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Show 135 home. They publicly asked for the removal of the Utes to the Indian Territory. The first incident of any magnitude would produce the desired results so that enough pressure could be brought against them for removal. The Custer fiasco had hardened the lines of public opinion against the Indian people, and the land hungry speculators of the new state of Colorado were ready and waiting. Vickers was the leading advocate of expulsion, and as a leading newspaper propagandist and secretary to Governor Pitkin, his "The Utes Must Go!" campaign had wide public acceptance when the incident at the White River Agency occurred. It could not have served the Vickers crowd better to gain their ends. "Vickers called upon the white citizens of Colorado to rise up and 'wipe out the red devils.'" To a group of assembled newspaper reporters from the East, Governor Pitkin said: I think the conclusion of this affair will end the depredations in Colorado. It will be impossible for the Indians and whites to live in peace hereafter. This attack had no provocation and the whites now understand that they are liable to be attacked in any part of the state where the Indians happen to be in sufficient force. ^Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, (New York: Bantam Books, 1972), p. 367. |