"Indians!" 



"Indians! There! See them? Real, live Indians !" 



The very word sets the blood a-tingle. Generations of John Smiths, 

 Miles Standishes, George Washingtons, Daniel Boones, Kit Carsons, 

 and other famed American Indian fighters stir in their graves. In a flash, 

 their exploits live again in the mind's eye. It is bred in the bones of the 

 American to thrill at the cry of "Indians!" Some mother among his 

 ancestors hides her children, some father thrusts a gun between the logs 

 of a cabin wall. It is life or death. 



"Bang ! And another redskin bit the dust." The romantic, ever vic 

 torious fights of the dime-novel heroes flicker before the mind. In an 

 instant there is flashed a whole history of Indian fights, the wresting of 

 a continent from a race of red men. Like as not, the modern American 

 has never seen a real Indian. That does not lessen his interest in them. 

 In a vague sort of way, he believes the Indian is a species almost extinct. 

 His great hope is to see a few of them outside the movies before the last 

 of the redskins "bites the dust." 



Actually, it is not true that the Indians as a race are departing from 

 this earth. The facts are that since they ceased fighting the white man 

 and condescended to live as his neighbor, the American Indians have 

 been increasing in numbers. In 1877, when the Sioux, Nez Perces, and 

 other tribes were still on the warpath, it was estimated that there were 

 250,809 Indians in the United States, not counting some 20,000 Alaska 

 natives and about 6,000 Sioux who fled under Sitting Bull to Canada, 

 following the Custer massacre. In 1926, the census gave the Indian 

 population as 349,876. The Indians increased 27,161 between 1911 

 and 1926. 



The average Dude or Sagebrusher is not interested in Indians who 

 have become civilized, who wear store clothes, 

 ride in automobiles, and look like any other brand 

 of humans. The Dude wants to see "real Indians,"' 

 the kind that wear feathers, don war paint, make 

 their clothes and moccasins of skins. Give him 

 one such Indian and the Dude is much more ex 

 cited than he would be if he had seen a whole na 

 tion of Indians at the humdrum pastime of mak 

 ing their living in peaceful pursuits. In fact, he 

 is hardly sympathetic with the efforts of the In 

 dian Bureau to make the Indians self-supporting 

 and independent in the white man's way. It does 



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