The Word Carrier (Santee, Nebraska), 1899-08 - 1899-09

              The Word Carrier
©
VOLUME   XXVIII.
HELVING   THE   RIGHT,   EXPOSING   THE   WRONG.
NUMBERS   8,  9.
SANTEE AGENCY, NEBBASKA.
AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, 1899.
FIFTY CENTS PEE YEAE.
our platform.
For Indians we want American Education! We want American Homes!
We want American Rights! Tlie result of which is American Citizenship!
And the gospel is tlw Power of God for
their Salvation'
OUR SANTEE WELL.
It is a roaring success !—gushing
forth 1700 gallons per minute, with
a pressure of 55 lbs. to the square
inch! There is fire protection in
the best possible form, the means
of irrigation most abundant, and
power without ceasing or variation !
Moreover the quality of the water j
is so good that it will exceed most
artesian water in domestic usefulness.
Our Lord has answered our prayers. And now we continually thank
Him for His wonderful gift. Who- j
ever thoughtfully watches our great
fountain must be impressed by \
strange thoughts of the Lord's
work in the earth and "the waters
under tbe earth."
And we pray that the Lord may
abundantly reward those good
friends of the missionary work, for
which this school stands, for their
part in endowing it with this artesian fountain. About a year and a
half ago we began to correspond
with Mr. J. W. Davis, of Boston, in
regard to our great need of water.
The results are very largely due to
his earnest interest antl persistant
solicitation. The well was discussed at our "Mission Council" in
May, 1898, and received the unqualified approval of the council.
At that time Miss M. C. Collins became much interested and her enthusiasm led Mrs. Henry Farnam,
of New Haven, Conn., to invest
$500.00 in the proposed well. The
Woman's Home Missionary Association of Boston contributed
S500.00. This was due to the sympathetic and earnest work of Miss
M. B. Briggs and Mr. J. W. Davis.
Mrs. John S. West, of Worcester,
Mass., visited us in March, 1898,
and became much interested in
Santee and the whole Christian
work which it represents. Her
good business judgment led her to
decide that the best investment
which she could advise her friends
in Worcester to make would be a
share in the proposed artesian well.
As soon as work was begun on the
well Mrs. West sent $500.00. In the
mean while Mr. J. W. Davis' subscriptions and solicitations amounted to §600.00 more. And by the
earnest advocacy of Mr. Davis and
Secretaries C. J. Eyder and F. P.
Woodbury, the executive committee
of the American Missionary Association gave $900.00. Before all this,
during our first aggitation of the
well question at Santee, Miss Harriet A. Brown, for eighteen years
one of our most faithful missionary
workers, had become interested in
the proposed water supply. At her
death in January, 1898 she left us
$1000.00 for the well. Thus from
many sources and in wonderful
ways* the Lord has put it into the
hearts of His servants to furnish
the means which He had provided.
The well is as perfectly finished
as ever one could be. The men who
drilled it have had long and successful experienoe.    They are hon
est and careful workers, and have
done their work here at Santee to
the very best of their ability. At
the bottom of the well just before
the pressure flow was entered the
pipe was driven deep and tight into
a cap rock of hard sand stone.
And at the top of the well the 100
feet of ten inch outside casing is
firmly planted in the chalk rock
which at this place proved unusually firm. The well has flowed clear
from the first, whereas such wells
usually throw much mud and sand,
especially in the beginning. We
can not but believe that this wonderful fountain will be as lasting as
it is abundant. F. B. Eiggs.
ARTESIAN NOTES.
From the landing of the first load
of lumber on our well house hill in
the latter part of June to the second
day of September the new artesian
well has been the popular center of
attraction. As tbe derrick grew in
the air it was gazed upon at a distance. When the machinery was
in place the interested ones inspected it near by. Then when the
kerosene torches flashed out night
after night the well became the
evening sociable ground; and after
supper the stream of visitors began ; men, women and babies gathering in and out of the derrick and
seated in rows on the hillside upon
the yet undriven iron well pipes.
And the company remained far into the night. For the well borers,
with a midnight shift, worked on
the whole twenty-four hours.
We have had an admirable set of
of contractors and workers on the
well. The portly Mahanna, working like an elephant, the reticent
Johnston, all business from eyelids to toes, the garrulous Griffith
with a quip and a joke for every
one, each and all have carried their
part well, and contributed to the
public pleasure. The one crowning virtue of a successful artesian
well borer is patience. This our
men have had in full quantity. To
fish in the hole a week for a lost
tool and then lose a piece of the
fishing gear on top of that; to have
a loose bar of steel that you cannot
catch, bobbing every little while
under the drill for three hundred
feet down until it is finally chopped to bits, and go on serenely,
shows a wonderful stock of patience, the accumulation no doubt
of past experiences.
The record of the path of the
well, marked in feet, is
From top of the ground to chalk-
rock      85
Ten inch casing pipe to    100
Through the chalkrock at    165
Some sand at    ....  200
Water found   346
More water     485
Sand rock and more water   612
Alternate  shale and sand stone
and mud from 485 to   645
Eight inch  piping stops in hard
rock    680
Main flow began    690
Water increased down to   730
Bottom of the well at   740
Discbarge, gallons per minute,. .1700
Pressure,pounds to square iuch. . 55
Temperature, Fahrenheit 63.5
Santee Normal Training School Press,
Santee Agency, Neb.
A RESPONSE FROM THE GIVERS.
Indeed 1 join in the rejoicing
over the splendid success of the
digging operations. Doesn't it really seem as if God meant you to
have the well.
Miss Harriet Brown's photograph
is on my desk always, and it seems
today as if there was an even happier look on the face than before.
You know we here in Worcester
called the well a memorial gift to
her, and I shall always think of it
as her heavenly gift to Santee.
What she couldn't quite accomplish
in her earthly body, the King let
her still work at for one of her
heavenly duties. I've not the faintest doubt that she put into my head
the impulse tbat led to my share
in the enterprise. And when one
thinks how much more she herself
did before she went away, it does
indeed make it seem like "Miss
Brown's well." That is why we
needn't be anxious about the future of the well, for if it is a celestial gift, it surely wont be subject
to any earthly mishaps.
I thank you for writing me so
promptly about the success of the
drilling, for it makes me feel as
if you were willing that I should
be counted in the Santee partnership. Alice G. West.
Worcester, Mass.
INDIAN ASYLUM AT CANTON.
A great deal of gratuitous advertising is given nowadays to the
government's establishment of a
special asylum for insane Indians. There is an appropriation
of $45,000 for this purpose, and
the site selected is near Canton,
Lincoln County, S. D. The plan
contemplates a three-story main
building with necessary outbuildings, and there is some talk about
having enough of the asylum ready
by next fall to begin removing tbe
insane Indians thither.
Most of the newspaper comment
on this institution is approving in
tone, the idea seeming to be that
the asylum was a much-needed addition to the general scheme of
government beneficence to the Indians. No greater mistake was
ever made. The whole thing is a
humbug. Its only use will be to
draw a little more money from the
treasury in South Dakota without
giving the Indians any additional
advantage. That congress should
have been led blindfolded into the
job is a fresh evidence of the ignorance or carelessness of the average
member when it comes to dealing
with Indian affairs.
In the first place,all the evidence
points to a great scarcity of insanity among the Indians as a race.
There is no reason why insanity
should assume any considerable
proportions among them. The two
classes of human beings most sub-
, ject to insanity are the class whose
cares keep them continually worried, and the class whose emotional
nature predominates over their reason. The Indians belong to neither
of these classes. He has no cause
to worry, because the government
takes care of him; and nature has
not made him especially emotional.
Senator Pettigrew, who procured
this appropriation for South Dakota, raked the Indian service clean
in his effort to draw arguments from
agents in favor of his plan. The
bulk of the best testimony that
could be procured, however, showed that, counting together all the
insane, mildly deranged, and harmlessly weak minded, there was barely an average of one Indian to an
agency, or at the outside, say, seventy Indians in a gross population
of 250,000. This proportion is so
small as to be almost comical,when
it is considered in the light of a
project to found an exclusive asylum for Indians. Thus far the government had got on very well by
turning those insane Indians who
seem to need restraint over to the
care of state asylums and charitable institutions founded by religious bodies. A few have been sent
to the government hospital for the
insane in the District of Columbia,
where they are maintained at a
cost of about a dollar apiece. In
the other places the expense has
been still less. In all the institutions where they have been put
they have had the same care as
other patients, and have got the
benefit of the skill of the trained
alienists in charge.
Apart from the question of their
good treatment at moderate cost in
institutions near their homes, there
arises the further consideration of
accessibility and climate. An Indian on a southwestern reservation, accustomed to the lax winters,
etc., certainly does not gain anything by being set down in the
midst of a Dakota prairie simply
because his mind is unbalanced.
The government has established
schools for Indian children all over
the Indian country, so as not to
take the young people any further
than necessary from the neighborhood in which they have been acclimated by years of residence; why
it should adopt a different rule with
a person of deranged mind, who
is presumably no better able to
ward off physical effects of climatic
changes does not appear.
It is too late now to shed tears
over spilled milk, and congress was
duly warned that it was entering
upon a silly enterprise before it
went into this thing. Secretary
Bliss saw through it at the outset,
and made a very creditable adverse
recommendation, which congress
promptly proceeded to ignore. The
only thing that can be done now is
to cut off the absurd treatment of
the job by newspapers which do
not understand it, and which assume, on general principles, that
any money appropriated for a gratuity to the Indians must be a good
thing. Happily, with the change
of politics in the senate, we shall
probably witness a reorganization
of the senate Indian committee,
with the chance that legislation
which gets into the hands of that
committee hereafter will come out
more infused with common sense
and less loaded with South Dakota.—New York Evening Post.
Of our Santee teachers, Miss
Edith Leonard has spent her vacation, first at Cook County Summer
School, and then at Springfield,
Mo.; Miss Kennedy at home at
Montrose, la.; Miss Cooper at Chicago as a pupil of Emil Leibling;
and F. B. Eiggs for six weeks at the
Chicago University Summer School.