Harry Pearlman

The Last Indian Harry Pearlman

During the early part of the nineteenth century, an American statesman surveyed the vastness that was untamed America and predicted, "When the last Indian has bitten the dust then we will have a thousand years of peace." The states had won their independence not many years before and the most obvious threat to peace at the time were the wild Indians who roamed the vast wilderness to the west. Now, the years have passed since that early prediction and the nation has gone through many threats from within and without. The 'last Indian' has either long since bitten the dust or put down his arms to became a part of the American scene. But the utopia hasn't yet arrived and its coming is nowhere in sight, for the people who look for perfection in humanity make the serious mistake of overestimating the humane quality in the human race. Freedom we have, The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness we have. But, utopia? No. Frontiers of hatred have either opened up or have been renewed from olden days so that there are always those 'Indians' to be attacked before they attack you. Every minority bears the brunt of majority persecution to some extent. It runs the range from pettiness to lawlessness, It caries the lablel of suspicion, jealousy or sheer ignorance. If men would just stop to search their souls, they would see crystal clear through many of the glaring inequities in the logic of their civilization. People forget that every group is a minority, that the Baptists are a minority in some places, the Catholics in others, the Jews in many, and the Caucasian race is a minority in the total world population. Since we can't talk about all the minorities in the world, this story is resticted to the telling about just a few of those 'indians' who haven't yet bitten the dust of reality.