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Show Kathleen Norris Uncle Sam Reports on His Real Estate Deals With His Red Children; He Bought 2,600 000 Square Miles at Average of 48 Cents an Acre By ELMO SCOTT WATSON Released by Western Newspaper Union. RECENTLY the department issued a new colored map, the first of its kind, which shows how Uncle Sam since 1790 has acquired the nation's public domain from 66 principal Indian tribes by some 389 treaties and numerous acts of congress. A study of this map shows that these cessions by the red man constitute about 95 of the public domain, or something like 2,600,000 square miles. In so far as the aggregate cost of this land was approximately $800,000,000 that means a little more than $307 a square mile or approx- imately 48 cents an acre Fort Laramie treaty, General Sher- man (noted for his philosophy) issued an order that all Indians not actually on their reservations were to be under the jurisdiction of the army and "as a rule will be considered hostile." Then came the announcement that the Northern Pacific railroad was to be built across the northern part of the Sioux hunting lands and soon afterwards the Great White Father sent surveyors, protected by soldiers, into this region without taking the trouble to ask the Sioux it would mean that Uncle Sam certainly got a bargain in these dealings with his red children. In a statement issued at the time the map was released, Secretary Harold Ickes of the department of the Interior declared that "while questions are still frequently raised as to whether the Indians received fair prices for their land, the records show that, except in a very few cases where military duress was present, the prices were such as to satisfy the Indians. Discussions of enhancement of land prices from original costs to the present estimated value of nearly 40 billion dollars only lead to idle speculation. There is no equitable basis of value comparison then and now. "Some Black Pages." "While the history of our dealings with the Indians contains some black pages, since the days of the early settlers there has been a fixed policy based upon the principle of free purchase and sale in dealings between the native inhabitants of the land and the white immigrants. In no other continent has any serious attempt ever been made to deal with a weak aboriginal population on these terms. "While the 15 million dollars that we paid to Napoleon in the Louisiana Purchase was merely in compensation for his cession of political authority, we proceeded to pay the Indian tribes of the ceded territory more than 20 times this sum for such lands as they were willing to sell. Moreover, the Indian tribes were wise enough to reserve from their cessions sufficient land to bring them an income that each year exceeds the amount of our payment to Napoleon." It is true, as Secretary Ickes says, that in the majority of cases the Indians probably received a fair price for their lands since there is no equitable basis of value comparison, but it is doubtful if the Sioux, the Nez Perces, the Modocs and the Poncas to name only a few would agree with Mr. Ickes that the "principle cl free purchase and sale" had been observed in their dealings with the Great White Father. Louisiana Territory. Since Mr. Ickes mentions the Louisiana Purchase, it might be well to examine briefly the record of our government's dealings with one of the aboriginal occupants of that region, the Sioux. For generations these Dakotas had occupied a vast empire along the Missouri river, including most of the present states of North and South Dakota and parts of Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana. Gradually their territory had been reduced by a series of treaties until they held only their choicest hunting grounds in the Black Hills, the Powder river country and the Big Horn mountains. That was guaranteed to them, by the Fort Laramie treaty of 18G8, as a "permanent reservation" and, besides, they were granted, for as long as there were buffalo on the plains, "the right to hunt on any land north of the Platte." This reservation was to be considered "unceded Indian territory" in which "no white person or persons shall be permitted to settle or occupy any portion of the same or. without the consent of the Indians first had and obtained, to pass through the same." Moreover, it was agreed that no subsequent treaty should be considered valid "unless executed and signed by at s of all the adult least male Indians occupying and interested in the same." The government kept its promise less than a year. Four months after the President had proclaimed the three-fourth- fcixii& Si ... ita3k5.i--i- . i ftriiryyifji i CALICO IN PERPETUITY An important provision of the treaty of whereby the United States acquired lands from the Iroquois Confederacy was that there should be an annual distribution of calico among 5,000 members of the Six Nations. This provision is still carried out each year with appropriate ceremonies in observance of perpetual "peace and friendship" with the Iroquois. Shown here at a typical ceremony is Florence Printup, a descendant of old Iroquois chiefs', who received the rolls of calico tor distribution. 1794 for permission to "pass through the same." In 1874 Gen. George A. Custer and his Seventh cavalry were sent to explore the Black Hills again without asking permission of the ioux to h whom (the Black Hills) was almost sacred soil. Then a newspaper man who accompanied Custer flashed to the world the electrifying news that gold had been discovered in the Hills and Custer's official report not only confirmed this but it was also an ecstatic description of the beauties of that region. The result was inevitable. 'Justified' Treaty Breach. Prospectors and miners flocked to the new El Dorado. For a time the government went through the motions of expelling the intruders, then gave it up as a hopeless job. Having failed to keep the whites out of the Black Hills, the government's next step was to find some way to justify this violation of the Laramie treaty. A good excuse came when several bands of the Sioux, notably Sitting Bull's Hunkpapas and Crazy Horse's Oglalas, who were hunting In the Powder river country (as they had a perfect right to do) failed to return to their reservations within the time limit set by the Indian bureau January 31, 1876. (The fact that it was almost physically impossible for the Sioux to obey this order within the time allowed didn't make any difference to the Indian bureau!) On February 1 the Indian commissioner proclaimed all Sioux who were not on the reservation "hos-tiles- " and called on the army to round them up. Then followed the campaigns of Generals Crook, Terry, Gibbon and Miles against these "hostile" Sioux and Cheyennes in 1876-7which either compelled the surrender of the Indians or drove them across the border into Canada. Even before the campaign was over, a commission was sent to traat with the Sioux and arrange for the cession of lands which the Fort Laramie treaty had guaranteed to them Pah-sah-pa- 7 "forever." Concerning this commission, which began its work in August, 1876, Doane Robinson in his "History of the Sioux Indians" (South Dakota Historical Collections) writes: The commission says: "While the Indians received us as friends and listened with kind attention to our proposition, we were painfully Impressed with their lack of conlitlence In the pledces of the government. At times they told their story of wrongs with such Impressive earnestness that our checks crimsoned with shame. In their speeches and recitals nf wronus which their people had suffered at the hands of the whites, the arraignment for gross acts of Injustice and fraud, the description of treaties made only to be broken, the doubts and distrusts of our present profession of friendship and pood will, were portrayed In col ors so vivid and language so terse that admiration and surprise would have kept us silent had not shame and humiliation done so. That which made this arraignment more telling was that It often came from the lips of men who are our friends and who had hoped against hope that the day might come when their wrongs would be redressed. Sioux Had to Like It. Since the Sioux didn't have much choice in the matter, they signed the treaty offered them. Here's what another historian says about it (not an Indian historian, but a white historian). George E. Hyde, author of "Red Cloud's Folk A History of the Oglala Sioux Indians," writes: But the object had been attained at last, and under the cloud of war the government had taken the Black Hills, the Powder River lands and the Bighorn country. The pretense of formal agreement and fair payment which Congress had devised to veil this act of robbery did not even deceive the Indians. The chiefs knew that they were being robbed and that they were forced to sign away their lands. Here are beef, flour and blankets (said the United States) for your lands lp Laramie Plains and between the forks of the Platte, which we took from you before 1S65: and here (said the United States) are the same beef, flour and blankets for your lands in Nebraska which we took before 1870; and (said the United States, with an air of vast generosity) here are the same beef, flour and blankets for the Black Hills, the Powder River, and the Bighorn lands which we are now taking from you. In all fairness, that is very near the true meaning of the "agreement" of 1876, by means of which these last lands were taken from the Sioux. So the Sioux were finally settled on a greatly reduced reservation within the present states of North and South Dakota. But even then the Great White Father wasn't through with them. In 1888 another commission went to the Standing Rock reservation to swing the cession of 11 million acres of Sioux lands at a fixed price of 50 cents an acre ("an outrageous robbery," Stanley Vestal, biographer of Sitting Bull, calls it) and break up the great Sioux reservation into smaller ones. Sitting Bull lined up the chiefs against it, then went to Washington where he succeeded in getting the price raised to $1.25 an acre. The nexUyear another commission came to Standing Rock to bargain with the Sioux at the new price but found themselves blocked at every turn by Sitting Bull. Finally by making various promises (many of which were never kept, incidentally) they managed to get enough chiefs to agree to the sale. So, in the words of Vestal, "the cession was signed, the great Sioux Reservation was only a memory. It was the death of a nation." Among the promises that were not kept was one about supplying rations to the Sioux, penned up on their reduced reservations, and in the winter of 1890-9that broken promise bore bitter fruit. For the Sioux, suffering from hunger and disillusionment, became easy victims to the apostles of the Ghost Dance' and before that excitement was over the shameful story of the massacre at Wounded Knee had been written on one of the "black pages" which Secretary Ickes mentions. As indicated previously some of the other "black pages" bear the stories of our dealings with the Nez Perces, the Modocs and the Poncas., That is why it is likely that any member of those tribes, as well as the Sioux, who reads the secretary's statement about "a fixed policy based upon the principle of free purchase and sale in dealings between the native inhabitants of the land and the white immigrants" will probably smile and there won't be much humor in that smile! 1 Indian drums are sounding in the of the Southwest, and the Navajos, Zunis, Hopis, Utes, Apaches, Lagunas, Acomas and a score of other tribesmen and their families are trekking to "the place by the bridge," Gallup, N. M. Here each year 7,000 Indians from nearly 40 different tribes Join forces to produce America's most colorful and spectacular Indian show, the annual Inter-TribIndian Ceremonial. For four days they dance, chant, compete in sports and engage in weird pagan rites before capacity audiences made up of their white brothers. The Gallup Ceremonial Is the largest and most authentic Indian spectacle of its kind In the country. Usually the Ceremonial is held the last part of August. A special attraction each year is the unusual display of Indian arts and crafts in the Exhibit Hall where thousands of articles are shown. A score of native craftsmen will be at work showing the technique of Indinn handicraft. Great White Father Makes Tanlv Payment for Indians' Ponies "When Sitting Bull's outlnw Sioux massacred Gen. George A. Custer and five troops of the Seventh cavalry on the Little Big Horn, the U. S. rumbled with indignation. Amid all the furore the Army brass was stnick by a wonderful Idea since it was almost impossible to catch mounted Sioux, why not take away their horBes? "This scheme had obvious defects, the chief of which was that Sitting Bull and most of his followers had already ridden of? to Canada. But the army put it into operation with vast enthusiasm. In the fall and winter of 1870 cavalrymen seized 8.5(;7 ponies from baffled, friendly Indians, at Camp Robinson, Neb, and Dakota Indian agencies. "Sioux and their friends were quick to clamor for payment; by 1892 the U. S. government had paid a quarter of a million dollars in damages. But even this left 2,298 horses still unpaid for. Blessed Are the Meek Bell Syndicate. 4H 'JCJ&i wJ 1928. when an "By investigation of Indian claims was authorized, time had not simplified the problem. But this spring, 69 years after Little Big Horn, Congress voted to pay off the last of the Sioux claims. Last week the President solemnly sicned a bill granting them $101,630 ($91,920 for ponies, $9,710 for property lost in the scuffle). Nobody suggested restoring the Sioux to mobility by replacing the horses with second-hanJeeps." Time Magazine. Features. Wo,,er Sheod WNt,Coff"po,Kftn' WNU Washington Bureau t21 Union Trust Building. M Women and War Work COUNTY WNU in WASHINGTON jp seats and other rural and communities can number into the thousands the women and girls who are commuting or have moved to larger cities to take up war work of one kind or another and join the labor force of 18 million women now employed in the country. As one of many examples, a huge radio plant at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, employing thousands of workers is "manned" almost exclusively by women recruited from the small towns and rural districts in the ppHar RaDids. LUUlJUkD QM to these womwill What happen en and girls from these rural communities when reconversion starts in earnest? Will they stay in in- -' dustfy, or will they return to their homes? The Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor is seeking answers to these questions In a se-- i ries of surveys now being conduct-- ; ed on women in industry. The labor bureau found, for in stance, that 80 per cent of the 71,000 d women employed in the area of Ohio want their jobs or other jobs after the war. So when 12 millioa servicemen and women come home, all seeking jobs, and when men are thrown out of work due to cutbacks and other reconversion upsets, will these women, many of whom are now union members, be able to hold these jobs? There are today five million more women employed than there were in 1940, but census records show that with slight variations, the number of women in labor forces has increased decade by decade. And the bureau of the census states that 1,500,000 of the women who entered the labor market during the war would have done so had there been no war, million became while about 3 workers because of war conditions.. It then seems that at least these 3 million women will have to fight to maintain their jobs if they want to remain in employment Dayton-Springfiel- Nine Out of Ten In the trade and service industries at least nine out of ten women indicate they want to retain their jobs when the war ends. This is in comparison with three out of four in the manufacturing industries. As a result of this tremendous surge of American women into all fields of employment, there is now underway among these workers a drive for pay rates based on the job, and not on sex of the worker. For instance the National Industrial Conference board asserts that in 25 selected Industries, men's average hourly earnings in all occupations are 50 per cent higher than those of women and that in unskilled occupations men's average hourly earnings topped those of women by 20 per cent. Significant progress, however, is being made by labor organizations to make the equal-paprinciple for men and women doing the same In 80 union conjobs effective. tracts covering 75,000 women workwere found by a surers, one-havey to have provided equal pay in the contract, although this is not in itself sufficient to prevent discrimination entirely. y lf Forty Tribes Celebrate Equal Rights Proposal Festival at Gallup, N. M. In addition to this drive for far places Says; equal pay for men and women workers there is now in the congress a proposed amendment to the Constitution which seeks to secure equal rights for women, whatever that means. Both the Democratic and Republican political platforms are on record in favor of such an amendment and the house judiciary committee has approved the proposal. The suggested amendment proclaims that "equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." There is no denying the fact that In some states women are subject to legal discriminations that should be abolished, but those who have stud-le- d this proposal believe that its passage or adoption would eliminate all the protective and preferential laws which have been enacted In behalf These include limited jf women. working hours for women, preferential health and medical laws, sup-sofor the wife nnd many other laws enacted for the particular protection and benefit of women. Opponents assert that only time, ducatinn and changing public opiti-ocan assure women a fair dial In the competitive labor field, where 18 million of them arc now emIf such a constitutional ployed. amendment were adopted, the contention is that not only would all state and federal laws that give special protection to women be wiped Jut, but it would be impossible to provide future protection without extending a like protection to men, who may not want it. rt "I adore my Bill, but that doesn't mean that whole." By KATHLEEN NORRIS TODAY'S letter comes of only a few Marjorie married her flier when he came home, honorably discharged, months of hard service. They were engaged for a year, but in that year saw each other only twice, for a few days interval. Bill is handsome, clever, devoted and rich. Marjorie didn't know how rich until now, when they are going to his home city, Philadelphia, after 22 to live. "This Is my trouble," she wrttes. "My people are poor, but we come of good stock. My mother for many years supported my grandmother and myself by teaching. She is not strong now, lives with my grandmother, and there is almost no money, but for fineness snd goodness there never were two more genuine saints. "Bill and I are to have 'one of the family houses' to live in. We are to have 'Uncle Phil's house,' which he says is filled with old revolutionary Junk, or 'Grandpa's house.' which is handsomer but smaller. His mother writes me that 'old Emma' will come to us at once as cook, and bring two granddaughters to make themselves useful.' Aunts and cousins of Bill's write him that they want to know when 'dear Marjorie' would like to be entertained would I like a tea or a formal reception? Too Much 'Class.' "All this appalls and annoys me. I hate that sort of thing. Bill takes it all seriously; he has three brothers, one sister, and countless cousins and other relatives. He hopes his grandmother will give us the Revere porringers, and wants me to be painted by 'the feller that has painted us all.' "I begin to feel that no wealth or position will make up for the Independence I have enjoyed for years as a newspaper woman, and am sure already that I want my mother and grandmother to go East with me. I will be lost and strange In that big family, obliged to grin and bear all sorts of things that are absolutely unnatural to me, and I'll need supportand confidantes. I adore my Bill, but that doesn't mean that I want to swallow his family whole. This business of having a house picked out for me. and servants, too, is a little thick. Bill says we'll have plenty of room for Mother and Gran, but is afraid they won't like it. Mother is dubious, but Gran says she'll do anything I want. They both love our San Diego cottage, and their life here, but neither is young, and I simply can't bear to leave them. Bill won't promise to come back, and altogether I don't know what to do." My dear Marjorie, I gay in answer, you are trying to pour old wine into new battles, and it won't succeed. More than most young wives, your place is to follow Bill's lead now, and accept the situation in Philadelphia wholeheartedly. Go on there determined to be adaptable, friendly In every way. Don't have much to say. good-nature- n I want to swallow his WEALTHY FAMILY PINS HER omily DOWH Most girls would envy position. She is to a man she "adores." He is handsome, clever, rick He loves Marjorie devotedly, After two years of service m the air corps, he is coming home for good. The trouble is, Bill has too much. Marjorie, who is accustomed to a simple life, is not willing to adapt herself to tht customs and traditions oj i proud old Philadelphia family. Every detail of Marjorie's affairs is taken care of before hand a house, furnishings, servants, all are provided. What Marjorie doesn't like is this paternalistic system she is just expected to fit into her place and like it. Nobody seems to think she might not care for the social mold in which ma-rie- d Bills family exists. listen and watch and make them like you by sweetness and amiability. Give this experiment a year, in which you criticize nobody, agree to all arrangements; take this new sort of Jife as if it were a book you are reading, with yourself as heroine. Lucky in Many Ways. Heroine you are, of course. Tie western wife of a persoo wealth and family make him important, beloved and lovely, rich and socially secure there is a position many gir' young whose connec-tien- s envy you. That you are smarter, quicker, more amusing, more independent, than the men and women you are going to meet, I am taking for granted. Those would fine old familief d have wonderful characteristic!, but be they can be dull! Only, if you'll the endure to patient enough dullness for awhile, you'll 1W under it a wonderful dignity and Ifr tegrity, characteristics that youU be glad someday to hand on to yout children. As for taking your mother and would grandmother with you, that be a fatal mistake. To move from the fresh sea air and riotous gar dens of San Diego, where the climate is the most equable in be whole world, to eastern snowi and summer storms, might seriously affect the health of them both. They would both feel Intruders in they would actually be Intruders, the and in attempting to reconcile claims and those of the big famfly you would jeopardize your tnarriw happiness, perhaps irretrievably. and Play your part with dignity patience, always remembering a blessed are the meek, and you'll yourself most enviably placed onto) these days, in the heart of the very finest of our American culture. You children will have a background fine as any in the world, and ovvf of tunities and advantages worthy the Don't throw good name. things away because of the shs"0 satisfaction that asscrtivenesJ, sitiveness, pride, resentment nei Make your give you now. family love you, and you'll p" cntly find yourself loving them. t' Soap From Coconuts Possibly 40 per cent of theUnitw imports of copra into the States will go to priority uses. most of the remainder will ProbJ;; be used in making soap. Glycerin, in great wartime demand for making of explosives, Is W'1 uct of coafMnaklng. Coconut yields about 4u per cent more go"" ine than domestic fats and oil. Soap-makin- g lit good-nature- adaptable, friendly." t is now a highly nical process. For instance. t" cocgives body to soap, but it takes onut oil to make It lather freely. |