj'jyjy..iii. timiiiii.iji.ijp i. i.ii .ui'iijt.i.MimnHim wj.w.'jj wi, iy;.".'. 'Muu.wf' M Ji jyiwM.".''. ri'mrwrnu ."S" fcii,4k. V-li- 1 2? iJP THE SURRENDER OF CHIEF JOSEPH As depicted by Frederic Remington In General Miles' "Personal Rprnllprtlnna." I By ELMO SCOTT WATSON Released by Western Newspaper Union. THE recent death of Col. Erskine Scott Wood in California recalls one of the most dramatic in-cidents in American military history, for he was one of the chief actors in that drama. It was the surrender of Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce In-dians in the Bear Paw moun-tains of Montana on October I 5, 1877, after his epic retreat of more than 1,000 miles which won for him a place among the great captains of all time. Colonel WotxJ. then a young lieutenant on the staff of Gen. O. O. Howard, was present at the surrender, took down the Indian leader's "surrender 6peech" and it is to him that we are indebted for a com-plete and accurate text of what has become a classic of American oratory. The itory of the Nez Perce war of 1877 and of Chief Joseph! retreat la too familiar a tale to need repeti-tion in all Its details here. Its origin was the old, old story of a broken treaty, of white men covetous for Indian lands, of white aggression that brought about retaliation by the red man and then a call for troops to "put down an Indian uprising." In this case, however, the leader of the Nez Perces did not decide to try to defend his native soil by fighting the soldiers. Instead, he conceived the bold plan of fleeing with his people to Canada, fighting only if the troops barred his road. Gen. O. O. Howard, commander of the Military Department of the Co-lumbia, acted promptly when news of the killing of four settlers by a On October 4, General Howard with his two aides, Lieut. Guy How-ard, his son, and Lieutenant Wood, accompanied by two friendly Nez Perces (both of whom had daugh-ters in the hostile camp) and an in-terpreter, arrived in Miles' camp. The next day, these two Nez Perces, George and Captain John, entered the camp of the beleaguered Indi-ans. They told the chief that Gen-eral Howard was there with prom-ises of good treatment and that his whole command was only two or three days behind him. With tears in their eyes they begged him to surrender because his was a lost cause and Joseph agreed. The scene which followed Is de-scribed by Wood in a letter which has never before been published. It follows: "The surrender was October 5, 1877. Joseph rode up the hill near to sunset to where we were How-ard, Miles, Chapman, the interpre-ter; Oscar Long, adjutant to Miles, Guy Howard, the general's son and aide de camp, and myself. I was aide de camp, also adjutant general in the field in charge of records, etc. "Three or four men on foot hung around Joseph, clinging to his knees and saddle blanket. All were bare-headed. Joseph's hair hung in two braids on each side of his face. He wore a blanket I do not remem-ber the color, but I would say gray with a black stripe and I would say it was girdled about his waist but carried un And nrnnnrl his shoulders. down. I was not told. The speeches of Indians were not considered im-portant. I took it for my own benefit as a literary item." And thus it was that the young lieutenant who took down this speech as a "literary item" pre-served for posterity this pathetic ut-terance of a heartbroken Indian patriot. It has often been compared with the historic speech of Chief Logan of the Cayugas, which be-came widely known through being printed in the McGuffey Readers and which was a favorite "piece to be spoken" by several generations of American schoolboys. Wood was born in Erie, Pa., February 20, 1852, the son of Wi-lliam Maxwell Scott, who was the first surgeon-gener- of the United States navy. Educated at Erie academy and Baltimore city college he was appointed to the United States Military academy at West Point at the age of 18 by President Grant. He was graduated in 1874 and soon after receiving his com-mission as a second lieutenant was assigned to duty at Fort Bidwell in northeastern California. By 1877 he was a first lieutenant and on the staff of General Howard. Detailed to act as military escort to a civilian exploier in Alaska, he was in that country when word came of the outbreak of the Nez Perce war. The same mad that brought him word that his regiment was ordered into the field also brought him permission to stay on for the exDloration of Alaska but he !' ' i elected to join his regiment. Thus, as aide to General Howard, he par-ticipated in the long, stern chase after the fleeing Nez Perces. The Nez Perce campaign, howev-er, was not his only Indian war service. The next year he served on Howard's staff in the Bannock and Piute campaign in Idaho which was nearly as strenuous and dan-gerous as that of 1877. For a year or so he was stationed at Fort Van-couver across the river from Port-land, Ore., and while there he re-solved to quit the army and study law. Before resigning from the army he was made adjutant at the military academy at West Point and while there began studying law, re- - Under his blanket he wore a woolen shirt open at the throat, a dark color I am inclined to think it was army blue. He wore moccasins and leggings. His rifle was across the pommel in front of him. When he dismounted he picked up his rifle, pulled his blanket closer around him and walked toward General Howard and offered him the rifle. Howard waved him toward Miles. He then walked to Miles and began his speech." The text of that historic speech as given by Colonel Wood follows: Tell General Howard I know his heart. What he told me b-eforeI have it in my heart. I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass Is dead. is dead. It is the young men now who say "yes" and "no" (vote in the council). He who led on the young men (Ollicut, his brother) is dead. It is cold and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My peo-ple some of them have run away to the hills and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are perhaps freez-ing to death. I want to have time to look for my children and see how many of them I can find; maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my cniefs, my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever! C. E. S. WOOD young Nez Perce warrior marked the opening of the "war." He be-gan concentrating troops at all stra-tegic points to surround the Nez Perce. The first engagement took place on June 17 when Captain1 Perry and a small body of troops attacked Joseph's camp in "White Bird canyon. Displaying ed military skill, Joseph laid a trap for Perry and all but annihilated his command. After this defeat General Howard took the field himself and the chase was on. Before it was ended the Nez Perce leader outwitted, out-fought and outmarched the troops of Howard, Colonel Sturgis of the Sev-enth cavalry and several other de-tachments sent to intercept him. To realize the greatness of his achieve-ment one has but to read this brief summary: The Nez Perce leader was encum- - ' bered with women and children whom he refused to desert and allow them to fall into the hands of the soldiers, as he might have done sev-eral times to facilitate his flight. His fighting force never at any time ex-ceeded 300 warriors. Yet with these handicaps he fought 11 engage- - V - jSf- f - - i The above version of the "surren-der speech" is the one given in an article "Chief Joseph, the Nez Perce" by Colonel Wood which ap-peared in the Century magazine for May, 1884. It has often been re-printed with considerable variation in the text but we have Colonel Wood's , assertion (in Chester A. Fee's "Chief Joseph The Biogra-phy of a Great Indian") that this is the correct one. In the letter, previ-ously quoted, he says: "NeitherGen-era- l Miles nor anyone else knows Jo-seph's long surrender speech accu-rately except myself. No one was interested to take it down. Oscar Long, Miles regimental adjutant, was there to take it down but did not. No one told to take it ments, five of them pitched battles, and he lost only one. In the other six skirmishes he killed 126 and wounded 140 of the 2,000 soldiers who were on his trail at one time or another with a loss of 151 killed and 88 wounded of his own people. Then, having left his pursuers far behind, he stopped 50 miles short of his goal the Canadian line in order to give his weary people a chance to rest. He did not know of the approach of Col. Nelson A. Miles and the Fifth Infantry until his camp in the Bear Paw mountains In Montana wss attacked on the .morning of September 30. For five days the Nez Perce leader and his little band, greatly outnumbered, withstood the soldiers' attacks. CHIEF JOSEPH ceiving his law degree from Colum-bia university and being admitted to the bar in 1884. 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SK " I -- T too. art If J 0 J mSpy Stuff One of the most bitter ironies ol modern history is the fact that Brit-ish Intelligence had evidence prov-ing that Hitler intended to start a war in Europe. But Chamberlain refused to believe it. Instead of be-lieving his own Intelligence Cham-berlain took Hitler's word when he laid that he wanted peace . . . When the war is over the story will be told: It will reveal how an Amer-ican newspaper man gathered the evidence that resulted in America kicking out Nazi diplomats because they were working as Nazi espionage igcnts . . . Each Nazi chief has a private spy ring that he uses to keep tabs on other Nazi biggies. That's why Gocbbels has a switchboard which is used to listen in on every conversation in his building. Glamorous Mata Harls are seldom used these days. The Nazis train ordinary looking people for spy work so that they won't stand out in a crowd and excite suspicion ... In Argentina the Nazis control more than a dozen widely circulated daily newspapers and distribute over 300,-00- pamphlets weekly . . . Each Nazi spy gets certain tricks to use. As soon as he is nabbed those tricks go on a blacklist to make certain another agent won't use the same act. Germans in America who refused to work for the Bund were kidnaped shipped back to Germany and shot. Yet we still have many Bund supporters In this country who aren't in cells! . . . The Nazi espionage network is a tremendous organiza-tion: The British discovered thai there were 14,000 Nazi agents In Britain who were posing as servants . . . Five years ago the Nazis spent more money on espionage activities than we spent for our army and navy. The Jap system is to educate ev-ery Jap with the idea of being sneak. When a Jap returned from visit to another nation he promptly went to the Jap foreign office and told them everything he saw and heard . . . Even the most innocent type of Information is vital to spies. Something that may seem unimpor-tant to you muld supply the miss-ing link to a ' secret for a trained spy . . . One uf the duties of Nazi agents in this country was to joi down overheard conversations. I' served as a guide to our morale. 11 they heard many Americans In one part of the country spouting racial hatred that's where the Nazis con- - centrated their hate propaganda. Nazi agents run many schools in Argentina where Argentine chit dren of German descent are given military training. They used to run similar schools in California until this reporter exposed the recently Indicted Nazi agent behind that plot F, K. Ferenz . . . Mata Hari was as great a spy as legends assert. Espionage a la Hollywood thrilleri Is old hat. The best weapon ol Japanazl agents is propaganda. The Nazis have discovered that destroy-ing a nation's will to fight, by spreading confusion and disunity, helps them more than destroying war plants ... A Nazi outfit named World Service draws up the propa-ganda blueprints to be used by their supporters in democratic nation? Many American rabble-rouser- s wei on its mailing list. Some Americat. cers are still making use of tht propaganda lessons they learned from the Nazis ... As far back as 1936, Congress was given evidence of Jap espionage in America, but il was ignored . . . When American newspapers and mags arrive in neu-tral countries, everything written about Naziism is clipped by Nazi agents and sent to Goebbels. The international spy exchangt does a thriving business Inside neu-tral nations. It is composed of espi-onage agents who gather informa-tion about any country and sell it tc the highest bidder ... A skunk disguised as a dove isn't anything new. When Franz Von Papen di-rected German sabotage and espi-onage activities (in America before the last war) the outfit he used as a front was labeled: The Nation-al Peace Council. One of the unknown home-fron- t heroes is Walter Morrissey. He was the superintendent at the Nazis' New York consulate. When the Nazis gave him documents to burn in the furnace he turned them over to the FBI. Evidence from those documents helped the crack one of the biggest spy rings in America. This is how Nazis trust each oth-er: The Gestapo spies on the Ger-man Army, and the German Army has spies in the Gestapo . . . Himm-le-has every newsreel that depicts ar sassination. He runs them off h. eds of times in order to ob-se- . e how best to guard Hitler against a similar attempt . . . V German militarists try to themselves by getting rid of Huiei they will discredit him in the eyef of the German people by offering evidence proving that in 1019 Hitl r was a spy. GD-ROU-okw Pearson Washington, D. C. STATE DEPARTMENT STYMIES ROCKEFELLER Aides to Nelson Rockefeller think he administration blundered in fail-ji- g to defend itself better against die charges of Latin American made by Republican Senator Hugh Butler of Nebraska. Inside fact is that Rockefeller pre-pared a rebuttal to Butler's blast igainst our Good Neighbor spending, Dut it was killed by the state depart-ment. The rebuttal had been prepared as in article for Reader's Digest, un-ie- r Rockefeller's by-lin- Rockefel-ler showed it to two advisers, John Dickey and Anna Rosenberg, who both okayed it. Then it was sent to the state department. There, Hull's public relations ad-viser, Michael McDermott, advised against letting young Rockefeller step out as defender of the govern-ment's foreign policy. He urged that this prerogative should be reserved for Cordell Hull alone. So the article was killed, and the next issue of the Reader's Digest, Instead of carrying a government rebuttal, carried another blast by Butler, with an editor's note saying that Rockefeller had been given a chance to reply, but declined. So readers all over the country are beginning to think Senator But-ler may be right. LOS ANGELES STRIKE The army, which seized the Los Angeles Water and Power system as a result of a strike by electrical workers, hopes to turn it back to the municipal authorities about the time this appears in print. When the labor department re-ports on this strike, its figures will show that 2,300 men went out. Real fact, however, is that many times that number were thrown out of work by the stoppage of light and power. Reason the war department stepped in was that the Strike h,ad closed: 84 aircraft plants; 38 navy plants; 14 army service forces plants (ordnance and quartermas-ter). Though the general public knows only of such prominent cases as the army seizure of the railroads, actual-ly the army is being forced to take over many properties tied up by strikes. It has become a pattern. Labor unions make use of it to threaten management. Ten mills were tied up in Fall River, Mass., because of a mere jurisdictional dispute between an in-dependent union and the CIO. The army was obliged to step in, and is still in. The same thing happened at Peabody and Salem, Mass., in a dispute in the leather industry be-tween an independent union and the CIO. Also, the army has been obliged to take over the Western Electric plants in Baltimore because of the notorious "back-house- " dis-pute. War department officials are get-ting worried over this trend. They have become the Department of Emergency Labor. They don't like It. They want to fight the war, not fight labor. ON THE AIR FRONT Recently, U. S. fighter planes set up a new record by penetrating a distance of 550 miles into Europe 1,100 miles round trip. This has been published, but what nay not be realized is that fighters re working this run in relays. hree different teams of fighters go uut toward the target at different times, using the following pattern: 1. The first team goes out with the bombers, and protects them halfway to the target, meeting and engaging the German fighters. 2. The second team, starting lat-er, catches up with the bombers at the halfway mark and escorts them the rest of the way to the target. Thus, they arrive at the halfway mark without having to combat Ger-mans all the way, and so have fresh supplies of gas and ammunition, while the first team, with exhausted supplies, turns back. 3. The third team starts still later, and meets the bombers at the target. Here they drop their belly tanks, take over the hot fighting above the target. With fresh sup-plies, they relieve the second team, which turns home. Generally, the first team consists of Thunderbolts, the second team of the faster Lightnings, and the third team of the still faster Mustangs. Since all fighters are faster than bombers, they can go out and catch up with the bombers at any agreed point. This technique has greatly extend-ed the range of fighters and greatly increased the protection they afford for the bombers. MERRY-GO-ROUN- D d Ed Stettinius says the Soviet forces have been able to maintain good communications, partly be-cause we have sent them 189,000 field telephones and over 670,000 miles of vire enough to go around the world 27 times . . . Equally im-pressive is the quantity of barbed wire lend-lease- d to the Soviets 216,-00- 0 miles of it "It Is significant," says Stettinius, "that after the fall of 1942, the Soviet army stopped asking for barbed wire in lirge quantities." Wood's 'Heavenly Discourse' Won Him World Fame as an Author Colonel Wood became world fa- - mous for a book of satirical es- -' says which were published under the title of "Heavenly Discourse." He was also a gifted poet. Typical of his verse is: NIGHT AND THE DESERT (From "Poems From the Banaes." 1929.)" Flocks of stars across the night fly over. The moon floats down o lovely, lu-cent death On the dark mountain a child unto its mother, I lay my head upon the lap of earth. She it was who bore me and when all dwindleth She will give to me her child an-other birth. Straight are her dumb, relentless lips to others But I can hear their soothing through the night, j "Be hushed, my child you too shall Join the flight." In the vast stillness a small cuckoo-ow- l Flutes from his burrow to the lag-ging moon. As a fly upon a window-pane- , my soul Feels its littleness in the cosmic bowl And clings to the sure bosom; know-ing soon It will take care of me. Space wheels on Toward the firm, indomitable peaks of dawn. |