OCR Text |
Show Com. -2- influcntial ..'cr.oor.s and by all we could do v/e were succeeding in preventing it. A day or two before the dance began the citizens of Hayden, a village adjacent to the Sun Dance grounds, called a mass meeting to discuss the matter and invited a number of Indians to be present. No employee of mine was there or knew about the meeting. At this meeting the matter of stopping the dance was discussed and it was the opinion of ths better class of white citizens of the community that they should remain absolutely neutral in the matter, taking no sides, one way or another except that they passed resolutions assuring the Indians that if anyone caoised them trouble in an effort to stop the dance by force they(the citizens of Hayden) could be depended upon to take no part in it. T At this same meeting, while the above was the official action of the citizens, many white men viewed it in a different light. Many of the men there assembled told the Indians that the Government had no right to stop their fun, that there was no la?. against it, and some promised support in case the Indians got into trouble on account of it. A number of inflammable remarks were made to them, unofficially, by men in the croud, one man saying; f> y "I'll tell you Indians what you ought to do. You just ought to' •' •"'- go down to the Agency and hang I'.artin". how these Indians to whom these remarks were made are tke lowest kind of Indians in mental or moral calibre, and are just such a class of Indians as would be totally unable to distinguish between the opinions of the better olass of the citizens |