An Indian head is on the five-dollar bill, as well as on the five-cent piece. To the practical mind, let us not forget that Teehee, the American Indian, must sign our currency before it is passed by the Treasury Department.
In military tactics the name of no greater genius adorns the pages of history than that of Florida’s patriot—Osceola, the Seminole.
With all due respect to the immortal Washington, who remembers that he was safely guided by a nameless red man through the pathless wilderness to Fortress Duquesne?
Without the Delaware Indians, General Washington’s advance upon the British on that eventful Christmas eve of 1777 would never have been recorded in history.
And, in the late European war, do you know that thousands of Indians volunteered—not as drafted men, not for their homes, nor their States, but for their native land of America?
Cadet Long Lance, the American Indian of our own Southland, as First Lieutenant of the Princess Pat Regiment, brought enduring fame to the Cherokees, standing his ground at the terrific assault of Vimy Ridge—bringing back the standardbearer, the only officer of his rank left in the company.
The instinctive eloquence of Coacoochee, the Seminole chieftain, in his speech to our American General Worth, made him the peer of a Clay or a Calhoun, while the great Seneca chieftain, Logan, delivered the most eloquent oration ever compiled in American history.
In poetry, in romance, in legends and folk-lore literature of America, we must look to the American Indian.
It was by the blue waters of Ontario that the great Onondaga chieftain’s Hiawatha, formulated plans for the first Peace League. Today, “Peace, peace,” is not only the wounded cry of the world, but its solution is being echoed and re-echoed throughout every nation of the globe.
After looking through pages of history for a model, the youth of America, the Boy Scouts and the Camp Fire Girls, have taken the Indian for their hero.