Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 223, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 September 1914 — MAKING SOLDIERS OF INDIANS [ARTICLE]

MAKING SOLDIERS OF INDIANS

Oregon Statesman -Believes Aborigines Should Have Been Developed as Cavalrymen.

Senator Lane of Oregon suggests that this country should have made cavalrymen of the Indians, instead bf trying to make a race of farmers out of them. The infusion of white blood among the better Indians is credited with whatever farming success they have had. Our mistake, the senator says, was trying to steer the Indian’s energy into a new* channel instead of applying his natural inclination to a useful purpose. If we had given him a horse, he adds, and allowed him to live as the Arabs live, in his tent put of doors, carrying his family with him, we should have the finest cavalry In the world, a body loyal to the country and particularly adapted to its work and contented as a man always is when engaged in something to his liking.

The picture suggests too much the guerrilla idea to win entire approval, but is worth thinking about. A body of Indian cavalry undpr the restrictions of army regulations and a part of the army organization would be a promising experiment. It suggests the way in which the Russians have utilized the Cossacks, and the latter are hardly a finer and more (.effective body than an Indian cavalry would doubtless become. What has been done in the way of farming settlement among the Indian tribes cannot be undone. But the time is not past when the idea of an Indian cavalry, organized and governed under army administration, would be worth trying. Our American thoughts don’t turn to war. But we mean to have the nucleus of an army second to none in the art of science of war. We have the finest military school at West Point, where we turn out a supply of officers educated in their calling, and a general organization to build a larger force on if a threat of war at any time calls for it. And we are seeing just now in Europe the vital need of preparedness or the means to be prepared against the possibility. In any event, the effort to see if we should not utilize the raw material that we have for the cavalry arm Is worth the consideration of the authorities. —Indianapolis News.