Originally posted by Eagler
wasnt teddy all for the extermination of the american indians?
I don't think he qualifies as any kind of spokesman for the American way.. now or then...
No, that's really quite absurd... Please read a bit about Roosevelt before making such trollish comments.
In 1913 a self-titled plainsman named Robert Wright wrote a book containing as much fiction as fact. The book was titled:
DODGE CITY, THE COWBOY CAPITAL and THE GREAT SOUTHWEST
in The Days of The Wild Indian, the Buffalo, the Cowboy, Dance Halls, Gambling Halls, and Bad Men
BY
ROBERT M. WRIGHT
Plainsman, Explorer, Scout, Pioneer, Trader and Settler
Wright loved to glorify the cowboy as the great figure that settled the west.
In his book, he wrote:
"Theodore Roosevelt gave an address, once, up in South Dakota, which is readable in connection with the subject in hand. "My friends seem to think," said Roosevelt, "that I can talk only on two subjects-the bear and the cowboy-and the one I am to handle this evening is the more formidable of the two. After all, the cowboys are not the ruffians and desperadoes that the nickel library prints them. Of course, in the frontier towns where the only recognized amusements are vices, there is more or less of riot and disorder. But take the cowboy on his native heath, on the round-up, and you will find in him the virtues of courage, endurance, good fellowship, and generosity. He is not sympathetic. The cowboy divides all humanity into two classes, the sheep and the goats, those who can ride bucking horses and those who can't; and I must say he doesn't care much for the goats.
"I suppose I should be ashamed to say that I take the western view of the Indian. I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indian is the dead Indian, but I believe nine out of every ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth. The most vicious cowboy has more moral principle than the average Indian. Take three hundred low families of New York and New Jersey, support them, for fifty years, in vicious idleness, and you will have some idea of what the Indians are. Reckless, revengeful, fiendishly cruel, they rob and murder, not the 'cowboys who can take care of themselves, but the defenseless, lone settlers of the plains. As for the soldiers, an Indian chief once asked Sheridan for a cannon. 'What! do you want to kill my soldiers with it?' asked the general. 'No,' replied the chief, 'Want to kill cowboy; kill soldier with a club.'"
The only problem with this is that Roosevelt strongly denied having ever said this shortly after Wright's book was published.
Since that time, this fabricated quote has been used to show that Roosevelt wanted to eradicate the American Indian. A rediculous contention in light of Roosevelt's actual position on indians. TR stated that every indian should have the same rights to own land as did the homesteaders; 160 acres for every man who applied for it, be they white, red or black. However, he did not believe that the indian tribes had rights to the western lands beyond this.
My regards,
Widewing
