Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 167, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 July 1920 — INDIAN CHOSEN AS MODEL FOR AMERICAN SOLDIER [ARTICLE]

INDIAN CHOSEN AS MODEL FOR AMERICAN SOLDIER

Accusations that he was a German spy caused Odis Leador, Choctaw Indian, to be made a hero and incidentally to be chosen as a model American soldier for a portrait made to hang upon the walls of the French Federal building, says the Wichita, (Kan.) Beacon. Leador, in prewar days, a foreman pn a ranch near Calvin, Okla., learned from idle rumor in Ms neighborhood that he was accused of being a German spy. He fauns* diately enlisted and in the course of a brilliant war record was cited for bravery. During the engagement for which he was cited he captured two machine guns and eighteen prisoners, manned a machine gun for three days after the remainder of his crew had been killed. Dowarreux, the French artist, picked upon Leador as his ideal of a typical American soldier and made a painting from which now graces the walls of the French Federal building. Twice wounded and twice gassed, Leador has been doing vocational work and only recently brought home his bride to McAlester from Oklahoma City.