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to rescind the order, and then send a telegram to Washington. ...Two churches passed the resolution requesting the Secretary of Interior to rescind the order under which this band of Poncas were being returned to Indian Territory.... telegraph March 31, 1879.

...At eleven o'clock that night the weary editor reached his home. ...good square meal...wrote ...history of the  affair...twenty minutes past five retired.

At seven o'clock he was up. Gen. Crook was to hold his council with Standing Bear at ten o'clock...There were present General Crook, Colonel Royall, General Williams, Lieutenants Bourke and Carpenter, and the editor, who was somewhat astonished to see Standing Bear dressed in a magnificent full costume of an Indian chief. He had a red blanket, trimmed with broad blue stripes, a wide beaded belt around his waist, and wore a necklace of bears' claws. The other Indians were dressed in citizen's clothes.

Standing Bear spoke first as follows:

"Friends and Brothers, - The Almighty created us Indians...The Indian has no book. He cannot read. ...I want my children to learn to read. A great while ago we came from the great water to the east. We kept coming, coming, coming west until we got to Dakota. I made a good living there....They took our plows and all our farming utensils and locked them up....I want to go back to my old place north....I need help....