Editor and Publisher
Neil Streeter
Reporter
Addison Leigh
Contributing Writer
D. A. Kuhr
Typesetter
S. Morigi
Deadwood Free Press Vol. 2 Issue 27December 13, 18782
editorial
Letters to the Editor
Editor,I wish to bring to your attention, and by
their perusal of your publication, the Town
Council’s attention, of a most disturbingissue. I was walking down Main Street
the other day, minding my own business,mind you, when a drunken lout staggeredout of one of the many houses of iniquity that abound within our city, and knockedme over.This deplorable specimen of humankind
then just started to stagger away. I of
course called after him to let him know
that such conduct was not appropriate to
the locale nor the time of day, it being
before 10 a.m. This lout turns and weaves his way back to me and tells me to, well, Icannot say the word being a good Chris-
tian and your worthy publication would not
print such profanity in any case.
Let it suffice he took a few minutes to
describe my dubious ancestry and per-
sonal habits. He then most unexpectedly punched me.
When I awoke a few minutes later, he
was gone. I tried to find an officer of the
law, but our brave constables were nowhere
to be seen. The Town Council must do something about the sinful ways of the miners and other less desirable elements
in our society.A Christian man should not have to be
exposed to such brutality within the limits
of our Town.Jerome Harcroft III, Esquire DeadwoodEditor,
I am writing to ask everyone who has
been good this year to please ask Santa to find Morton the dog and send him back to Miss Elizabeth Vita.
If everyone who has been good uses their Christmas wish to get Morton back, Santa
will have to listen to us. I am using my
Christmas wish, and so is my father, Mr.
Clay Kungler. We need more people to
do the same and wish for Morton to come home.
You can write a letter to Santa at his
home address.Santa Claus North Pole You could write something like this:Dear Mr Claus,I have been very, very good this year.
All I want for Christmas is for Morton
the dog to return to Miss Elizabeth Vita of Deadwood. Please help. I will continue to be good.Sincerely ___________
Please everyone, do this and we can give
Elizabeth a Merry Christmas.Thank you,Miss Rachel Kungler DeadwoodDeer Edditer,Me an Charlie was a thinkin we outter rite a lettr, to make you awarre of a greet
wrong. Weuns was goin inta this here hoor house down by th crick. It were a
nasty place, but me an Charlie caint afordbettr. Anyways, like we was sayin, me ancharlie went into this hoor house an afore we kin say “how much fer a tussle”, this big feller don tole us th place was closed. I
got a bit het up over thet, as I was a feelin a
mite frisky ya know. That bein th reason
we was there. Well sir, I sed, we aint a
goin til we done got we done come ta git.This big feller, he sed no agin. Then he sed it were a sin agin God ta fernicate this
away. Now, I dunno wut fernicatin is, so I
tole this pup we was there fer some frolicindont ya know?
Well now, he got ta quotin from ta Good
Book an then tole us fer our own good he was a goin ta chase outta there like Jesus
done to th moneychangers. Charlie said ifn
he tried we would stomp a mudhole outta him an walk em dry. That big feller took after us an corse we done fit back. That feller he culd fit rite nough. He knockedpur Charlie out afore I culd hitem one wit a chair. Thet took th fight outta em, but by then th pimp whut run that hoorhouse pulled a shotgun an chased all three of us
out. I aint afeered a much, but I aint argu-
fyin wit some yahoo whut gots a shotgunpinted at me belly.Reckin th reson weuns is ritin this is we
think th paper outta com out n say thet
a man gots a rite ta git his ashes drawed
now n agin witout some jackass a gettin
inta way.Signed,X (Ezra’s mark) Charlie Miners Editor,Once again. winter is upon us. and the
snow is coming down fast and hard. Soon
we will be snowed in and will not be able to get needed supplies, which brings me to the reason for my missive to you. Duringour last winter, food was in short supply,though with a bit of scrimping we got by.We also ran out of good quality alcohol.
While I imbibe on rare occasions, the
miners and some others of the lower
classes of our society take strong drink
I know this will be a surprise to regular
readers of the Deadwood Free Press, which
is close to celebrating its 2nd anniversary as an institution of truth.
But sometimes newspapers are not accu-
rate. Sometimes they are manipulated.
This is not surprising, as humans are
humans and subject to the conditions there-
in of error. Or evil and sloppy thought.Sometimes the casualties of misinforma-
tion can themselves become the problem,
and so it is about report regarding Indians
which inspire either panic or laziness, andnot the rethinking of public policy.
It began with a report in the ((RL)) New
York Times stating that the Red Cloud
Indian Agency was running out of food.The report said food was at the Missouri
and simply could not be transported the
200 miles needed. Bear in mind, it’s up to the Indians to show their gratitude to the
Great White Father by doing the transpor-
tation, and the report said they had only 100 wagons and “puny ponies, not shod.”
The headline simply said the Indians
were “near starvation.”
The report says the wagons can carry
only 1,000 pounds each on a five-week
round trip, and yet it is necessary to move a half million pounds of supplies.One thus imagines 6,000 Indians starv-
ing and thus driven to desperation. An
unnamed military officer based in Yank-
ton is quoted as saying the natives will
surely be on the warpath in Spring if not before.
The article concludes “Everyone is crying
mismanagement, and cursing the Indian
Bureau.”This is no laughing matter. It was only
recently discovered that Dull Knife had
somehow been able to hide 100 Spring-
field carbines stolen from the dead heroes
of the Custer massacre. How the Army missed 100 weapons in the hands of the
savages is even less of a laughing matter.Speaking of Indians going on warpath is something very real to us out here in the
future America that’s still pretty rough
isolated territory.
However, as you can already tell, this
stuff in the Times was nonsense. Clearly the Yankton officer was seeking to put a dagger into the Indian Agency, and he didwell. He found someone at the New York
Times whose only experience with Indians
was probably seeing a white man playingone in a Buffalo Bill show.In fact, the paper reported soon after in
a correction, the report was “sensational.”
The Indians have 156 wagons, drawn by
400 horses and 112 yoke of ox. At the
time of the report, 97 wagons had arrived
from the Missouri River with plenty of supplies. There are meantime efforts to
create a warehouse in Sidney, Neb., at
which to store some of the items and get them closer.
There are more than 5 million pounds of
beef at or near the Indian agencies.
Somehow, we don’t see the Indians
starving anytime in the next week or so
even if they overboil some of the beef.It is difficult to blame the Eastern press for being befuddled. We all read constant
reports of mismanagement and corrup-
tion with shifting numbers and blame. The
latest in what will be a series of approxi- mately 5 million government reports says
in fact the Indians of Dakota Territory and Wyoming got $3,000 worth of sup-
plies MORE than they were supposed to.
The report notes that the Indians were
not being defrauded; instead, there was
a reasonable explanation for reports of
shortage.Managers were very properly withhold- ing food to force the Indians to work. If a Brave wants his coffee and biscuits, he canwork for it like the rest of us.
So let’s see what happened here. The
military failed to notice the Indians had
100 carbines from our slain cavalry in the
hands of the Indians. Those guns could
have been used to held us at gunpoint while
our women were Outraged. But that was not the headline in the Times.
No, the headline was of the Army insult-
ing the Indian Bureau by making up non- sense.
So the Indian Bureau was blamed by
someone within the Army for somethingit did not do.No one on the East seems to care that the Army missed weapons.
Score one for the unnamed military offi-
cer, and score nothing for wisdom.as though it were coffee or tea. Why, we nearly hada riot on our hands due to the lack of liqour. I wouldask what, if anything, the
Town Council and the mer-
chants of our community
have done to provide for the
time when foodstuffs andliqours become scarce?Daniel C. Stroud,Deadwood
(( To submit your letters
to the editor, send a note-
card to Poohneil Streeter or
email deadwoodfreepress@
gmail.com ))
Leave a Comment