The Word Carrier of Santee Normal Training School (Santee, Nebraska), 1930-03 - 1930-04

              The Word Carrier
OF
SANTEE NORMAL TRAINING SCHOOL.
VOLUME   LIX
HELPING THE   RIGHT, EXPOSING THE "WRONG
NUMBER 2
SANTEE, NEBRASKA.
March-April, 1930
FIFTY CENTS PER YEAR
Our   Platform
For Indians we want American Education!
We want American Homes! We want American Rights! The result of which is American
Citizenship! And the Gospel is the Power of
God for their Salvation !
A Monument to an Indian Woman
Sacajawea (also spelled Sakaka-
wea), translated Bird woman, is
well known for having been guide
to the famous Lewis and Clark exploration expedition. This Bird-
lady guided the expedition from
the head waters of the Missouri
River over the mountains into the
Oregon country. Many statues
have been made in her memory
but none are more interesting than
the monument that was erected to
her last summer near Mobridge,
South Dakota near where the Yellow Stone trail crosses the river.
The monument is a forty-foot obelisk erected by the Original Hickory Stick Club, an organization
of schoolmen throughout South Dakota, with
aid of the school children of this district. This
was dedicated on the twenty-seventh of last
August. The program was a historical pageant
enacted by the pupils of the Mobridge and
Wakpala schools. Some of the leading characters in this pageant were Indian pupils from
the St. Elizabeth Episcopal Mission School at
Wakpala. It was especially fitting that the
Indians were so well represented in this way.
In regard to the significance of this we quote
the following from the South Dakota Churchman. "The mere staging of this pageant and
the part taken by our Indian children does
not tell the whole story. Behind it is a much
deeper significance. To countless Indians in
South Dakota what happened on September
27, 1929, will long be remembered. They
saw several thousand white people stand, in
spite of very inclement weather, at the foot
of a shaft erected to an Indian. They heard
the Governor of the State praise this Indian
woman. Honor to an Indian by the white
man! To many of them it was a rather new
thing, and so I say that this event has been
of great good in helping the Indian to regain
his former position of self-respect; and likewise it has strengthened the bond between
white and Indians. We who support the
Mission work of the Church may be glad and
proud that much of the success of this event
was due to our St. Elizabeth's School on
Standing Rqck.
Sakakawea was of the Shoshoni or Snake
tribe which lived in the Rock Mountains. At
the age of twelve she was capturd by a band
of Mandans and brought east to the Dakotas.
It was the fact that she had originally come
from the west which made her of such value to
the expedition. The story of her life and of
the service she rendered is as thrilling as that
of any character in American history. It is
interesting to note that she accomplished all
of these things in but a brief period of time,
because at the age of twenty-five she was
stricken with a fever while at Fort Manuel
and died."
Rapid City Indian School
It was recently determined that the Rapid
City Indian School will again be run as a
boarding school beginning next fall. This
makes it certain that this institution will not
be available for tubercular children except
for the present fiscal year.
For this reason, the Indian Office has arranged to accommodate only as many pupils
as can be conveniently handled without altering the buildings. Beginning the first of
July the institution will again be opened as a
boarding school, and patients who remain there
on July first will be transferred to another san-
torium for future care. Rudolf Hertz.
Indians in the 4-H Club Short Course
The 4-H Club, standing for heart, hand,
head, health, is in almost every public school
in South Dakota. As practically half of all
the Indian children attend public school, a
good many belong also to this organization,
and almost thirty Indian boys and girls were
selected to attend the annual Short Course
at the State Agricultural College at Brookings, South Dakota, December 26 to 31.
This picture shows them with several of the
leaders.
An interesting incident happened during the
meeting, The four hundred boys and girls
in attendance were assigned to different groups
by the chairman who read off the names
and requested those called to go to their
class immediately. Finally only the Indian
boys and girls were left, as it was the intention to assign them to Mr. Graves who is in
charge of Indian agricultural affairs in South
Dakota, (the extreme left in front row), but
one of the Indian boys spoke up and said that
they would greatly prefer to be in the classes
with the other pupils so that they might learn
what tbe white kids were doing. The chairman was glad, to follow this suggestion. One
of the men noticed that when, at dinner time,
all the children were lined up waiting for
their turn to be served, not two Indian children stood together; they were all mixed up
with the white pupils. Rudolf Hertz.
Eagle Butte, South Dakota.
Santee School Physicican's Report
Dr. Doris M. Sidwell, our Santee school
physician reports the following as a general
outline of her work for the first half of
this school year 1929-1930. Hospital dispensary treatments of students and  other school
population   700
Physical examinations of students     80
Outside house calls     60
Office calls from outsiders •  140
980
About one-third of these were surgical
cases.
The John Elliot Indian Bible
A battered old book was recently found on
a shelf in Exeter Cathedral, England. It
proved to be a copy of the Old Testament
which Rev. John Elliot caused to be printed
in the Indian language for his mission work
among the American Indians. It was dated
1661, and is the earliest instance of the publication of the English Bible in a foreign
tongue. It is so rare that it is difficult to estimate its value. John Elliott, known as the
first apostle to the Indians, was a great
tower among them.—South Dakota Churchman.
Getting Jobs for Indians Is
This Indian's Job
The western Indians, including
the Omahas of Nebraska, the Sioux
of the Dakotas, the Crows of Montana, the Shoshone of Idaho, the
Utes of Utah and all other tribes
of the trans-Mississippi country,
have at last found a champion a-
mong their own people who, it is
said, is doing more for the red
men than anyone of a generation.
He is firing the ambition of the
young Indians and is putting them
to work.
This champion is young George
La Vatta, full-blooded Shoshone
of the Fort Hall Indian reservation in Idaho, and he has recently
spent a week in Omaha making
"contacts" for his brother Indians. His government title is
"Overseer of Indian Employment"
for the United States Department
of the Interior, and he is the first
person to hold this position, the office having been created especially for La Vatta.
In brief, La Vatta's "job" is to call on the
heads of the great industrial plants of all
kinds and remove the prejudice against the
employment of Indians in those plants. Then
he visits the Indian reservation, selects young
Indian men and women who are competent
to fill positions, and puts them in touch with
the members of the industrial plants he has
already visited.
"Then," says La Vatta, "its swim or sink
with the Indian. Its up to him to hold his
new job by ability and willingness to work.
If he can't hold the job on his own merits, he
must get out of the way and make room for
some fellow who can and will fill the position.
"But it gives the Indian a chance to make
a man out of himself.
"And this is the first real chance he has
ever had. Heretofore, after an Indian had
finished school, except in the most infrequent
cases, he would find the doors of industry of
all kinds closed against him. He was said
to be lazy and without ambition and these
charges were usually true. For generations
he had been taken care of by a paternal
government and had not been taught to
work. And for that same reason there was
no place for him in the scheme of business.
"Secretary of the Interior Wilbur and the
present commissioner of Indian Affairs are
both intensely interested in this work.
They are trying to make the Indian worth
while to himself and therefore worth while
to the country."
La Vatta's first call in Omaha was upon
President Carl Gray of the Union Pacific
railroad. When he left Mr. Gray's office an
hour or so later, he not only carried that executive's promise that Indians would receive
consideration on the four units of the Union
Pacific system, but he carried letters of introduction from Mr. Gray to the president
of both the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific railroads at St. Paul. La Vatta
is now in the latter city with the purpose of
interesting those two railroads in the giving
of employment to Indians. Just before coming to Omaha La Vatta visited the-heads of
the Rio Grande in Salt Lake City and in Denver and received the same promise as was
given him by Mr. Gray.
"I chose railroads for this initial work," said
La Vatta, "because these railroads run through
the Indian country and have so many jobs and
positions that can be filled by Indians.
Sioux City is one of the points which La
Vatta will visit some time this winter.
Positions in Omaha will be filled by Omaha
and Winnebago Indians from the Omaha reservation and by the Sioux from  Pine Ridge
Continued on Fourth Page.