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Editorial and City Cite Section of Rear si’s Sunday American, Atlanta, may so, tots.
The Apache Punishment and Torture
Copyright lli 1 •* *> bj the Star Company. Ureat Britain Right* Reserved.
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The Apache Is Devoted to Murder and Torture. This Is a Sample
of His Work. You See a Prospector for Gold Tied and Helpless,
Watching the Rattlesnake in Short Leaps Working Its Way
Toward Him. Of This Invention the Apaches Were Proud.
Snake and Man Forget the Apache in Hatred of Each Other.
HIS picture is intended
to impress upon us all
the fact that in our
hatred we forget the
real cause of our
troubles.
Coffman, the artist, who comes
from the West, and knows its story,
describes his picture in this way:
The amusements in the life of an
Apache Indian are fighting and tor
turing the conquered.
The intellectual work of the
Apache is devising new schemes of
torture, and here you see one of
them.
An old prospector for gold has been
caught and fastened with ropes as
you see here.
The Apaches have also caught a
rattlesnake, pinning it to the ground
with a forked stick back of its head.
Holding him down they fasten a
stone to the rattlesnake’s tail, tying
it tight. Then man and snake are
left facing each other.
The Apaches, having stood for a
moment watching “the fun,” go on
in search of other amusement.
* * *
This is what happens:
The snake tries to free itself from
the stone, but cannot.
The man struggles to free himself
from the ropes that hold him, but he
cannot.
The rattlesnake has soon forgotten
all about the Apache that held down
his head and tied the stone to his
tail. He sees and hates only the
helpless old man close to him.
Little by little, in a series of
vicious jumps and struggles, the
snake draws nearer to the man,
pulling the stone with it, increasing
in rage as the string cuts into its
flesh. . _
Tha man watches m horror as the
snake comes closer, inch by inch,
waiting in agony for the moment
when it will be close enough to bite.
« * *
The agony of the old man may last
for hours before he is bitten, for the
snake moves the heavy stone very
slowly.
The hot sun beats down upon the
desert. The alkali dust is in the
man’s eyes and throat. The snake
continues its struggling, nearer and
nearer, half an inch at a time.
Soon man and snake have com
pletely forgotten the Apaches, now
vanished.
The snake hates the man, and the
man hates the snake with intense
bitterness.
In half an hour the snake’s poi
sonous fangs will be in the man’s
flesh. He will struggle and scream,
only to be bitten over and over again.
Each of these living creatures,
man and snake, sees in the other a
deadly enemy—and both forget the
real enemy.
* * *
If you came upon this scene in the
desert, found a man half blind, star
ing in horror and rage at a snake,
and the snake savagely biting at the
man, you would be amazed at both.
To the snake you would say, “Why
do you bite and poison tjiis miserable
old man who never hurt you? Why
don’t you wait and bite the Apache
who fastened the stone to your tail?”
And to the man you would say,
“Why do you hate this ignorant
snake, which knows no better, and
blames you for its misfortune?
Why do you concentrate your hatred
on the snake when you ought to be
hating only the Apache who tied
you as you are?”
* * «
The snake hating the white man
for the act of an Apache, the white
man forgetting the Apache in his
hatred for the snake—that scene
seems strange to us.
But Europe presents just such a
scene at this moment while the na
tions are fighting. And here where
we are at peace, in America, we may
see this picture of the man and the
snake duplicated over and over.
The different peoples of Europe
hate one another with a bitterness as
great as the bitterness that the man
feels for this snake and the snake
for the man.
The Frenchman bitterly hates the
German, and wants his life. The
German hates the Frenchman, the
Russian, the Englishman.
The European soldier about to en
list asks to be put in some regiment
where he will have a chance to do a
lot of kilV-mr.
It is reported that the most sav
age of the fighters return, bringing
as souvenirs ears cut from the
enemy.
Every one of the peoples at war
accuses the others of the most fiend
ish cruelties.
Deep hatred is everywhere—and
they, like this man and the snake,
forget “the Apache”—the one to be
blamed.
The “Apache” responsible for the
horrible scenes in Europe is the
RULER, the controlling power that
has tied the people down and set
them to hating and fighting one
another.
That Apache power responsible
for the war, now forgotten by the
populations that should hate IT in
stead of each other, MAY BE THE
RULER, or a selfish, moneyed inter
est, struggling for more trade.
* * *
We marvel at the man hating the
snake, the snake hating the man, and
both forgetting the Apache who was
responsible. We might better mar
vel at nations fighting, bitterly hat
ing one another, forgetting who it
was that tied them down and set
them to butchering one another.
If there had been no Apaches rov
ing the desert, this gold prospector
would not have been caught and tied,
and the rattlesnake would not have
been tormented.
If the world were free from rulers,
building up armies for their personal
glory, declaring war and setting
people to murdering one another for
their amusement and grandeur, and
if there were no control of parlia
ments and of navies by mercenary
millionaires eager for new trade op
portunities, the picture that you see
in Europe would not be possible.
* « *
This picture of the man and the
snake you can see duplicated very
close at home, as well as in Europe.
You can see men tied down and made
helpless by their own weaknesses and
vices, by gambling, by drink, by stupid
extravagance.
They are tied, hands and feet, as this
man in the picture is tied, and they are
helpless as he.
They are tormented by debt, humilia
tion, physical suffering and mental tor
ture, as this snake torments the old man.
Many a man you have heard cursing
his fate, as the man in the picture curses
the snake. The great majority of us who
curse our fate, pity ourselves, and hate
the thing that torments us, forget the
real cause of our trouble, lose sight of
“the Apache” now vanished from view.
If a snake labelled “Debt” is jumping
at you and getting closer inch by inch,
don’t hate the SNAKE, hate your own
foolishness that set the snake after you.
* * *
A great many of us can learn from this
picture that the first important duty is
TO UNDERSTAND CAUSES and put
the blame for misfortune where it be
longs.
To be accurate in placing blame for our
failures and misfortunes, to be sanely
alive to the fact that our little success
does not justify any great conceit—that
is wisdom and balance.
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